We hit the road again around 7 am. Today's route took us through farm country. First it was a peach orchard in South Carolina and then the tobacco farms of North Carolina. On the way, we passed through Cheraw, South Carolina- the hometown of Jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie. They really rolled out the welcome mat and had the fire truck with a the flag hanging over the road, police directed traffic through the intersections and there were a bunch of spectators on the sides of the road waving as we all rolled through town.
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Cheraw welcome wagon
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| Gas stop photo op |
Continuing our NASCAR scenic tour, we passed by Rockingham Speedway. Though it's no longer an active NASCAR venue, counting Charlotte Motor Speedway which we'll see tomorrow, we'll have been at 4 NASCAR tracks in 7 days. We could detour to drive by Daytona and make it 5.
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| The "Rock" |
We caught some traffic on the way to Pinehurst, North Carolina when we hit yet another repaving project where the road was reduced to a single lane for both directions. On the side of the road was a group of cars doing some field repairs on a Camaro. One of the guys recognized the Acadian from the Chattanooga stop on the 2013 Power Tour. He was parked near us at the Coker Tire party in Downtown. He's driving a 1970 Chevelle with flames painted on it. In fact, it seems that the majority of cars on the Tour seem to be Chevelles and a majority of those seem to be 1970s. Not that that is a bad thing.
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| "You three fix the car, we three will watch traffic." |
Tara and I took a quick detour to grab a quick photo in front of the Carolina hotel Pinehurst Resort and Spa. It was opened on New Year's day, 1901. At the time it was the largest frame building in North Carolina. Tara looked it up while we were in traffic.
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| Just dropped in for a picture |
We caught up with our group at lunch at Mermaid Point in Lillington, NC. It's a tiny seafood place on the Cape Fear River. Instead of bread or rolls, they brought us some really tasty hush puppies. They also had pimento cheese macaroni, which I am definitely going to try and recreate at home.
Finally, it was on to the venue PNC Arena at NC State in Raleigh. For part of the way, we followed a Caterpillar Hot Rod- it had a semi truck chassis and Caterpillar diesel engine. It was insane. At one point, there was a bit of traffic, so Tara found a short cut that would have worked except we got caught behind 3 dump trucks. We still ended up 4 cars in front of where were, so I guess it worked.
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| CAT Powered! |
The PNC Arena was definitely the easiest venue to get into and there was zero traffic. We, my parents, and Ken and Nancy circled the parking lot for a bit until we found 2 spots on a curb near some shade trees. Ken took one and we took the other. We were only there for a few minutes when the space right next to the Acadian opened up so we moved the Corvette right next to it. The mulch and shade was a saving grace because the black asphalt was at least 10 degrees hotter and it was certainly humid out. My dad and I braved the heat and walked to the stage to get punched in and collect our magnets. Then it was back to the car. We picked a different way back so that we could see more cars. There were at least 4 separate lots full of cars and there's no way anyone could see them all. Pictures, even aerials, don't really do it justice.
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| An Oasis in the blacktop desert |
On the way back we passed 1970 Chevelle and 1969 Camaro side by side and both red with white stripes. Both cars were pretty incredible. The Chevelle had a 454 and the Camaro had a modern LS motor. It wasn't until I got close to the Camaro that I noticed that the white stripes also had subtle pearl ghost flames in them.
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| A subtle touch |
My dad wanted to find the Caterpillar Hot Rod. My mom said she saw it in the next parking lot over, so we headed out. It was right where she said it'd be. Which is impressive, because I don't think she left her spot by the tree. As crazy as it looked on the road, it's even crazier up close. Despite all the modifications, the interior still looked original to the body.
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| Found it!! |
Having accomplished our mission, we headed back to the cars. We passed two station wagons that we've seen just about every day with external "air conditioners":
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| Just add ice |
The cars started thinning out around 4:30, so we headed to the hotel. It's a Hampton Inn, but one of the nicest I've seen. They renovated the rooms and lobby area. It even has its own gas station out front. Because it was hot and we wanted a shower, we decided to fill up the tank after dinner instead of before checking in. That turned out to be a somewhat costly mistake. The station mispriced the premium gas at $2.43 so that it was 50 cents cheaper than regular 87 octane. Tim, Tim and Scott took full advantage, but by the time we found out after dinner, they had changed it to what it should have been: $3.42. Given how many show cars are in our parking lot and how many run premium fuel, it could have been a fairly expensive mistake.
We did dinner in downtown Cary, North Carolina at a place called Pro's Epicurean Market. The best way to describe it is Italian/French with sandwiches too. The food was really good. We got in just in time to get our orders placed before the North Carolina British Car Club took over the restaurant with their party of 30. They weren't even part of the Power Tour, it was just their regular meeting or a social.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and cleaned up the cars a bit. We had planned to hang out in the parking lot, but it was still pretty warm and humid, so no one was really out. There was a gorgeous 1969 Camaro RS in our parking lot with beautiful black paint that was, as Tara puts it: "stunning."
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| Deep Black |
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