Days 9/10: 2,484 Miles Later -- Rode Hard And Put Away Wet

The final 250 miles from Cincinnati were fairly ordinary, except for one thing we hadn’t seen on the trip: rain. North of Cincy we stopped in a downpour at a Dunkin Donuts Cars and Coffee where Chris Zimmerman welcomed our Drive Home III team with coffee, breakfast sandwiches and – of course – donuts.

We proceeded north and as the weather cleared David retrieved the Triumph from the trailer to ride the last 160 miles to our hotel in Birmingham, MI. We arrived at dusk shortly after the rain had started again and we were glad to see David get off the bike in one piece.

My wife Alison met us in Birmingham, and the team enjoyed a final dinner at the Triple Nickel Restaurant.

Most of the group then headed to Churchill’s Cigar Bar to finish out the night in smoky fashion (some enjoying it more than others), and Ali and I had a fun reunion with old friends Beth and Jim Salter and our new friend Dawn Fisher.
  

Day 10 brought freezing rain turning to snow, but the team excitement (after some coffee) was palpable. We loaded up the cars in front of the hotel for the drive to the Lincoln of Troy dealership to stage our final trek down Detroit’s famed Woodward Avenue. David was sitting in the El Camino as we were about to depart when a tour bus rolled past on the narrow street and its back bumper sliced a three-foot scratch into the left fender of the car.

After a bit of heated conversation with the driver and exchanging insurance information, we motored to the dealership and were met by a small crowd that included media, car enthusiasts and Paul Sabatini and his superb staff at Lincoln of Troy.



 No sooner had we rolled the cars into the bays to prepare them for our final trek, Paul’s team analyzed the paint color of the El Camino and prepared a touch-up mixture to try to mask the scratch.

After remarks by David and Executive Director of the North American International Auto Show Rod Alberts, we were given a quick briefing by the Michigan State Patrol. Police car lights flashed as we rolled out of the dealership and down Woodward Avenue about 10 miles in heavy wet snow.

 

 

The culmination of the Drive Home III trip across five states was the arrival of our merry caravan at Cobo Hall and an eruption of cheers and hugs among our team.

After driving the cars into Cobo, we parked them where they will be on display for the North American International Auto Show, all still bearing all the dirt and grime of the 2,484- mile trip. I have to admit feeling a touch of emotion as we walked away from our trusty vehicles, and we finished off with a team lunch and parting remarks from David that included presentation of a plaque to our Road Boss, Tabetha Hammer of Hagerty.

Reflecting on this second Drive Home trip, I’m left with many of the same emotions from last year – fun and funny memories of our team, gratitude for the new relationships I’ve built and a bit of melancholy about our separation.

Our crew owes a big thanks to David Madeira, Ashley Bice, Tabetha Hagerty, Derek Klein and all our sponsors. Special thanks to State Farm (particularly Tamara Harvell and Ed Gold) for their sponsorship, for allowing me to be part of this event, and for providing our team the really snazzy team jackets. And thanks also to my driving partner, Hemmings.com writer Bill Hall, a generous fella who always gets assigned the coolest car but sometimes lets me drive it, and someone whose keen perspective and sense of humor make him a lot of fun to be around.  

 
Postscript: Somewhat exhausted on the way to the Detroit airport for our flight back to Seattle, I told Alison that if I start kicking around the idea to participate in Drive Home IV next year she should do her best to talk me out of it. She laughed, with both of us silently knowing that if the chance comes again to help raise awareness about the importance of preserving America’s car heritage, I’ll find it hard to refuse the call of the road and the Drive Home adventure…

Day 8: Things Get Really Interesting In Nashville and Bowling Green

What a great day with the resilient and energetic Drive Home III team, and today’s drive from Nashville to Cincinnati proves once again that our country is replete with passionate stewards of the automobile who are determined both the cars and the heritage and spirit that make them so special.  

Our first morning stop was the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville where owner Jeff Lane and his Marketing Director Vicki Garrison gave us a tour of the incredibly diverse array of Lane vehicles. Housed in a massive old Sunbeam Bakery building, the eclectic 500-vehicle collection features an extensive variety of wheeled vehicles. Examples of the genres include micro-cars (defined as cars with motors under 400cc), cars from different countries, flying cars, bicycles, and various oddities.

 

One of the most unique was a 1959 200-ton (yes, 200-ton) LARC LX-8 military vehicle powered by four Detroit Diesel engines. Jeff explained this behemoth helped move supplies off Navy ships in places where the ships couldn’t pull into port.

Heading north another 60 miles or so we rolled into Bowling Green, KY, and the National Corvette Museum that gained widespread attention when a sinkhole underneath the museum swallowed nine Corvettes Feb. 12, 2014. Curator Derek Moore treated us to lunch in the Corvette Café (great milkshakes there, BTW), and then we were given an insider’s tour of the facility.

Beyond salivating over dozens and dozens (and dozens) of gorgeous Corvettes, we learned about the history and development of the model over the last 65 years.

 

Three additional highlights:

1. Visiting where the sinkhole (now repaired) swallowed the cars into a 30-foot crater, and seeing some of the Corvettes that had been retrieved.

 

 

 

2. In the main hallway, we got to see new Corvettes delivered to their new owners. After a thorough orientation by a staff Corvette expert, we saw two couples get to drive their awesome cars out of the building amidst roaring applause from the museum-goers and staff.

 

3. Heather Rogers of Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College heard we were coming and brought out a group of her students and the Camaro they had restored. David had a good time chatting with them about the restoration field and the importance of auto preservation.

Last leg to Detroit tomorrow, and I’m already getting the same bittersweet emotions I experienced at the end of Drive Home II last year. Yes, my back is sore from the Camaro and El Camino seats and it will be nice to fully unpack at home, but the experience, fun, and relationships will long outlast our upcoming drive down Woodward Avenue. And the best part is that all of this effort is centered on a noble cause: Preserving our American automobile heritage.

PS: The power of social media strikes again. An old acquaintance from State Farm, Jamie Fike, had seen our journey on FB and came out to our Cincinnati hotel to wish us well. Great to see you, Jamie!!

#DriveHome,  #AATDriveHome

Day 7: The Long Drive to Nashville

A Drive Home III team cheer in the icy Charlotte hotel parking lot this morning and we were on our way for the longest daily drive yet: 400+ miles to Nashville. I drove the Camaro part way, and then my partner journalist Larry Nutson drove as well. We wound our way up into the Smoky Mountains, through fog that had settled in low spots along the way. We also took great care to steer clear of slick spots and the stretch west of Canton on I-40 that our friend Dale Wickell had warned us could be full of trucks and sharp curves.

 

 

We had separated from Dave, David, and Keith in the support truck and trailer as they went off to retrieve the ‘55 Chrysler at Hendricks Motorsports. The Hendricks team had diagnosed its trouble as a wristpin, but they weren’t able to get the part in time to fix it. No worries, Keith says we’ll trailer the car to Detroit, drive it down Woodward Avenue, and then send it back to Hendricks for repair.

About 160 miles outside of Nashville, I jumped back in my beloved El Camino to find it running like pretty much like a top – still wanting for power but not choking and gasping nearly as much as when I last drove it. Bill and I speculated it might be the temperature and/or altitude or perhaps the running we have given it the last few days has cleaned out the carburetor a bit.

About 4:45 our cars converged on the parking lot of the Casa De Monte Cristo Nashville, while the support truck, ’62 International, and David on the Triumph arrived about 20 minutes later. Our hosts at Casa gave us a warm welcome and we were joined by new participants auto journalists Steve Purdy and Bob Giles as well as Hagerty's Doug Clark and Eric Weiner. 

 

 

My highlight came when with a visit from some of my wife Alison’s and my dearest friends, Rob and Marta Eynatten. Rob and Marta were our close pals during our time at State Farm’s corporate office in Bloomington, and they have since retired to the Nashville area to be near family. The three of us slipped off to Peg Leg Porker, reportedly one of the best BBQ spots in Nashville that definitely lived up to its name.

 

 

While I was off having dinner, word is that the team had a little encounter with Nashville law enforcement folks when Derek was trying to fly the drone for photos downtown. I haven’t heard full details, but no one has called to post bail so that’s a good sign.    

Tomorrow we continue the trek west with a couple of fun stops that should bring with them great photos and a lot of fun.  

#DriveHome,  #AATDriveHome

Day 6: Every Day Better Than The Last!

Day 6 for our Drive Home III team was chock full of fun and amazing cars. First stop was Michelin HQ in Greenville, S.C., where our hosts gave three of our cars a change to all-weather tires for the last half of our trip. A slight snag came when the new wheels wouldn’t fit the small alignment tab on the Fury. Not to worry, soon Mike and I were on our way to Jackson Motorsports with him driving the Fury and me in the International truck with the replacement tires in the back. Jackson does marketing and events for Michelin, and while the Fury was getting new treads we got an insider’s tour of the high-performance tire world from Jackson’s Lowell Eckart.

Lowell was full of fascinating tire knowledge and showed us his prized, super-rare second generation Radial T/A (circa 1978) he found on Ebay. The second bit of memorabilia was an off-road truck tire used on the Red Bull Frozen Rush series in which trucks race up ski slopes. Each tire is shipped to Sweden where 720 studs are installed for a cost of – get ready -- more than $5,000.

With the Fury tires in place, Mike and I returned to Michelin and gathered up the rest of the crew for the short drive to the BMW Car Club of America Foundation in Greer, SC. There our group was treated to a tour by Executive Director Scott Dishman, and we learned this facility is the second largest museum of BMW memorabilia with over 45,000 items, including several dozen notable cars.

While most of the group was inside, Keith and Tabetha took advantage of the parking lot to jury-rig a somewhat-generic heater core into the International to give it some semblance of heat.

Back on the road (and with me having the privilege driving the Fury, courtesy of Mike and Dawn), stop No. 3 was a Cars and Cocoa event and tour of Detroit Speed in Mooresville, NC. While the cold and approaching rain brought out only a few car enthusiasts, one was a former LeMay-America’s Car Museum employee, Carolyn Dunand and her son Teddy, who had a fun reunion with David. Detroit Speed owner Kyle Tucker then gave us a great tour of his operation, which is both a high-end, high-quality auto restoration shop and also an engineering/production facility for state-of-the-art parts for classic cars.

The final stop of the day was the Hendrick Heritage Center in Charlotte, where we received an exclusive tour of Rick Hendrick’s private car collection. Photos aren’t allowed in the Center and words can’t begin to capture its contents; but try to imagine more than 100 Corvettes (all years, all styles, many No. 1 off the production line), some 50-odd Camaros (Z-28s, Yenkos and Copos galore), and another 50 assorted classic and luxury cars – all in pristine condition and dozens with incredible history and provenance. As if the cars aren’t enough, Mr. Hendrick has a collection of guitars that span several rooms and are autographed by nearly every music icon from the last 75 years. Oh, and don’t forget the footballs on display – a pigskin signed by winning quarterbacks from every Super Bowl. We’ve seen a lot of car and memorabilia collections on the last couple of Drive Home events, but there is nothing to compare to the Hendrick Heritage Center.

Enough of all that. We’re up bright and early tomorrow for the 400-mile drive to Nashville. Not sure which vehicle I’ll be driving, but it’s sure to be fun and memorable with the crew and cars of The Drive Home III!



#DriveHome, #AATDriveHome