 |
||||
| Even though Thursday, June 1st, was listed as the official beginning of the Power Tour, it really got started on Friday as this was the first day of travel as a group. Well, that’s only partly true. The Hot Rod guys began discouraging one big, massive caravan since that created a number of traffic problems at off ramps and gas stops. Their suggestion was to run with the group if you wanted, but set your own pace. Still, a couple of hundred cars did run together. Everything was fine during the first half of the 338-mile leg, but as we entered the desert proper we began to notice a few cars on the side of the road. Challenger X, which was finished just in time for the Tour, began experiencing fuel pickup problems. The Hot Rod Hemi Pickup, with its nasty, fuel-injected 500 cubic-inch elephant, broke a camshaft. It spent the rest of the tour on the Hot Rod Recovery flat bed. As we neared Phoenix we were happy the Next Gen cars were running fine, although we had to question the wisdom of driving the Formula through Arizona in June with no air conditioner. The official temperature was 107 or so, but it felt like 150 in the car. And the fact that it was a dry heat made absolutely no difference at all. Many cars suffered from overheating, obviously, as did a number of drivers! Matt Swindle, who campaigns a late-model Trans Am in the NMCA EFI 11 class and is one of The F-body Boys, gets our unofficial "Hardcore Gearhead" award for the leg since the just-rebuilt LT-1 in his TA didn’t like the desert heat one bit. The only way he could keep the temperature gauge from pegging was run the heater full-tilt while on the highway! We made it to sweltering Firebird Raceway in Phoenix about 3:00 p.m. Most of the PT’ers hung out for a while, but left for cooler places before long. We stuck it out until about 10:00 p.m., by which time it had cooled off to a brisk 90 degrees or so, then headed for the hotel and a terribly early wake-up call. |
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
