If you're not familiar with the Tour, it's sponsored by Hot Rod Magazine and is covered in numerous magazines and on TV each year. You can see the forum thread here from last year's participation.
The Tour is a scenic drive across the country with a couple thousand fellow gearheads, with stops in a handful of cities along the way for a variety of events (shows, drag racing, autocross, cruises, etc.). If you'd like more info, you can find it on Hot Rod's website here. Just for a little perspective on the size of this - the 2008 Long Haul gang (those doing the entire trip) was comprised of more than 2,200 hot rodders in 1,245 cars. Over the entire week there were 3,985 total registered vehicles and spectator attendance was estimated at 64,500 spectators.
This year's Tour took place from June 6-13, 2009 and the stops included Madison WI, Racine WI, South Bend IN, Mt Clemens MI, Dayton OH, Somerset KY, and Bristol TN. Just when we thought it would be impossible to top last year's event, it proved us wrong by being better this year. I've added around 250 photos and video clips to my site that tell the whole story, start to finish. But if you have a short attention span, here are some of the highlights that stood out:
* Jeff was interviewed by Air Ride Technologies and they filmed one of my autocross runs in Madison WI. The video is on their website here. Be sure to click the little icon below the video to display the video larger than it initially comes up. I did pretty well in the auot-x too which was a bonus. And yes, I know that Jeff got a few details wrong, but important looking people pointing big cameras at you can cause that.
* I spent about 45 minutes with Hot Rod magazine staff for an interview & overview of the car that is now on their website.
From http://www.hotrod.com, click on their Power Tour page, and then on the Day 3 highlights. Or, you can view a higher quality version on Blip.tv here. They edited it pretty well considering that my speaking ability leaves a lot to be desired. Hope my estimation of the TMI details is correct as I haven't been following any build threads lately.
* Jeff and I both took turns behind the wheel lapping Bristol Motor Speedway. If you're not familiar with it, it's a very popular and huge Nascar track. This was a rare treat, and there's in-car video and pics on my site. And since I currently have Cherry Bomb exhaust on the car, one of the guys filming video for Cherry Bomb held an interview and rode along with me on the speedway to shoot video for a DVD they were producing.
... and more of the things I'll remember for quite some time are listed on my site.
All-in-all, we traveled just under 2400 miles. Weather was nice for most part, but there was a bit of rain mixed in here and there. Only one problem from the car - the brake light pressure sensor decided to die during the trip.
A visit to a local Radio Shack store provided a pinswitch that functioned as a temporary replacement zip-tied and duct-taped near the top of the pedal arm.Atom owner Randy (Hotshot) was also in attendance as he was last year, but this year he was driving his Auburn.
No idea if we'll get any coverage in the print version of Hot Rod magazine like we did last year, but there's a good chance (since it rained and they like showing people that they consider 'crazy'
). It'll be a few months before the issue is out.
300hp Ecotec Atom that is driven. Visit my 
My car won't even fit through most of those gates with my wide tarrs. No helmets required either. Hmm..well it's all good!
