Steve and Tara's Power Tour Adventures: HRPT 2019- Day 4: June 11- Bristol, TN to Sparta, KY (293 miles)

Ready to Roll!!

This morning our 6 am alarm was the sound of the early departing Long Haulers cranking up their engines as they headed out of town. Since today's route was the longest of the whole tour, our group hit the road at 7 am. Today's weather was perfect. The sun was finally shining and temperatures were in the mid-60s for most of the day.

Left turn + Power Tour = Traffic

Our group of 10 cars ended up splitting along the way. Jake, Meghan, Ken and Bryson split off early to get their cars washed [I still can't believe Tara didn't follow them]. Tara and I, my parents, Russ and Ken and Kathy also split off to check out Natural Tunnel State Park. We thought it might be a drive through tunnel (based on some unidentified Facebook posts). It wasn't.

Instead of the tight switchback roads of the Blue Ridge mountains, today's route took us through the sweeping curved roads of the Cumberland Mountains and through the Cumberland Gap tunnel.

The day was full of road like this

Through the Cumberland Gap

The police were out in force and a few Power Tour cars got some hefty speeding tickets. If we hadn't been in a group and if I had been driving my Corvette, I'd likely have been one of them. The roads were wide open with big S-curves that were asking to be carved with triple digit speed.

A brief roadside chat

Once we were back on the route, we opted to skip breakfast and planned for an early lunch after the Cumberland Gap. Tara found a cool antique store/café in Barbourville, Kentucky.

They didn't have many antiques for sale, but the food was pretty good.

We had lunch and got gas before our 130 mile run on I-75. The routes typically avoid significant highway driving, but sometimes it can't be avoided. We were lucky, we managed to get onto the highway before a significant accident ended up closing Northbound I-75 and stranding a number of Power Tour cars.

Once we got off the highway, we refueled and drove through the town of Dry Ridge where they really rolled out the welcome wagon.

Finally, after 8 hours on the road, we exited off the last bit of highway expecting to cruise on into the Kentucky Motor Speedway. It ended up taking an hour.

Power Tour Induced Traffic

A number of cars succumbed to overheating. Others got creative and started doing "cool down" laps in an unused parking area before rejoining the line.

Cool Down laps (hopefully this video plays). If not, here's a picture- imagine the car going in a circle:

Eventually, we got into the speedway and found a parking spot.

Finally, we made it!

Tara decided the parking spot had too little foot traffic and, while my parents and I went to the vendor midway to get clocked in and pick up today's magnets and T-shirts, Tara found a new place to park. The weather had warmed into the high 70's and my parents decided to head to the hotel early. Before we left, we talked to Larry in the G8 who had an issue while autocrossing his car and ended up in a wall. He was mostly unharmed, but the car took a pretty healthy hit. They were trying to straighten it out as best they could to try and limp to a buddy's place in Indianapolis that had a lift and a lot of the parts needed to fix the car.

Larry added a few green pinstripes.

Shortly thereafter, my dad called to tell us that Ken and Kathy's hot rod was stranded on the side of the road and Ken had gotten a ride to the hotel to get some assistance. Tara and I left to meet Kathy and exchange me for her. As we pulled up on the side of the road, so did Ken and another Long Hauler, Dan from Minnesota. It turns out that Dan saw Ken on the side of the road and then recognized him in the hotel lobby. He asked if Ken got the car straightened out and when Ken said "no", Dan said, let's go and took Ken back to the car.

There's the cuprit

Thanks Dan!

We got the car in the air and confirmed the fuel pump's positive and negative wires melted together and shorted out the pump. Ken had a new one and Dan had some extra fuses and Dan changed the pump. It didn't take long before we had the car running again and were back on the road.

Our hotel tonight is the Belterra Casino in Florence, Indiana. The hotel is on land and the casino is technically a "boat" on the river, but it's connected in a way that you don't recognize it. The wait for the restaurant was insane, so my dad and I played some blackjack while Tara took in the car show in the parking lot and stopped for a photo op with the Hot Rod RV.