We made it! Well, our Big Rig crew did at least. Welcome back to another year of the fabled Hot Rod Power Tour. At Mothers, we’re proud to support this great event for each and every one of the twenty annual editions. The kickoff party starts today in Charlotte, but our Big Rig crew arrived on Thursday and kicked things off in Mooresville, NC with a visit to our good friends at Detroit Speed, Inc.

Thanks to the good people at Detroit Speed we were able to wash off some of those hard miles and give our Big Rig that Mothers Polish treatment.

While at Detroit Speed we were given a quick tour of their impressive facilities. These guys specialize in making hot rods handle and they offer manufactured solutions to this end as well as a complete fabrication facility to transform any vehicle into a corner carving monster.

We believe this is Tom Tomlinson’s ’66 Mustang Fastback. It’s being treated to a DSE Aluma-Frame front and QUADRALink rear suspension set-up along with custom flares and a menacing Coyote engine.

Nothing like having your own in-house paint booth.

On Friday morning, the Big Rig crew was treated to a day on the high banks of Charlotte Motor Speedway courtesy of our friends at the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Not shown, is our own Ken Holland. He told us he wasn’t coming this year, but we know that’s not true. Where are you, Ken? Our own Trucker John (far right) went nearly 160mph and he actually lapped our resident hot shoe, Jim Holloway (third from right), who only went 126mph. Wait, that’s not right, Jim lapped Trucker John. Sorry for the error, that’s what Ken told us. See what happens when you punk out, Ken? We drive our Big Rig bus right over you.

After our Petty Experience we had a chance to visit our friends at Hotchkis Performance East.

They were throwing a Power Tour kick off party and open house.

There were more than a few choice rides on hand, like this Challenger…

And this Shelby Mustang.

Hotchkis specializes in total vehicle systems and sport suspension products that take the handling of your car to another level. At Hotchkis Performance East they take that level to yet another level with turn-key solutions and bespoke builds.

Hotchkis Performance East does a little bit of everything. Check out this S14 drift car build.

Great looking fab work on the cage.

Now this is more of our style.

We love this removable chassis bracing.

Even the hinges are works of art.

This concludes our Hot Rod Power Tour preview. We’re off to check out the Kick Off party now. And to Amy from accounting, all of these people work for us now, so you’ll need to set them up with expense accounts. On another note, we have no idea why the bar tab was so high, we only ordered Arnold Palmers – a lot of Arnold Palmers.

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