On this episode of HOT ROD Unlimited
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 This is Hot Rod Power Tour 2012, presented by Chevrolet Performance.
00:04 You're going to see the world's largest road trip, where we're going to take a thousand
00:07 plus cars and roll them through seven cities, starting at the GM Proving Grounds in Milford,
00:12 Michigan.
00:13 We're rolling through to Muskegon, Michigan, before we go to Champaign, Illinois, Madison,
00:18 Illinois, rolling to Miami, Oklahoma, Stillwater, Oklahoma, and wrapping it up in Arlington,
00:22 Texas.
00:23 The Power Tour kickoff party was held at the Milford GM Proving Grounds, which is totally
00:36 cool because normally the public is not allowed inside.
00:39 This place is super secretive.
00:43 This is usually a space that the public can never get into.
00:46 It really is like Area 51 for the automotive community.
00:50 We do our major testing, development, design, and engineering validation work out here at
00:56 Milford.
00:57 And to be able to bring the Hot Rod Power Tour team out here, and to bring our enthusiast
01:02 community out here is a really exciting event for everyone.
01:06 We had about 3,000 cars there on Black Lake at the Proving Grounds, as well as our manufacturer's
01:11 Midway that was packed with all of our sponsors all day long.
01:15 During the kickoff party, GM offered the opportunity for participants to ride in ZL1 Camaros and
01:21 ZR1 Corvettes with Chevy engineers as they took them around the big circle track there
01:26 at the Proving Grounds, taking them up to 160 miles an hour, and then doing big time
01:34 stops.
01:35 And at the end of the day, there was a huge traffic jam, but we wound our way out through
01:51 the roads of the Proving Grounds on our way to the next stop in Muskegon, Michigan.
01:57 Welcome to Power Tour!
01:58 I'm David Freiberger, I'm the editor of Hot Rod.
02:04 I've been with Hot Rod since '91, so I was here when we started Power Tour.
02:08 Look at us now, 3,000 cars here yesterday.
02:13 First day, we're going to hit the road.
02:15 Power Tour!
02:17 Hi, my name is Clarence Forens for the Hot Rod Power Tour.
02:26 What a trip.
02:27 For stop two, Muskegon really has turned out to be something that we never could have even
02:31 imagined.
02:32 We've got a full parking lot of nothing but autocross.
02:37 And here in the main lot, well, as far as you can see, it's cars.
02:40 The weather, absolutely beautiful.
02:41 If you're wearing sunblock 2000, you're pretty much set.
02:45 Otherwise, we've seen some pretty good tan lines today.
02:47 And the cars, phenomenal.
02:48 Old, new, from all over the world.
02:51 Here in Muskegon, it's always a great place because the people are so nice.
02:54 Main street is packed.
02:56 You can run all through town, and wherever you look, it's going to be nothing but Hot
03:00 Rods.
03:01 Day three, Champaign, Illinois.
03:12 Started out this morning in Muskegon.
03:13 We had a little bit of rain.
03:14 It's clearing up now.
03:15 And thousands, literally thousands of cars have made it to Champaign, Illinois.
03:21 All the big vendors are here.
03:22 All their famous cars.
03:23 The 202 mile an hour Lingenfelder Camaro.
03:24 If you go to HotRod.com, check it out.
03:25 You can see the video.
03:26 It's here.
03:27 You can see the video.
03:28 It's here.
03:30 You can sit in it.
03:31 It's amazing.
03:32 All right.
03:33 It's day four of Hot Rod Power Tour.
03:34 One of my favorite days of the whole week.
03:35 We're in Madison, Illinois at Gateway International Raceway.
03:36 We're about to watch everybody go down the quarter mile, except everybody's got to go
03:37 through tech inspection first.
03:38 The goal is to make sure the cars are safe, everybody has a good time.
03:39 Scott Shanks is getting his 70 Challenger dialed in here with the tech guy.
03:40 As soon as they're done, they'll slam the hood.
03:41 He'll go make a pass.
03:42 All right.
03:43 We're going to go through the inspection.
03:44 We're going to go through the inspection.
03:45 We're going to go through the inspection.
03:46 We're going to go through the inspection.
03:47 We're going to go through the inspection.
03:48 We're going to go through the inspection.
04:14 Today is day five of the Hot Rod Power Tour brought to you by Chevrolet Performance.
04:23 Today, we left Madison, Illinois, which is essentially St. Louis, Missouri, and trucked
04:28 it mostly on the highway, but on a few two-laners on the longest day of Power Tour 2012, almost
04:34 350 miles.
04:35 Hey, I'm Alana.
04:36 I'm new at Hot Rod, but I'm not new to road tripping.
04:37 I'm here to show you how to do a little bit of road tripping.
04:38 I'm going to show you how to do a little bit of road tripping.
04:39 I'm going to show you how to do a little bit of road tripping.
04:40 I'm going to show you how to do a little bit of road tripping.
04:41 I'm going to show you how to do a little bit of road tripping.
04:42 I'm going to show you how to do a little bit of road tripping.
04:43 I'm not new to road tripping, and my theory about a good road trip is always pull over
04:47 and stop, anything you see.
04:50 So we were on the highway.
04:51 We're probably supposed to be somewhere, but I saw rusty stuff, and we had to flip around.
04:57 We weren't the only people to catch sight of cool stuff on the side of the road, so
05:00 when we pulled in here, we ran into some more Power Tour folks who had also seen it and
05:04 pulled over.
05:05 And we're finding out about their cars, what they're doing, and we just met a couple.
05:07 It's their very first Power Tour, and it's their very first road trip with their GTO.
05:11 So I thought that was cool.
05:13 First road trip, be ambitious, and don't forget to pull off the road.
05:17 The end of day five found us here in Miami, Oklahoma at the Buffalo Run Casino and Hotel.
05:23 And once again, we had a giant party for those of us who got in, because the traffic out
05:28 on the highway was mayhem.
05:29 But once they all got here, it was completely worth it for another huge party at Power Tour.
05:35 It's day six of Power Tour, and we left Miami, Oklahoma this morning, and we're going to
05:41 Stillwater, and this road is beautiful.
05:44 So what we're going to do is set up a bunch of shots with Wes taking pictures out of the
05:48 back of our Suburban of big, long lines of cars all the way down the road.
05:53 And we better get to it before all these guys get past us.
05:57 Now that we've been driving in packs of cars for an hour, there'll be none for 45 minutes
06:01 as we stand here.
06:02 Yep.
06:03 It's just how it goes.
06:04 A lot of our job is just standing at the side of the road.
06:07 We watch for cars coming, and we pick the ones that we want to photograph and wave them
06:11 into a gas station.
06:17 We were waiting at the side of the road and finally found the perfect lineup of cars for
06:21 a quick photo.
06:28 We go really slow doing this, and Wes shoots at a really slow shutter speed, like a 15th
06:37 of a second, to make it look like we're going fast and blur the photo.
06:42 Behind the scenes of the glamorous life of the Hot Rod staff during Power Tour.
06:54 That photo shoot completely saved my bacon today.
06:56 We got some awesome shots of big, long lineups of what had to have been like 200 cars on
07:01 that road.
07:02 And then we kept on going.
07:03 We ended up here in Stillwater, where it was supposed to be the Kicker Cruise night, but
07:07 it rained all day yesterday and their field was a mud pit.
07:11 So instead we came here to Oklahoma State.
07:13 We've got cars scattered through parking lots everywhere.
07:16 Tomorrow, it's on to our last stop in Arlington, Texas.
07:22 On day seven, it's the final leg of Power Tour, finding our way from Stillwater, Oklahoma
07:26 to Arlington, Texas.
07:35 And finally, we overflowed the parking lot in Arlington, Texas at Quick Trip Park, and
07:40 people got to see some action as Optima was here running their autocross and Royal Purple
07:44 held a burnout contest.
08:04 The final day of Power Tour is exclusively for the long haulers, which are the people
08:09 who drove all the way with us, starting in Milford, ending up in Arlington.
08:12 We gather up in the stadium and get a picture of all of the long haulers, then walk them
08:16 out the front door to hand them their goodie bag, and hope to see them next year, where
08:20 we kick off Power Tour 2013 again here in Arlington, Texas.
08:25 Awesome!
08:26 Thank you very much, everybody!
08:29 Thank you!
08:36 Thank you!
08:43 Thank you!
08:50 Thank you!
08:58 Thank you!
09:05 (upbeat music)
09:08 you