2016 Power Tour – Day 05

Today, as they say, was a good day. Welcome to our coverage of Day Five of the Hot Rod Power Tour. We rolled out of the Renaissance Hotel in Oklahoma City to find none other than Rutledge Wood and company on the front drive.     There’s our boy Rutledge. Hi, Rut! I wanted him to sign my forehead, but Shane thought it would be in poor taste. Well then, it’s a good thing I didn’t suggest the first body part I wanted Rut to ink.   We also spotted Emily Williams Reeves (aka cute girl in the ball cap) chatting with Roadkill’s David Freiburger (aka the awkward dude in the ball cap) (edit: the awkward dude in the ball cap on the right).   You know you’ve made it when you can roll in a convoy that consists completely of your cars. Rut’s collection is just as eclectic as Shane’s questionable taste

2016 Power Tour – Day 05 Gallery

2016 Power Tour – Day 06

This is it, the last hurrah of the 2016 Hot Rod Power Tour. Our hotel, the swanky Hyatt Regency in Wichita, Kansas, sits on the banks of the Arkansas River. According to Forrest, the Arkansas is a major tributary of the mighty Mississippi River. This is valuable information, since I didn’t know we were this close to the Mississippi. I also don’t know what a tributary is, but don’t mention this to Forrest.   Our Day Six drive started just like any other, with us prepping our rides for the drive ahead and wiping them down to ensure we Tour in style. And by “us” prepping our rides, I mean anyone but me. Hey, somebody needs to snap the pics.   The last day of the Power Tour is always bittersweet. On one hand there is an immense feeling of self-satisfaction in completing such an epic journey, but on the

2016 Power Tour – Day 06 Gallery

2017 Power Tour Introduction

There’s something undeniably appealing about a road trip. Devouring the miles with nothing more than a never-ending ribbon of blacktop filling your windshield. It’s as if nothing else matters. Not the job, mortgage, family, or any other responsibility. What if you emptied out the 401K and bought a rattle-canned Nova and just drove? Could you leave the kids and their incessant questions about common core math in your dust? Could you assume a false identity under the guise of Novagabond Charlie and scratch out enough cheddar as a social media influencer criss-crossing this great land as you document your travels? Um, you know, I’m just asking for a friend (although X-body Novas are a bit spendy these days).   In case the good people of Child Welfare Services are reading this, I just want to emphasize how much I love my children. But this doesn’t mean that I can’t get

2017 Power Tour – Day 00

Here we go again. Welcome to the first of our daily posts from this, the 2017 Hot Rod Power Tour. I’m John “nads” Naderi, your humble, and somewhat sunburned “tour guide.” I’ll be giving you a glimpse (I’m such a tease) of all the good, bad and ugly (yes, there will be selfies) from the 23rd edition of the Tour. Enough of my witless banter, let’s dive right in. In keeping with tradition, this Tour launched in the same city where last year’s Tour ended. It’s all so very meta and it’s also what brought us back to Kansas City, MO, Paris of the Plains, the City of Fountains and the home to some very tasty BBQ (unless you’re on a diet – but then who would be silly enough to go and do that – spoiler alert – it’s one of us). The kick off party took place at

2017 Power Tour – Day 00 Gallery

2017 Power Tour – Day 01

The Power Tour isn’t the Power Tour until you start putting some miles under your tires (or steps onto your Fitbit, as Shane likes to say). Today we went 262.5 miles from Kansas City, Missouri to Newton, Iowa. This also gave me the opportunity to finally say, “Fo Fo (my pet name for Forrest), I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Now geography (or anything else, for that matter) has never been one of my strengths, but I do know enough to realize that we were in Kansas City, MO, and not Kansas City, KS. But saying, “Fo Fo, I don’t think we’re in Missourah anymore,” lacks the same punch. Add to this, that this year’s Tour won’t even get to Kansas and you can see how my hands were tied. So I ran with it, saying it as often as I could to Forrest today (and his little dog

2017 Power Tour – Day 01 Gallery

2017 Power Tour – Day 02

Welcome back to our daily coverage of the 2017 Hot Rod magazine Power Tour. This is the road trip that keeps on giving. In this case, it gave us, not one, but two, count ‘em, two days in picturesque Iowa. How could we resist a second day in the state that produces one tenth of our nation’s food supply (if there’s any justice in this world, some sort of Twinkie or Ding Dong processing plant is a major contributor to this stat). Thanks to the impossibly poor Wi Fi speeds at the Embassy Suites, I was forced to get up early (ewww) and walk (double ewww) to the nearest Starbucks. How slow was it? The internet speed was even slower than I move after a big hike (for clarification, my idea of a big hike is moving from the couch to the fridge). During my early morning expedition to Starbucks