Eastern Hot Rodder

The Pharaohs of WNC sure put on a great car show. Over 180 people were more than happy to spent $10 to have their car be part of it. The Westgate Plaza parking lot was packed beyond the designated area with all types of cars and trucks. I dig this show because there are always some mean ground pounding hot rods and beautiful customs as well as a handful of rat rods and traditional hot rods. This year, 8 of us convoyed out from our side of the mountain over to Franklin to partake in the party. We all had a great time, met some cool cats and got to see cars we normally don't get to see. Lil' Red even won a trophy for best Rat Rod. Thanks fellas, it's an honor to be picked by the Pharaohs. Sure better than being tied to the car and dragged. The ride over and back is beautiful too. It really made for a relaxing day.

Alex, a young man of just 18 or so, has a '34 Ford Tudor sedan that sure grabs attention. The car was his grandfather's and was passed to young Alex after he is grandad passed away. While most kids in high school would probably just sell off the ol' car to get something newer, or fund their gaming obsession, Alex was honored to receive such an inheritance. He has been the caretaker of the Ford for 4 years now and has no plans of letting it go. After all it is a connection to his grandpa. Aside from that, Alex enjoys driving it and learning more about the car as he works on it. The car has a 350 Chevy and a 700-R4 trans and has the perfect street rod stance. The pewter silver paint looks classy and is a bit unique on a prewar Ford, so it stands out a little more. I picked this car for the Eastern Hot Rodder Pick for a couple reasons. First, the car is cool as they come. Secondly, I love to see young fellas like Alex embrace the hot rodder hobby. By the time this video posts Alex will be 1 week into his college career. As a Chemistry major a WNC he has a bright future ahead of him. And yes, he does plan on cruising the Sedan to campus on occasion. That school actually has a car club on campus. I'm sure his grandfather is mighty proud of him.

We get a closer look at the well equipped highly restored COWL PLENUM AIR INDUCTION '66 Chevelle SS 396 and an equally nice '69 Pontiac GTO Judge. My friend Ed is the lucky owner of the pair and was nice enough to pull them out in the rain for us to look at. The Chevelle is one of the nicest restored 1966s I've seen. Chalk marks and all. The only non-stock thing are the American Racing original style Torque Thrust wheels. The Goat has 17" US Mags, stock looking aftermarket gauges in the stock dash and an Edelbrock carb, otherwise it is all stock restored. The GTO also came with an inch of paperwork documenting everything since its original purchase. What a pair of Musclecars. Long like the big block!

Finding the funny in life

Liberty and I took a trip to the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY recently and we took some video to bring your along. Many cool old race cars, design displays and historic, low production number cars. Stuff from the 70 years Corvette has been in production, plus some earlier stuff like the Flathead Ford and the Ardon OHV conversion that Zora Arkus-Duntov invented. There were a lot of neat cars and parts on display, but there were 2 disappointments. 1) There wasn't one of every year Vette. 2) They recently took down the displays of the cars that fell into the sink hole. But, I did hear they may bring them back out, since everyone asks for them. There are some non Chevy things there too, a temporary custom car display was up just before the gift shop. Another cool thing was seeing the brand new Vette waiting in the lobby for their new owners to pick them up. If you are into Vette this is a good place to see.

With a crowd of spectators and a 16 car field of racers ranging in age from 6 year olds to retired guys, we had a busy, fun and exciting night drag racing our 1:24th scale slot cars at Peachtree Dragway in Murphy, NC. After the 2 bracket races we switched to some hot pro tree action with the lights off. Everyone loved it. The only bummer for me was that I wasn't able to catch the amazing crash between my fuel altered and my AWB Falco A/FXer. The Altered jumped sideways onto its left side and the Falcon drove through it. Parts showered everywhere as the two cars rolled and tumbled. The Falcon was fine. The altered... not so much. I was able to glue it back together, but noticed that a stuck wheelie bar wheel caused it to hook left. So I went with the trusty Wild One Tempest AWB. I red lit once and broke out once and flat lost twice. Since I was back in the storage box and Rusty's car broke a chassis weld I loaned him the Pontiac. It ran consistent .77-.76 seconds at mid 30mph in the scale 1/8 mile. Rusty weeded through the competition and ended up the overall winner for the night. We race 1st and 3rd Fridays from 5pm on. If you're close swing in. We incorporated a cruise night with it, so we can talk over hot rods between rounds.

My buddy Mike is selling some of his car stuff to make room in the garage to finish a few projects. Here is his 1971 Camaro. It started life as a 6 cylinder stick car. He put in a V8, big sway bar subframe. The car is pretty solid. New trunk pan, new fenders…. He has a lot of the trim and stuff, but no windshield. It’s a roller, but the swing pedals and shifter hump are still in place.

My buddy Mike is selling some of his car stuff to make room in the garage to finish a few projects. Here is his 1971 Camaro. It started life as a 6 cylinder stick car. He put in a V8, big sway bar subframe. The car is pretty solid. New trunk pan, new fenders…. He has a lot of the trim and stuff, but no windshield. It’s a roller, but the swing pedals and shifter hump are still in place.

My buddy Mike is selling some of his car stuff to make room in the garage to finish a few projects. Here is his 1971 Camaro. It started life as a 6 cylinder stick car. He put in a V8, big sway bar subframe. The car is pretty solid. New trunk pan, new fenders…. He has a lot of the trim and stuff, but no windshield. It’s a roller, but the swing pedals and shifter hump are still in place.