This month’s Daytrippin’ is a continuation of our Hot Rod Power Tour. To recap, Sonya and I had the opportunity to run in the Hot Rod Power Tour. The Hot Rod Power Tour is the world’s largest rolling car show, covering five cities in five days. The Power Tour began in 1995 when the staff of Hot Rod Magazine decided to take some of their project cars on a cross-country trip from Los Angeles to Norwalk, Ohio.
The Tour moves around the country with a west coast and east coast version of the tour making it available to all areas of the continental United States. This year the tour started at Indianapolis Raceway Park and concluded in Norwalk, Ohio.
After leaving our second stop in Jolliet, Illinois, our next leg of the tour would take us to Fort Wayne Indiana. The trip to Fort Wayne took us on US-30, along with what seemed like every Semi in Indiana. We traveled with a group of around 100 tour cars that left Jolliet at 9:00 am. During the tour we had stops at various points of interest during the drives between cities. This day, we had an entire town of Hamlet, Indiana put on a car show to welcome the tour participants. Hamlet is located on the Lincoln Highway that dates back to 1912 and is one of the first transcontinental highways in the United States designed with automobile in mind. The Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast through 13 states from Time Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The Highway originally ran through 13 states with Hamlet being one of the towns along the route. The city actually repaved their section of the road and placed replica Burma Shave Signs welcoming the tour cars, and in 1926 Burma Shave placed advertising signs on power poles as a promotion. The town placed 100 of the signs on power poles leading into the to the fairgrounds in Hamlet. The Street Freaks Car Club organized the event with bands, food truck, an autograph car, and displayed their own car club cars during the festival. We stayed about 90 minutes, visited the vendors and had lunch before continuing to Fort Wayne.
The Fort Wayne stop on the tour was at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. This venue was in the parking lot of the complex with no drag racing. We displayed our Beetle and were able to talk to a record number of spectators that came out to see the car show. There were plenty of food trucks and vendors set up. Our personal favorite was a full-size fire truck set up as a food truck. The evening wrapped up with hundreds of participants at a group of local hotels doing burnouts in the road in front of the parking lots.
The next segment of the Power Tour was my favorite. I took us along the back roads of Indiana and Michigan. The published route allows the towns to inform residents that the tour is coming to their town. One of the fun parts of the tour are the hundreds of spectators that sit in their yards or along the streets of small towns to watch the parade of cars in the worlds largest rolling car show. The trip took us 165 miles to Monroe, Michigan to the County Fairgrounds. During the tour, a tradition is to pause and hand out diecast cars to children along the route. Most of the participants carry Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars and take a moment to pause along the route to give the cars away. At the Fairgrounds, the tour set up to display cars along the midway. More music and venders came out to display at the show and interact with the thousands of spectators.
The final leg of the tour left Monroe, Michigan to travel the 116 miles to Summitt Raceway Park in Norwalk, Ohio. The drive took the participants along back road and along Lake Erie for a very scenic drive. Again, the small towns turned out in droves to watch the variety of classic and show cars pass by. It was also a treat to end the tour for this year at the same venue the tour ended 30 years before. At Summitt Raceway, there were more opportunities for the drivers to drag race their cars. The track even stayed open late to accommodate drivers that wanted to get time on the track. There was a midway once again to buy merchandise, take a turn on the driving simulator, eat, and get a chance to meet some of the stars of their favorite cars shows. This was also were we received our Long Hauler Plaque for being able to do the five cities in five days.
The Hot Rod Power Tour was over for this year. The tour is a great way to meet fellow car enthusiast with a wide array of cars. They help each other get through the event with assisting with repairs and supporting each other during the tour. The camaraderie and positive attitude is infectious with every car team working together. This was the largest turnout in the 30 years of the tour, and we can’t wait until we return next year.
