Louisville Nats...here we come

Next weekend is the 40th Annual Street Rod Nationals......and the last one as we know it. Next year the cutoff date for cars is 1980...can you believe that??

Anyway we are leaving in the morning, Saturday 8/1. First stop is the "Hoodlums" breakfast in St Cloud, then Cambridge to a antique flea market, onto Chippewa Falls WI to a cruise night and Sunday morning a swap meet and car show. That should make a full day one.
I hope to get to Chip Falls early enough to visit Paul Oman's private collection of cars. Terry and Shirley Nystrom will be traveling with us in their new 40 Ford coupe. I am driving the 32 Deuce Delivery. This should be a great trip. Madison WI will be Sunday night, Indy Monday night, a trip to the Indy 500 museum, another big antique store in Seymour IN, a kick off party at T&T body shop Tuesday night,also in Seymour, then Wednesday we hit Louisville and spend a few hours at HDQS looking at rods. The show officially starts on Thursday......fun time.

Saturday/Sunday/Monday

Saturday morning was a cloudy sky day, it was misting a little as went drove into the park about 7:30. It rained slightly on and off several times in the morning, it kept it on the cooler side. I did not mind wiping off the car a few times. It was a very enjoyable day weather wise and car looking wise. I bought a Starbird book, a Pat Ganahal book on Custom cars, two Roger Jetter story books, a new trend magazine on custom cars all autographed by the authors. I watch Bill Hines chop the 47 Ford with Alex Gambino's help. At 1 PM all of the attending "Hall of Fame" members sat together to sign autographs, I got them all. Cool! The music was great, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison pretenders were awesome.
The pinstripers Panel Jam auction was fun, I bought a favorite panel Friday so I kept my hands in my pocket and bought nothing. There were some good buys and some high priced buys.
Saturday night was more entertainment at the hotel, fun time.
We left Sunday about noon and headed home, drove to Council Bluffs for the night. We took the hotel shuttle to the casino for dinner then hit the sack, tired. Monday we left about 9 AM and arrived at the Hoodlum's cruise night about 6PM, had dinner talked to friends, looked at cars and got home about 9 AM. Time for bed, I am tired. In the morning its getting the "Deuce Delivery" ready for the trip Saturday to Louisville, KY. It was a fun time driving with Jerry and Doris Johnson, I thank them for including us in their circle of friends, sure made a bunch of new friends this trip!!

Friday at the show

Got to the park at 8 AM, beautiful grassy, many trees, lots of shade...good thing because it was 100 today! We parked on the southwest corner where we could get a breeze all day. The interior of the park was very still, no breeze at all.
Beautiful customs all over. Many celebs, Barris, Bill Hines, Starbird, John D'agistino,just to name a few. Many famous customs. This is really kool show.
There are quite a few vendors, mostly custom stuff, several pinstripers striping cars and selling panels. I bought a really neat panel with a rat fink on it, striping and all of Big Daddy's car's names. I bought the two newest Roger Jetter's story books, I had his first one already.
Tomorrow they are expecting another couple of hundred cars, there were many cars already today.
Tonight was "run what you brung" drags at the old air strip, we chose not to go, went to eat instead. It was hot, we were tired.
I watched them chop a 47 Ford coupe for a while. They had a great band playing all day, lots of things going on.
It was a fun day.

Made it to Salina

We had a couple of great days in Wichita...made many new friends, saw neat cars. We met Hub and Gloria, friends of Jerry and Doris Johnsons. Their friends Ken and Nora invited us to stay at their house...nice of them!
Last night was a huge BBQ hot rod and custom party at Rocky's. About 50 or so cars and many many people and tons of food (free food)
I met Lynn Moore (a deuce guy) and the world famous Dave Stuckey. (builder of many old customs, including the famous Lil Coffin) Frank Livingston from CA builder of many many neat fastback customs.
This morning we drove to Salina with 8 other cars. Today we are just hanging out at the headquarters motel lot. There was a combined lunch in front of the rooms, everyone brought some food and we all shared (almost free) I met Mark Morierty from Mound MN, owner of the Car Craft Dream Car, previous owner and restorer of several Big Daddy Roth cars. Cool! Tonight there is a open house at Brite's Hot Rod shop...with a FREE BBQ!!
The big show starts in the morning....its gotta be fun. Oh yea...it is warm here, forcast says for tomorrow a "cool" 97 degrees! Hot weather and hot rods!!

On the road to "Leadsled Spectacular" show

We left Sunday for Wichita KS and then to the KKOA show in Salina, KS. As we arrived in Des Moines we had a bad noise in the rear end. I called my Buddy Dave and asked to use his shop. He has a great "toy" shop, 3 lifts, every tool you could think of. After a bit of checking we discovered the problem...rear wheel bearings were shot. Luckily O'Riley's are open till 8 PM on Sunday. We switched the bearings, added new lub and put it all back together. Runs real quiet now. Dave and Sandy invited us to spend the night at their house...nice! We had dinner and several Margueritas at the local cafe and then headed to their place.
Today we antiqued all the way to Lincoln....several shops, few miles. In the morning its off to Wichita. Will be a short 200 miles or so.

Home again.....for a while

We made it home at 4:30PM, only about 12 drops of rain, but the highway was wet from St Cloud to home. By 5:30 or so the skies opened up...glad we were home already!. The car ran good. 2500 miles....around 17 mph...good time. I do have a long list of mostly little things to do before next week. The P/S hose fitting came loose again, can't figure why!! There is also a strange bad noise under neath as I hit the drive way. That is on top of the list to check out and fix.
Salina KKOA Leadsled Spectacular is the next stop.....leaving next Monday AM if all goes as planned. It is a show of about 800 customs and hot rods, drags,top chopping exhibation and all kinds of fun stuff.

Catch up post

Saturday......a great day until the rain started. It poured for several hours. The drains backed up in the lot and we pushed several cars to higher ground. My friend Ron from NY with a very nice 32 highboy coupe, drank a bunch of water. When he tried to start it it broke teeth off of the fly wheel...could have been worse.Pulled the plugs, turned the engine over to push the water out and all is good. My car leaks big time by the windshield, its on the list to fix when I get home.

Sunday...a beautiful day. Clear blue skies. After a quick pass thru the vendor building, we headed out about 1 o'clock. 3 cars, Maki's, Johnson's and us. We spent the night in Lafayette, IN. It was a good day.

Monday.......We left about 9 AM. Tonight we are in Madison, WI. Johnson's went on home, so we are back to 2 cars, I had to re tighten the power steering fittings again. No other problems. We will leave at 9 in the morning and finish the trip. No rush...we are on vacation.

I found my AC leak, its the fitting behind the dash, the one you can't get to! I will remove the dash when I get home fix it so we can go to Kansas next week. Right now it takes a can of freon a day. I have made a small "to do" list to get it all set to go again.

Friday

Wow! a beautiful day....tons of hot rods, looked more like Saturday. We hit the grounds at 7AM...many many cars were there already. Lots of vendors outside and inside. We walked and walked then went inside to cool off. We left at 6PM, went to the hotel to clean up then met friends Jake and Pearl who live here for dinner. Jake picked a little Chinese place in the "hood". It was delicious! The prices were cheap!
The same plan for tomorrow, leave at 7AM, park in the "you gotta drive'em" section. Walk and check out the cars.
The quality of cars here is just outstanding. The current Ridler winner was in pro's pick area, and driving around, what a sight to see.I told him it looked better here than in the Detroit show! They crown the street machine of the year here and they have to make 3 passes in the suto cross, you should see them go. They may be trailer queens, but they go all out on the auto cross track.

Thursday

We left this morning at 8AM for Hagen Street Rods. It was about 120 miles. We arrived at 11 AM. After a shop tour we had a fabulous BBQ pulled pork lunch with all the trimmings and lots of fresh fruits. The Hagen shop was full of metal working tools, English wheels,plenishing hammers, pulmax, sheers, brakes a bunch a cool stuff. He is building a "coupster" a retractable hard top coupe/roadster,pretty cool.
We left there about 1PM for the last leg of the trip to Columbus, another 120 miles or so. The day went off without a hitch, a fun time. At the afternoon gas stop, I even left the hood closed, the fans off, and did not hit the switch on the new electric pump and the car started and I drove off.....I think it is fixed! We arrived at the Expo center in time to register and then onto the kick off party at the headquarters hotel. There we received dash plaques, t shirt and 2 free beers and dinner. The lot was full of hot rods, customs and friends. We finally left there about 9:30 to head to our hotel....what a fun trip!
Tomorrow it is off to the frairgrounds at 7AM to find a parking spot and look at more rods and visit friends.

Wednesday

I was back at the NAPA store at 6:30 AM, buying an electric fuel pump, I thought I would put it on tonight at the hotel. Our plans were to drive to Jasper IN for a tour at Air Ride Tech. On the way I decided I would ask them to use their shop. I asked they said Yes. Greg from Air Ride and I installed the new pump. We then found several leaks in the gas line. After tightening them up it was good to go. I added some more freon to the AC tightened the power steering fittings again. The car ran like a top all the way to the next stop. I think it is fixed this time.
Air Ride fed us a fantastic pork chop lunch...unreal! We added another car, actually a pickup from Lafayette...Ed he has been with use many times. Good to see him again.
We drove onto Greenwood In to the Ray Skillman collection. Millions of dollars of fantastic cars, all kinds. Rods, muscles, sprinters etc and many many neon signs. A real cool place.
We arrived at the hotel about 7:30, checked in, went to Texas Road House r a steak and a beer or two.
This has been a real fun time. It will be even more fun if the car continues to perform as it did this afternoon.
We will be visiting Hagens tomorrow for another FREE lunch and then onto the kick off party in Columbus.

Tuesday

We all left at 8AM for a nice drive to St Louis to visit Old dog Stret Rods. A full service shop with a fully stocked retail store. A great set up. They fed us a great FREE lunch.
The next stop was the NAPA distribution center in Mt Vernon Il. We got a grand tour of the place and then a wonderful FREE dinner.
My car vapor locked only once. We charged the AC this morning so had cool air all day. Had to stop once and tighten the power steering hose connections again. I bought several more cans of freon at NAPA, it was on sale for 3.99...deal!
We hit the Fair Field Inn and cleaned the cars, got gas tonight, filled the ice cooler. We will leave at 7:45 in the morning. The stop is Air Ride Tech in Jasper IN, we loose an hour in the time zone some have to get going in the morning.
A camero that broke yesterday caught back up tonight, that was good. Old Dogs work on the fuelie pickup.All the other little problems were overcome.
It was a great day today, lots if fun.

Monday

The weekend show was a great time. This morning we left on the cruise for Columbus, Ohio. We met at 8AM and on the road by 8:30. The first stop was only 20 miles to JR Motorsports, a builder of race and street engines. They had a small block on the dyno for us to see...fun. Next was a short 5 miles to Dennis Albauch private collection of Chevies. He has one of every year convertable, Corvette that was made. Also 3 Yenkos one worth 800,000 !! A 53 Corvette, one of 300 made, worth more than the Yenko.It is a fabulous huge garage with a parking ramp on top, next to a 18 hole golf course all owned by him.
The next stop was the Amana colonies for lunch and wine tasting. A good time.
The ole Buick decided to act up again....vapor locks every time I stop or go slow...disgusting! I thought I had it worked out. I think the next step is an electric fuel pump. Aotho there is a 54 truck with fuel injection and an electric pump having problems also. so who knows!?
I went to WalMart and bought a big cooler to carry lots of ice water to pour on the carb to cool it down.
In the morning it is off to St Louis to "Old Dog Street Rods"

Thursday

We left the house at 7AM, picked up the Nystroms and headed south.Arriving at Lakeville at 9AM as planned. Ralph and Barb arrived shortly after and we all continued the drive. We always stop at Albert Lea for lunch. Terry had a minor problem with the carbs so the stop lasted about one and a half hours. We continued on to Akney where we stoped for a cool drink and some home made chips at a bar named chips. Off we went for the last 10 miles to the fairgrounds to register.As we were leaving Chips I noticed that I was leaking power steering fluid, I added some and continued.
We made it to the hotel,met with Yagers and Zanoths, cleaned the cars and I started messing with the power steering hoses, the pressure side was leaking. After about 3 hours and 4 of us trying to rethread the hose we got it done. I think it is all fixed now.
We had dinner at the machine shed and a couple of cold beers really tasted good.
We will leaving for the fairgrounds at 7AM. It should be a great day..looks like 80 degrees...nice.
The lot is full of Deuces as always. The Midwest Deuces meeting is held here tomorrow night.

Ready to go to Good Guys

Darrick reset the timing last night, hope that will make it run a little more cool. I changed the oil today, put on the new wheels. I had ordered some different offset wheels, gained about 3 inches on each side, gave it a more "wide track", looks better. I found that the AC had a freon leak so called friend Mark at Mark's Speed shop, he charged it up, now we are good to go.
We will meet with Terry and Shirkey Nystrom at 7:15 at the Copper Lantern and head south to Lakeville, join up with Ralph and Barb and another car from "up north". We make a 300 mile trip last all day, easy drive. Breakfast/lunch in Albert Lea, stop for a snack in Akely and onto registration. Talk to you all later