HRPT 2017-Day 5: June 14- Champaign, IL to St. Louis, MO (195.3 miles)

Since this year's Power Tour is kind of a zigzag across the Midwest, we headed back to St. Louis for Day 5.  Added to our group today were Travis in a Holden Ute and Rickie and Derinda in Rickie's Mustang Race Car (it doesn't look racy, but I'm told it is quite fast).

Power Tour version of crop circles. 

These marks mysteriously appeared during the night

Our route today took us through more cornfields (this is a Power Tour standard).  But, we also went through many more small towns than on earlier days.  Several towns had roadside oddities.  As we turned onto Route 51, there was a giant soda jerk holding an ice cream.

Not scary looking at all.

On the way out of a town called Pana, Illinois, there is a giant hand with painted fingernails laying in the grass.  We all got a good look at it because it was right there that we stopped to check out a noise from the front of the Acadian at low speeds.  It ended up just being a noisy control arm bushing, so we pressed on.

Art???

Hunting noises. Tour On!!

After Pana, we passed through Ohlman, IL where the locals set up a burnout box at a stop sign and posted a hand painted "Burnout HERE" sign.  Once the smoke cleared, we kept cruising along the route. 

Signs, signs, everywhere signs, blocking up the scenery and burning up tires

The water in the road is not from rain

We passed a Christmas tree farm.

We then passed by a huge barn in a cornfield and saw some cars stopped in front of it.  As we passed I saw the nose of an F-4 Phantom fighter jet poking out.  Tara, Ken, Bryson and I decided to turn around to get a closer look.  It was part of a POW museum and they are restoring it for display.   We talked to the guy who said that government de-militarized the plane by cutting it into 9 pieces in order to ensure it would never fly again. 

Secret Hangar

We took advantage of the photo opportunity and then headed onto our lunch stop-- Weezy's on Old Route 66 in Hamel, IL.  It was a small place covered in "Route-66-abilia."  The fried chicken special was really good, but not as good as the Home Town Café's in Lineville.

Weezy's

On the final stretch to the venue, we skirted some ugly weather that stirred up some wicked dust devils in the cornfield along the highway and buffeted the hell out of the less-than-aerodynamic Acadian.  The storm brought the temperatures down for a little while, at least.

It's a twister! (not quite)

When we reached our destination, Gateway Motorsports Park (technically in Madison, IL), we learned our lesson from last year and instead of following the parking directors into the oval track away from everything, we said we were going drag racing and they promptly pointed us toward the dragstrip and the manufacturer midway.  I grabbed a spot along the oval track grandstands which gave us some shade as well as potential protection from the small rain showers that popped up.

We are on the right path

No drone needed

Manmade, but shade nonetheless

Our friends from Orlando, John and Patty Smith, met up with the Tour at the dragstrip and John didn't waste any time getting his challenger out on the dragstrip.  He ran a 13.4 sec quarter mile. I missed having my Corvette with me as it would have been fun to see how it compared to my passes here before I supercharged it.  I definitely need to get out to the track when I get home.

John Smith's real car is a SuperStock HEMI Tribute

Our hotel is the Drury Plaza at the Arch.  It's the same one we stayed in the last few times the Tour has come to St. Louis.  It's a great location downtown and has a "complimentary" happy hour for guests.  It also has the absolute worst parking garage I've ever been in.  When you go in, you have to go up a 70 degree sloped ramp and then make a blind, sharp right turn at the top.  This year, there was a big truck backed into a spot at the top of the ramp which made the turn even tighter.  The aisles are narrow and the spaces themselves are tight and usually split by large concrete columns.  I really like parking there.

After a few happy hour cocktails and food, Tim, Tim, Tim, Lori, Lori (seriously, we have multiples of each), Ted, Tara and I went across the street to the Gateway Arch.  We had planned to take the ride up to the top. Except for Lori who's afraid of heights.  When we got there, the Arch was under renovations and only one tram was running and it was sold out for the rest of the day.  The museum was closed, too.  Lori promptly claimed we had convinced her to ride up, but, alas she could not because it was sold out.  It's still a cool view from below.

The museum was closed, but I am told Lewis and Clark built this Arch as a way to find their way

back east.

HRPT 2017-June 13: Day 4- Davenport, IA to Champaign, IL (201.3 miles)

Today's route basically followed highway 150 from Iowa to Champaign.  It didn't take but 5 minutes on the road before we may have broken our first traffic law of the day.  Tara misread the map and sort of missed keeping us on the on ramp.  We made a U-turn and then a "gray area" left turn  to cut back onto the ramp. 


After that, it was smooth sailing.  There were some highway legs, but mainly it was more farmland.  We cruised through Galesburg, a small town with a roundabout in the town square that caused a bit of a snarl, but not too bad.  They had their local police out controlling traffic.  Most of the trip was spent with Ken razzing Lori over the radios. The drive itself was pretty uneventful and we avoided most of the worst traffic.  We also passed through Morton, Illinois which is home to the Nestle plant where they can Libby's Pumpkin.

Not quite amber waves of grain

Tara had time to get out of the car for this picture

Power Tour is like time travel when gas stations used to look like this

mmmm, pumpkin

Along the way, we passed our friends Rick and Lisa from Tampa in their 1973 Dart Sport on the side of the road.  They were loading it onto a rollback tow truck.  As we passed by, I realized that the tow truck was an antique.  Turns out, the guy was long hauling the truck and just happened by at the right time.  They loaded the Dart up and he hauled them all the way to the venue.

Saved some gas at least

We arrived at State Farm Center at the University of Illinois around 2 pm.  I found Tara another great spot right across the street from the midway.  There was a shade tree nearby, but she didn't need it.  Shortly after she got parked, a 1970 'Cuda parked next to her and he set up a pop up tent (properly staked of course).   Jacob and I got clocked in, bought our daily shirts and collected the day's magnets, plus Hot Rod pint glasses that the Champaign tourism board was giving out and headed back to the cars.  By then, a spot near Tara opened up and Jacob brought his car over.

This lot filled up and then some

State Farm Center

This was her third attempt at wiping the rain off

The guy with the tent

We were also parked near the GM Motor Medics.  The Medics are a team of GM engineers who travel with the Tour every year.  They bring every tool imaginable and will fix cars for free if you bring them the parts.  They focus on issues that keep cars from being driveable.  It is grueling work on brutally hot pavement, but they are great folks.  They helped Tara and I back in Madison in 2015 when our brake shoe disintegrated.  We found out from Rick and Lisa that they will even push your car to their "shop tent" if it doesn't run.  The Medics spent a good part of the afternoon diagnosing Rick's car.  They pulled the plugs and they were fouled.  Rick's friend Lee took his El Camino to the local parts store and bought 8 new plugs.  While Lee was gone, the medics did a compression check, insulated the fuel line and verified that everything else seemed in order.  Once the car was running away, Rick and Lisa parked with us for a while before heading out.

MEDIC!!!

We had a short rain shower which brought the temperature down enough for Jacob and I to walk around and look at a bunch of the cars before heading back to the hotel to shower and change for dinner.  Lori made a reservation at the Ribeye for Kym's belated birthday celebration.  The Ribeye slogan is "the steakhouse with one great steak."  They only serve ribeyes.  It was a bit dated inside, but the food was good.  Tara wasn't super hungry and wanted to order off the kid's menu (under 12 only).  Lucky for her, Bryson (10 years old) prefers to order of the real menu.  So, Bryson and Tara worked out that he would order the kid's steak, Tara would order a bigger ribeye and they would switch when the waitress wasn't looking.  They conspired about the cook temperature, so that the waitress wouldn't catch the ruse.  Except they forgot to discuss sides.  Tara smoothly sought Bryson's "recommendation" about which side sounded best to him.

The hotel blocked off several parking spaces and put out a hose for a makeshift car wash.  Some of our group took advantage of the benefit.  Tara, Jacob and I went across the street to our hotel's overflow lot was located.  There are only 30 spaces at the hotel (we got one).  Everyone else was in the convention lot across the street.  There were probably 80 or more show cars in just this one lot and it was definitely a party.  There was a rain front at the edge of town and it brought a perfect coolness to the breeze.  It was a perfect night to hang out and trade Power Tour tales.  We met some guys in a 70 Super Bee that had just finished changing out their broken rear end gear in the parking lot.  They found a replacement on a local Craigslist/parts website.   A bunch of guys set up a burnout box at the entrance to the parking lot and got more than a few takers.   One guy in a turbo diesel pickup did the burnout equivalent of a mic drop and smoked out the entire parking lot.  I have a great video, but can't get it to upload at the moment.

The Aftermath

Here are a bunch more pictures from today:

COPO Camaro on Tour and not even street legal

He badged it a ZL1/28

Here's why- Supercharged LSA motor from a ZL1 Camaro

No gas stops necessary

I think this is some kind of death buggy

Custom hot rod '57 Nomad

Sooo clean

Blown Gremlin!!!

69 Z/28

Dart GTS

HRPT 2017-June 12: Day 3-Newton, IA to Davenport, IA (130 miles)

Our route today was one of the shortest ones.  It was also the shortest trip we've ever had from our hotel to the gas station.  The station was in our parking lot.  While those that needed gas fueled up (we filled up last night like good Long Haulers), Tara and I said our goodbyes to Scott and his wife Michelle who were heading back to Kansas.  About the same time, I saw something that had to be 1 of a kind- a VW beetle pickup, or would you call it a Vee-Double-Ute or Beetlecamino.  Either way, it was weird.  The owner built it himself (of course).

First time I've ever slept at a gas station

Why?  Just why?

We had another cool morning and our route took us along Route 6 which pretty much paralleled the highway.  It was a hilly 2 lane road through more Iowa farm land.  We passed through Iowa City and the University of Iowa and along the Iowa River for a short period of time.  One town, West Liberty, had a great police department who stood out in the heat and waved the traffic through several 4 way stop sign intersections that could have otherwise created hours-long traffic jams.

The Acadian isn't the only thing from Canada in Iowa.

The highlight scenic attraction, if you can call it that, was the World's Largest Truck Stop on I-80.  Jacob knew all about it from watching the reality TV show about it. Yes, really, they made a TV show about it and someone actually watched it.  The place was big and definitely a tourist stop, but I don't know that it's bigger than a Buc-Eez.  I didn't get a chance to ask our Texas contingent their thoughts. 

As seen on TV

Couldn't pass up the easy photo op

We initially thought about having a light snack there until Tara found "The Machine Shed" restaurant a few miles down the road.  It was a farm themed restaurant and they went for broke with the theme.  The food was good ole comfort food and really hit the spot.

The Machine Shed

Decor is somewhere between Cracker Barrel and Tractor Supply Co.

Having completed lunch, we made our way to the venue at the Fairgrounds.  Traffic getting into the place was a mess.  It took us nearly an hour to get 5 blocks.  Tara was frustrated that she didn't try to find another way in, but that's Power Tour, you have to take the awesomeness of traveling to the same place with thousands of cars as well as the suckiness of traveling to the same place with thousands of cars.  Once we got into the venue, we were directed towards a dirt field way in the back.  We ignored the parking directors and made our own spot in a grassy area.  Then we saw a better area and ignored more parking people until we got parked in a DIY great spot by a shade tree and less than 50 yards from the main stage and vendors midway.  Plus, everyone passed by the car.  It meant plenty of people for Tara to talk to and made it a breeze to get clocked in and pick up our daily t-shirts and magnets. We stopped and talked with Clarence, the MC who busts his ass to entertain the crowds day in and day out year after year.  He instantly remembered me and Tara and asked if we brought the Acadian.  He'd never seen one until our first tour in 2011 and he now makes it part of his regular trivia questions and likes to play stump the Hot Rod magazine guys or anyone else by asking if they know what Novas were called in Canada.

Drone photo Tara stole from Facebook-we were parked under the trees by the grandstand building

perfect parking spot.

It was too hot to walk around and take pictures of cars, so I joined Tara in the shade.  We were witness to one of the most exciting and horrific scenes of the day.  The modified blue Dodge Hellcat Challenger next to us that dyno-ed at 789 rear wheel horsepower was all packed up ready to leave when he decided to rev his engine a few times for the crowd.  It sounded bad-ass and then it didn't.  He threw a connecting rod through the block and completely destroyed his motor.  There was nothing anyone could do as it bled out onto the pavement.  It'll be a long trailer ride back to GA for them.

cleanup aisle 1

This is not good

He didn't have a motor in the trailer

Late in the afternoon, we headed for our hotel, the Blackhawk, in downtown Davenport.  It's a historic hotel that was built in 1914. The lobby was beautiful and when we got to our room, we were stunned. It was a monster suite that took up the whole middle section of the u-shaped hotel, complete with balcony. 

The hotel also has a basement martini bar and bowling alley, so we had some pre-dinner drinks with Jacob and then headed to the Duck City Bistro for dinner.  It was a bit on the pricey side, but the food was AMAZING. 

A much different drinking experience than last night's moonshine

The wine list is a duck!!!

Before heading back to the hotel, we decided to walk off dinner by checking out the Radisson "VIP" Power Tour parking lot and then the tail end of a station wagon meet-up along the Mississippi River. On the way to the River, I saw a B5 blue Road Runner that looked an awful lot like my GTX. 

A familiar face

1969 Camaro with a 427 and a Viper Coupe

I have never seen so Buick Skylark/GS cars as on this trip. Here's 2 of at least 8

They may not have been cool back then (and some not now), but they make great Power Tour cars

It's a pretty good dam picture, if you ask me.

Unlike other stops, there were fewer Power Tour cars in the hotel parking lot.  But, the Power Tour bus was there.  Since there was no parking lot party, we took a picture with the bus and head inside.  Tomorrow we depart for Champaign, Illinois and it's going to be a long run.