IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA - AND IT WAS!
Part 1
DIPSTICKS JOHN AND MARIE
The scene, a gas station, anywhere USA. “What is that car?” It’s a Vauxhall. “A Volkswagen?” No, Vauxhall, V-A-U-X-H-A-L-L. “Oh, a Vaarkshawl. Never seen one before”. Conversations similar to this happened each time we refuelled, something that happened quite a few times while we were making our 84 day, 14,840 kilometre journey from Tacoma, Washington across the US and into the Canadian Atlantic Provinces.
Although shipping delays had played havoc with our ‘tourist’ itinerary we did manage to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, ride on the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad and almost visit Pike’s Peak (the bucket list drive to the top was thwarted by road closure in the upper section of the Peak) before hot wheeling it to Lincoln, Nebraska to join the ARP/Street Rodder Speedway Motors Tour to Louisville and the 50th NSRA Nationals.
The Street Rodder Road Tours are well organised but pretty hectic. On our first day, after registration and the driver’s meeting, we drove to Omaha, Nebraska to visit Gas Pump Heaven, then on to Andy Leech’s shop, CAL Creations where we saw (but weren’t allowed to photograph) a potential Ridler Award winner under construction. After a quick lunch break it was back to Lincoln and the Speedway Motors Museum for another drivers’ meeting and hand out of goodie bags before another short drive to Culvers Restaurant for the Friday night cruise in. By the time we returned to the hotel Wyvonne, our trusty Vauxhall, had covered 256 kms.
The next day was equally full on when the ‘road-tourians’ were VIP guests at Speedway Motors Cars and Coffee held in the parking lot of the Museum. (If you happen to find yourself in Lincoln, Nebraska which, we might say, is probably not high on the places to visit list, a day at the Museum is a must do) This was followed by a visit to a private collection of exotics and muscle cars belonging to the Kuck family, housed in a huge garage that dwarfed the mansion to which it was attached. Rounding out the day was an open house at No Coast Customs where we joined the local rodders for food and drinks.
Another three days of shop tours, food fests and driving saw us arriving in Louisville, Kentucky. We had been keeping up a pretty good pace (read 110 kph) on the I-64 into the city but on the approach to the Sherman Minton bridge the right front tyre blew. With nowhere to pull off to the side we crawled across the 625-metre-long bridge at 20 kms trying to save the wheel rim, much to the annoyance of the truckies following us in the ‘slow’ lane (those familiar with U.S. interstates will know that there’s no such thing as a slow lane). What seemed like ages later we saw the hard shoulder at the far end of the bridge and pulled over to change the wheel. Twenty harrowing, adrenalin pumping minutes later we were on our way again heading for the pre-Nationals’ party at Mike Linnig’s Restaurant.
Fellow road-tourians, Mary Louise and Dean Darnell, who are NSRA safety inspectors, had a look at the damaged tyre and determined the blowout was caused by dry rot and recommended replacement of all 4 tyres which we promptly did before registering for the Nationals.
What can we say about the Nationals other than it’s a hot rodders’ wet-dream. 12,762 cars made it through the gates of the Kentucky Exposition Center including one green Vauxhall. After trying to find the Street Rodder Tour tent without success we picked a parking spot and set out on foot around the fairgrounds. A bit of mental arithmetic told us that we were not going to see all the entries, even over three days we would have needed to look at one car every ten seconds!!
Beginning of Wyvonne's adventure - Mt Rainier, Washington State
Looking around the vendor displays in the exhibition hall we bumped into Perth rod builder Steve Houlahan who told us that there were three Victorian cars in the show, and they would be vying with Western Australia for the International Long-Distance Award. We made some enquiries with the NSRA officials and found out that the distance travelled is calculated ‘as the crow flies’ from home to the show. But which way was the crow flying? If it was East/West, then one of the Victorians would be victorious but West/East gave us a pretty good chance of being in the winner’s circle. We waited anxiously for the announcement which didn’t come until about 10.00 pm on Saturday night when the hotel desk clerk relayed a telephone message to say that we were winners. Needless to say, there was a lot of grinning going on in our hotel room that night!
The Sunday afternoon awards ceremony was something else. We were directed into a huge indoor arena and parked next to the U.S. Long-Distance winner. There were probably 30-40 award winners in the arena and 12,000+ spectators most of whom were probably there for the chance to win one of the two NSRA giveaway cars, a 32-roadster built by Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop (a ’71 Chevy Nova built by Reisinger Custom had found a new, lucky owner the previous day). The last two awards to be presented were the long-distance ones, first the U.S. and then International. We were gobsmacked when our names and the estimated mileage were announced as the applause given to other award recipients turned into a roar of appreciation. In the euphoria of the moment, we didn’t hear/register the distance travelled but later discovered it was 11,146 miles.
We didn’t think we would top that achievement but we were going to try……..around.
Our acommodation at Jacob Lake, Kaibab Forest Arizona
Forget the house, how big is the garage? This one houses the Kuck Collection.
Wybonne with three other WA (Washington State) cars at Pete's n Jake's, Michigan
An exotic lineup of Mercs, Rollers and Bentleys at Hunter Engineering, Bridgeton, Michigan
Wyvonne with the other US long distance winner, also from WA (Washington State).
Winners are Grinners!