Saturday, October 9: Saturday morning begins at a much-more-comfortable 7 a.m. We meet up with the Year One show crew for breakfast. Since Year One is a sponsor of this year’s Power Tour East, the show crew will be following the route and setting up our display for each evening’s cruise-ins. The Power Tour East launch party begins in Fitchburg at Noon, so we head out to find the show grounds, and to find a car wash where we can clean up the T/A and the show truck. Much scrubbing ensues.
With clean vehicles, we arrive at the show grounds around 10 a.m. and set up our displays. Even though the show isn’t slated to begin for another couple of hours, the show field is filling rapidly. Participants in the Power Tour are parked in one area, while locals not following the tour are parked in another. By mid-afternoon, there are approximately 300 Power Tour cars on the grounds. Excitement and anticipation are in the air as everyone is gung-ho for the trip to begin, and everyone grooves to Bad Company, hired by Flowmaster to play for the group. The launch party wraps up about 6:30 p.m., and a driver’s meeting is held at 6:45 for Tour participants. The organizers go over the proposed route and the scheduled departure time Sunday morning. We disassemble our displays, pack them up and head back to the hotel.