Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2015 i Hot Rod

Standing in Randy Grubb’s garage, Octane-in-Chief of Blastolene (RandyGrubb.com), back in 2008, I saw the future. Grubb told me, “When I was a kid, when you did something cool, strangers would give you one of these” [Grubb gave a thumbs-up salute]. “But now when I drive past in this thing,” he motioned back to his V12 Peterbilt known as Piss’d Off Pete, “people hold up their cellphone cameras at me.” He was flattered, but a little put off by all the cellphone photos because he thought people should be able to enjoy cool stuff in the moment. I’ve been in this industry long enough to remember when we ignored the Internet, Facebook didn’t exist, and I never dreamed of having a camera on my phone. Like…

Built for the Denton, Texas, Day of the Dead festival in 2014, this gravity-powered downhill racer was one of 51 coffins built by teams from all across the country for the annual race. What makes this racer rare is that it was one of only three built for the race that started with an actual coffin. Michael Gast from Maize, Kansas, bought the 18-gauge steel coffin from a mortuary where it was new but incomplete. Michael and his team bolted and welded in an angle iron frame in the rear to solidly mount 5-inch-tall inline scooter wheels while the front got a center pivoting, footoperated, wagon-style steering system. The wheels were mounted inboard and allowed just 15⁄8-inch ground clearance to give the coffin a floating look but also to give…

Old Fashioned, Madison, WI: Well-known for its cocktails, we came for the food— which is equally good. When we ordered the “sausage platter” as an appetizer, our server politely asked us to be more specific—as in, there was more than one to choose from. (TheOldFashioned.com) Wonder Bar, Madison, WI: Established in 1929, it owes its existence to the Prohibition-Era Chicago Mafia. It serves the Wisconsinsignature Old Fashioned made with brandy rather than whiskey. The entire HOT ROD staff went full carnivore and agreed that the bone-in filet special is the way to go. (WonderBarMadison.com) Krekel’s Custard & Hamburgers, Pawnee, IL: We were introduced to the open-faced sandwich known as a horseshoe. It’s made with a beef patty on a toast topped with French fries and cheese sauce. We were too…

If nothing else, Power TourR is about value. How else would you describe offering participants not one but two chances to create smoke billows from over-the-top burnouts to packed grandstands? The first burnout contest was at Gateway Motorsports Park, where Holley provided awards for the best single-car burnout based on spectator approval. Roadkill’s Mike Finnegan hosted and half a dozen or so Power TourR participants took their best shot, with Brian Thomson in his candy red Chevelle coming out on top. There was also a bit of tragedy when Howard Boykin in his green Monte Carlo welded the spider gears in his 10-bolt halfway into his smoky exhibition. With some help from the folks at Gateway, his friend, Johnny Watson, and a well-stocked local wrecking yard, the Monte was back…

While Ken Block, the king of the Hoonigans, was off in Europe making tire smoke, his marketing and design team of Brian Scotto, Jon Chase, and Ashley Baker took on Power TourR in Brian’s 1972 Nova and Jon’s 1955 Chevy. You might think the gang behind YouTube blockbusters like Gymkhana would be immune from the mechanical demons that attack the rest of us, but the Hoonstory is one of broken parts and parking-lot repairs. Our kind of story. First up, the Nova, which wasn’t even finished when it was shipped from Los Angeles, expressed its dissatisfaction by snapping a clutch pivot ball. The pivot was repaired, only to break again—this time on the side of the road near a sheriff station. The gang replaced the broken stud with a bolt,…

The Ford Falcon name petered out in the U.S. in 1970, reduced to a trim level on the Fairlane/Torino. In Australia, it took a very different road—might we say, a Fury Road— becoming a completely unique Aussie-only muscle car and, eventually, the hero ride of the Mad Max franchise. Grant Hodgson might not have had to duck flame throwers the first time he shipped his blown 1973 Ford Falcon XC out to run Power TourR in 2004, but he didn’t have an easy time of it all the same, as electronic issues stopped the Ford during the first leg of the ’Tour. He left the Falcon in storage in the states, and flew home to Australia, where he’s a custom car builder and road-train driver—that’s those wild, multi-trailer semi setups…

For Thousands More Photos, Visit HOTROD.com/Events/Power-Tour For a Week’s Worth of Power Tour Videos, Visit HOTROD.com/Videos The Long Haul Gang is all about dedication to the open road. Of the 6,095 cars that participated in the 2015 HOT ROD Power TourR—2,120 of them were Long Haulers. The Long Haulers are the cars and people that joined us at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin, and crisscrossed the Mississippi River to end up 1,500 miles and eight states away at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We are honored by their dedication, enthusiasm, and stories. Thanks for joining us for the whole ride. Not a Long Hauler this year and looking to join this group next year? Or were you there and miss your fellow Long…

Since World War II, there has only been one new American car that was a huge leap forward from what had been built before its debut in 1959, and that car was the Chevrolet Corvair. No other car made such a technological jump in terms of layout and engine technology, with its air-cooled six-cylinder and transmission location. And stylingwise, many lesser European cars borrowed heavily from the Corvair, including the much-vaunted BMW 2002. Its air-cooled, flat-six, horizontally opposed engine design featured aluminum heads (incorporating integral intake manifolds) and crankcase, and individual iron cylinder barrels. The heads were similar to Chevrolet’s standard overhead-valve design, with a conventional rocker arm and pushrod arrangement running off a nine-lobe camshaft spinning directly on the crankcase—without bearing inserts. Crankshaft counterweights were not needed because the…

There’s no other car event on Earth quite like HOT ROD’s Power TourR. Now in its 21st running, the world’s largest traveling car show continues to grow and break records. 2015 saw more than 6,000 cars and 116,000 participants take in the sights, sounds, and burnt-rubber smells emanating from the myriad dragstrips, stadiums, and casinos at each stop along the way. A little rain? Sure, but not the expected deluge predicted just days before the start in Madison, Wisconsin. A little heat? Yeah, the kind of temperatures that caused fuel to boil in Street Rodder magazine’s 1940 Ford coupe as it blitzed from Champaign, Illinois, to Gateway Raceway just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. But a completely uneventful Power TourR is dull. Did we break the Guinness World…

Gary Ubert from Powerhouse Dyno in Clearbrook, Minnesota, has been on Power TourR for several years now, hauling his portable dyno and strapping cars down to the roller to separate fact from fiction in the Sta-Bil HOT ROD Power TourR Challenge. This year, a pride of Mopar Hellcats claimed six spots on the top-10 list, with Jimmy Schmittinger’s modified Hellcat putting down exactly 707 hp at the wheels to claim the number five spot, while other ’Cats saw from 630 to 685 rwhp to claim spots 6 through 10. The top five performers are listed to the right. Gary Ubert told us that both Alex Graser and Cory Vaughn drove 13 hours to make it to Madison, Wisconsin, and Cory had just finished his Olds the night before. Alex’s Supra…

A 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz isn’t a common sight (roughly 1,800 were built), but Paul Bruno and Edgar Barron, owners of Cahaba Custom Cars in Birmingham, Alabama, brought one out for Power TourR. The two built the Eldorado for Paul’s father, who has owned the car for 10 years. Their restomod began about five years ago and proved to be a challenge, as the Eldo reportedly has more pieces of chrome than any GM car before—or since. Luckily, nearly all of the trim was intact and the body was sound. The single missing piece was a chrome shield that’s affixed to each seat. Paul shaped a new piece from aluminum, and unless he told you which one wasn’t original, you’d never know. The real difficulty with the car came in…

There’s an energy and rhythm that hot rods and Tennessee blues blend together. The horsepower and driving groove merge into an atmosphere of cool with a soundtrack of class. So after the longest drive of the 2015 ’Tour—and the most cars anyone has ever assembled for a simultaneous burnout— man and machine met at Memphis’ Beale Street for the Comp Cams cruise night to cool off with the perfect finish. Comp Cams picked 100 cars from Power Tour’s Day 4 stop—cars that were then invited with VIP parking passes to line Beale Street’s sacred scene. The gathering crowd swelled the shutdown street from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The sounds of the day’s highcompression engines and tire annihilation melted into a mix of guitar rifts, bench racing, and stories from…

Smiths Sunbeam Bread wasn’t open, either, but it did provide a great backdrop for Mike and Brandon Harliss’ General Lee Charger, kept company by Ron and Corey Lamm’s 1965 Impala, Joel McRaney’s 1968 Camaro, and Thomas McCoy’s 1969 Camaro. The Charger is a 440 car, and Mike took the past three years making it into a Duke Boys clone. Ron’s had the Impala for two years, he built the 396 in his garage, and it was a 50th birthday present to himself to take it on Power TourR. The Camaros are both good, old-fashioned, Holley-carbed smallblocks. Joel’s is a four-speed, which he’s had for 42 years. “Paid $55 a month when I bought it,” he said. Thomas probably paid a little more than that for his 1969 when he bought…

Great road trips require you get far enough away from home that the burdens of everyday life can’t reach you. The only downside to the distance is your traditional safety net of friends and tools may also be out of reach. On Power TourR, Chevrolet Performance steps in to solve that problem and supplements the ’Tour’s convoy with an expertise you’ll not find on any other cruise. We call that expertise the Chevrolet Performance Motor Medics. The Motor Medics’ mission is to keep Power TourR participants running down the road. If you have a problem on the ’Tour and can get your car to them, they will fix it—for free, whether it be a Ford, GM, or Chrysler product. You just have to bring them the parts. The Motor Medics…

Towns welcomed Power TourR everywhere we went. The city of Picayune, Mississippi, rolled out the red carpet for HOT ROD, with Mayor Dr. Ed Pinero presenting HOT ROD General Manager Jeff Dahlin with a proclamation from the city commending Power TourR. We asked Dahlin about his time in Picayune. “I rolled into Picayune not knowing what to expect, but I was immediately heartened to see a lineup of barely street-legal drag cars lined up in front of Hot Rod Heaven. Mayor Pinero greeted me warmly, and then I met the Tritt Race Team and took a look at their badass Nova. I was placed in the passenger harness of a monster second-generation Camaro and treated to repeated burnouts along the city’s main drag, despite the fact that these streets were…

Roadkill’s Mike Finnegan brought his 1955 Chevy Bel Air, aka Blasphemi, on Power TourR and inadvertently discovered the car can do 55-mph rolling burnouts. When we asked Finnegan about it, he practically pleaded the Fifth Amendment, saying only, “If it was possible, this is how I would go about it: Once up to cruising speed, I’d push the clutch in slightly and then do the same with the accelerator stick—Blasphemi has never had a complete pedal assembly, which sucks if you’re wearing flip-flops. At the exact moment the Hemi achieves 6,000 rpm, dump the clutch and hold on for dear life! The everlasting, no-hooking Firestone Cheater Slicks are also a good addition to any car allegedly used for this sort of thing.” That sounds like a confession to us. HOW…

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There’s no need to beat up the valvetrain on a turbo motor by going for extreme lift and duration numbers. Turbo cams can be smaller than equivalent cams for normally aspirated (NA) engines operating in a similar rpm band. In fact, if a cam works through 5,500 rpm on a NA mill, it’ll be OK to about 6,500 on a turbo engine in terms of its ability to feed enough air and fuel. Using just a 210-degree duration (at 0.050) flat-tappet hydraulic cam, mild heads, and 8:1 compression, one TO4-series AiResearch turbo with a 66–70mm diameter inlet inducer can deliver 600 hp at 15 psi on a 350 Chevy and 850 hp at 25 psi with race gas. A big-block 502 fitted with the same series turbo—but using a larger…

If there’s a bumper-dragging street car in the Midwest, it’s likely you’ll find Dominick (Dom) Damato with his camera aimed at the undercarriage. Damato is a service tech for Stratasys 3D Printing, but his love of technology isn’t limited to the new stuff; he’s equally stoked about old-school hot rods, which is why he spends his free time traveling to racetracks in search of the highest wheelies and the coolest headsup drags. Damato says he’s been into cars his whole life, but the photography started more recently, and he’s been practicing and acquiring new gear over the past five years. “Instagram turned into a place to show behind-the-scenes photos and share work fairly easily all from a mobile device,” he says, adding that he also interacts with the car and…

You’re being chased by a bear. While you run from the bear, you have to assemble some Ikea furniture from directions that are being held by a kid on a trampoline. Everything is loud and everything is vibrating. Don’t mess anything up. That’s about how I felt in my first run in Anthony Bongiovanni’s Resource 1–sponsored 2014 Cobra Jet Mustang FS/E Stocker. There was too much to do, not enough time to do it, and I did it all wrong. My burnout was weak, I rolled too far in staging, was late on both shifts, and forgot to check the car’s weight on the scale. I still ran a 10.21 at 133 mph. Today’s Cobra Jet Mustang is a track-only drag car with a family tree that blossomed in 1968,…

Participants had opportunities to race at two quarter-mile tracks, Gateway Motorsports Park outside of St. Louis and at Memphis International Raceway. The price of admission was good for as many passes down the track as you’d like, provided you passed tech. Like the autocross, early birds got to make lots of passes with little wait time, but as the morning turned to afternoon, most participants seemed happy to make a couple passes and then head back to the heart of the venue to see what everyone else was driving around in.…

The very first car we saw at the beginning of Power TourR was Ray and Karen Mohoff’s copper SS Chevelle. The Mohoffs came down from Washington state for the week in their 1967 502-powered, gasser-styled A-body, and it was turning heads on the road with its mix of old school and new cruiser. Why build a straight-axle Chevelle with a modern, fuel-injected big-block in it? “Everybody else does all the other stuff,” Ray said. The Mohoffs were traveling with Mike and Amy Hefley (in a 1966 Fairlane) and John Hughes (in a 2003 Mustang). The crew became friends during Power TourR 2013 and have met up ever since to run together. They live in different states, have different kinds of cars, but like each other enough to want to road…

Sometimes one guy has a 1930 pickup body and a frame, and another guy has a small-block with a blower on it, and the guys are friends so it’s just natural to put it all together. Then it makes sense to hang out with someone in a 1929 Ford two-door sedan, and since you’re breaking all sorts of rules anyway, why not add in a brand-new Dodge Hellcat Challenger to the mix? Rat-Rat-’Cat. Johnny Halvorsen, Jeremy Reddell, and Troy Geasland were in the Fords, toughing out the Power TourR heat in surface-rusted bare metal with various bits bungee-corded on. They were rat rods, and we mean that in the best possible way. Mark Van Epps and Trevor Cooper acted as the follow car in the spiffy silver Hellcat Challenger, picking…

Chevrolet Performance debuted its 1967 Nova 2.0 at Power TourR. Packed with a 272hp, 295–lb-ft of torque Ecotec LTG turbocharged crate engine and six-speed transmission, the car’s specs read like many hot rods. However, this thing is a 2.0L fourbanger— but don’t let that scare you off. Like you, we typically think of Larry Larson’s Drag Week™–winning big-block Chevy II when we see these cars. But we had to check out the Nova 2.0 to see what the world of turbocharged, direct-injection crate engines promises, so we convinced Chevy to give us the keys for a 200-mile stint over rain-soaked rural country roads. SEE THE VIDEO Watch the world debut of the car, and come for a ride with us in the Nova 2.0 by Google searching “Nova 2.0 HOT…

Kristian Mill, Miss HOT ROD 2015, participated in her first Power TourR, driving her 1935 Ford pickup the whole way. After seeing her at every venue, we spoke to her after Power TourR was all wrapped up. HR] How did you get involved with HOT ROD and Power Tour®? KM] I’ve been around the industry my whole life and have been a longtime subscriber of the magazine. Although I am a chef by trade, I’m not afraid to put down the knives and pick up a wrench. So I sent in a bio and some pictures of my Ford pickup. Six months later and I have my first Power Tour® under my belt. HR] What’s your history with your truck? KM] I’m one of seven kids and the only one…

It’s interesting how perception changes over time. In my head, a 1970 Duster is still $800 because that’s what I’ve spent on ’em so many times. In reality, it’s become pretty hard to find those cars, and when I do, people want stupid money for them. But my budget is still $800, so I end up buying trashier versions of my favorite body styles. The junk that would have been crushed 20 years ago looks like a perfectly reasonable project these days. I used to walk away from a car purchase if the body had even a small rust hole in the trunk. These days, I hardly care if the whole floor is missing. I’ve seen guys build nice hot rods out of wadded-up sheetmetal salvaged from desert gullies. So…