Americruise 2004: I Got Shotgun!

Looking back on Americruise 2003, I realize what a total "rookie" I was. That trip alone may have forever changed the way I look at life in a roadster. Seriously, do you really want to bring along a cumbersome bop top out on the road when you could practically, wait...literally, have all four seasons hit you smack dab in the face in one glorious afternoon?

I think not!

Last year on Americruise I brought along more foul-weather gear than most REI stores stock in the whole snow-mountain-climbing section. What a difference a year makes. This year my Americruise duffel bag consisted of your basic necessities: one pair of shoes, a few shirts, one pair of shorts, seven days worth of socks and underwear (I know, too much information), one laptop computer, and a couple of cameras. But the most important bring-along item this trip was the ever-popular, light blue Smart & Final thirteen-gallon plastic trash bag. This item will get you through any torrential summer rainstorm the Midwest has to offer, not to mention how it fits nicely behind the seat.

We departed The O.C. out of John Wayne airport in Santa Ana, California, and flew out to the S.A. (San Antonio), Texas, where we picked up last year's Street Rodder road tour car, a '33 Ford roadster. After a brief walk around and a few tire kicks on the ol' hot rod, we decided to make a few minor tweaks and tighten some bolts.

Like last year, our starting point for this year's 2,000-mile road trip began at Vintage Air in San Antonio. As always, Jack Chisenhall and Rick Love did a great job as our tour leaders and mapping out the trip, including all gas stops, hot rod shops, hotels, and points of interest. Needless to say, almost every hotel stay had a Braum's or a Dairy Queen ice cream parlor within walking distance. These healthy eating establishments have since been termed "Texas stop signs."

The heat and humidity in San Antonio seem practically unbearable. So, minutes before departure, Vintage Air's George Packard constructed a prototype directional hose cooling system on our '33 roadster. Who says roadsters don't need air conditioning?

After Ron Ceridono, tech editor, pilot, and navigational disaster-recovery officer gives the "thumbs up" on our new cooling system, us and twenty five or so other enthusiastic hot rodders are off on Americruise 2004!

Our first stop is Painless Performance in Fort Worth, Texas. We managed to make it to our destination without any navigational complications. Leaving was a different story. More on that later.

The crew at Painless provided lunch and a shop tour of the facility in which they recently moved into. This is truly an impressive operation as they manufacture many great wiring products geared for the hot rod market.

After a quick bite, we headed off to McAlester, Oklahoma. Here's where the fun begins. After our first left turn, things get a little confusing, so I refer to our handy dandy itinerary complete with driving directions. The typed instruction sheet seems to have come straight from Map Quest or some similar Web site. If you've ever tried to follow these often-too-detailed instructions, you know what can happen. Let's just say without a cell phone we might still be making a series of left turns participating in our own little Oklahoma 500.

After a quick call to Rick Love who was driving the lead car, we were finally set straight and headed in the right direction. To avoid embarrassment, we told the rest of the group we wanted to check out some other sites for photography purposes. I'm not sure they bought it though.

On day two we were off to Darryl Starbird's Museum in Afton, Oklahoma. Right off the bat we encountered our first big rainfall. This time Ron and I had to cut out arm and head holes in the trash bags for their big premier. They were a smashing success to say the least.

On the way to Starbird's, water got under our right headlight bezel, which in turn shorted out our headlight. Just a quick stop at the local O'Reily Auto Parts store and we were back on the road. Starbird's was featuring their annual car show, which included over 200 mostly local entries on the gorgeous museum lake-front property. This is where the Mooneyes Americruise tour joined together with the Vintage Air group. Here we added about twelve more cars to the cruise.

Starbird's treated us to a buffalo burger barbeque as well as live entertainment by Darrell Cole's Country rock band. Any group that has a song titled "Tailgate Party in Wal-Mart Parking Lot" is cool with me.

Just one word of advice, if you don't eat red meat, you may not want to order your buffalo burger without the buffalo. Yours truly tried this out on a cast of large Midwestern bad assess that didn't go over too well. It's best to just pile on the veggies and mustard and call it good. Next time I think I'll just accept the charred sacrifices and move right along.

Our first stop on day three had us heading over to the Hot Rod Garage in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, for some hospitality including coffee and donuts. Hot Rod Garage is a great little shop that included some incredible workmanship. During our quick visit we witnessed work in progress on everything from early Ford roadsters to a mid-'80s El Camino. There was a large concentration of vintage street-machine muscle cars as well. In your travels through Oklahoma, this is a must-stop for the hot rod enthusiast.

Today we encountered a small problem with the electric fan on our roadster. It seems a few fan blades broke off in the housing causing the attached blades to jam and burn out the fan motor. This isn't a problem as long as we keep our cruising speed up around 25 mph. Not such an easy task while entering and exiting rod runs that include over 2,500 of your best buds and only one gate.

Once in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we joined up with the Hot Rod Power Tour at the City Plex Center. With over 2,500 participants and what looked to be about 2,300 parking spots, the weather wasn't the only thing boiling. I think EZ Ups took most of the valuable hot rod real estate in this case.

Day four may have been the coolest of all. Our first stop was to West Mineral, Kansas, where we made a visit to "Big Brutus." Ron was looking forward to Brutus for reasons I couldn't understand until I saw it for myself. If you have no idea of what this is, you're not alone. Turns out "Big Brutus," although no longer in service, is the second largest electric shovel in the world. Weighing in at over 11,000,000 tons and a top speed of .22 mph, this isn't exactly what you would call a "hot rod," but it is a "must-see" if you are in the area.

Our next stop was to Carl Junction, Missouri, where we visited Rusty Jackson's "Odd Rod Creations." Rusty opened for business recently and invited the Americruise tour to stop by for some down home cookin' and to check out the new digs. As one of the most talented of the new generation car builders, Rusty will be making his mark on the hobby very soon.

Next stop was Springfield, Missouri, at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds as we again joined up with the Hot Rod Power Tour. This was a great venue for the tour as there was more room for the cars to comfortably park during the event.

On day five we finally got a new cooling fan shipped over from Vintage Air to our hotel in Springfield. With no time to install it right away, we headed out to Gateway International Raceway to join up with the Hot Rod Power Tour one more time. Along the way we make a stop at Bigfoot 4x4 in St. Louis for lunch and a shop tour. This shop is where they house, build, and maintain all the Bigfoot monster trucks. It was quite amazing to see the size of these trucks in person. There's actually quite a lot of history here that made this stop really interesting.

Being that Gateway International Raceway is just about 15 miles or so from the Bigfoot shop, we made it to our destination in just a few minutes. The heat and humidity became somewhat a concern since we haven't yet installed the new fan, but we made it to the show without any overheating problems.

After taking in a few drag races, we made our way through the midway to present Flowmaster with a plaque recognizing them as one of the official sponsors of Americruise 2004.

With installation of the cooling fan on our minds, we headed out of Gateway a little early, figuring we put it off long enough.

Replacing the fan took a little longer than anticipated due to removal of the grille. A big "thanks" has to go out to Rick Love and Danny Zoeller for doing most of the work on this one. We really tried to do it ourselves, but some people have rules about letting editorial types like us borrow tools. I guess we can't blame 'em on that one.

Day six was a long one driving-miles-wise, so we had to head out early. After a little grounding problem with our roadster the night before, we didn't get to our room until after midnight, so we're feeling a little rough around the edges.

Today I took the opportunity to travel with a few different guys so I could get some shots of the Ron driving the Road Tour car. This may have been the biggest mistake I made the whole trip. Due to our trusty driving instructions not being so trusty, some of the group got separated on the way to Heidt's Rod Shop in Wauconda, Illinois. I realized we'd taken a wrong freeway ramp and were heading in the wrong direction for about eight or so miles. After a look at the Atlas, we got turned back into the right direction. Ron, on the other hand, is in possession of the same directions that got us lost. After a few mayday calls on the cell phone, we got our man turned around and was now heading in the right direction.

As Ron pulled the roadster into the Heidt's, I noticed the brake caliper was in a strange position. After a closer look we discovered a few necessary components (a few nuts and bolts) were missing from our right front brake caliper. That might explain the strange noise I heard as we pulled the car into the hotel the night before.

While Gary Heidt provided the Americrusers with a shop tour and a lunch break, his shop posse did a little machine work on the backing plate of our brake system--allowing us to get the '33 back on the road safely. Ron buttoned up the rest, and we were ready to hit the road. In addition Danny Zoeller's Ford had two lowering blocks give way while exiting a toll booth near Chicago. Rick Love put in a call to Gary Heidt and a set of new blocks were tooled and ready for installation before the flatbed could deliver the limping Ford wagon.

Although a little later tha, expected, we were on our way to Rad Rides by Troy in Manteno, Illinois. Troy Trepanier put on a huge barbeque for about 500 of his closest friends. In addition, all in attendance were treated to a dramatic unveiling of his latest finished product, a traditional-styled '32 Ford highboy roadster complete with a Flathead and bias-plies, a slight departure from his usual big horsepower muscle car creations. You may recall such high -profile cars as Chicayne and the Ebay Mustang, which were featured on the TLC television show Rides.

Day seven was a quite a long drive as we had to cover almost 400 miles. We made it to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum around noon. With no shop tours planned that day, we were able to take our time and really soak in all the sites the museum had to offer. There were even a few prototype vehicles that never went into production This was a great opportunity for automobile history buffs to see some very rare autos up close.

On our drive to Indy, we encountered a good amount of thunder, lightning, and everything in between. As we arrived to our designated hotel, the guests were just exiting the basement as they were advised to take cover in order to avoid the dangers of a nearby tornado. Fortunately, ignorance is bliss as we drove straight through to Indy with no knowledge of the apparent threat of danger.

For the next two days we took in the sights and sounds of Goodguys Indy. Unfortunately, rain played a big part of the weekend's drag racing. This seemed to have little effect on the number of people attending the event, as the place was still packed with both spectators and participants. The drag racing got off to a late start, but they managed to get some late-afternoon and evening sessions in for the patient race fans. Americruise is a great hot rodding experience and considered to be the "ultimate hot rodders' vacation." Nothing compares to seeing what the rest of the country has to offer, especially from the seat of a roadster.

Street Rodder magazine would like to thank the 2004 Americruise sponsors: Vintage Air, Mooneyes, and Flowmaster. Without their support, there would be no Americruise.