Hot Rod Power Tour 2013 Diary

Birmingham, Alabama – Day 5 of the 2013 Hot Rod Power Tour

Queuing for the Autocross.

We went from Memphis, Tennessee to Birmingham, Alabama today and it was both an interesting and very scary day. We skipped some of the route today, dropping down into Mississippi on the US72 which became the AL157, which was a great road for doing the miles as it was mainly straight two lane blacktop with few people using it. The scary bit came after we had stopped so I could do my live report for the Corvette Web Blast; we were driving down I65 north of Birmingham following two other Power Tourists in the inside lane when a semi in the middle lane had the rear passenger side tire explode on the trailer just between the two cars ahead.

We had to swerve onto the right shoulder to avoid the worst of the debris scattered on the highway. Ironically, the rig was hauling tires! The second scary thing was a massive thunderstorm again on the I65 north of Birmingham, which forced us off of the interstate and onto the back roads for the last five miles of our trip.

I finally got to Hoover, Alabama for the Hot Rod Power Tour Day 5 car show after 4 PM and immediately joined the queue for the Autocross. I only had time for one run of 40.008 seconds; no idea how good/bad it was, as I didn’t get to see any other posted times. I then proceeded over to the show area to take some pictures of the cars and again, the variety was amazing as you can see from the selection below.

Loved this pickup truck with an air ride suspension…

Ominous skies before a second massive thunderstorm of the day dumped on all the participants just as we left the show. On the bright side my car doesn’t need cleaning…