Hot August Nights…and Three Crazy Days

Four Wheeler ’s Art Director...        read full caption Four Wheeler’s Art Director Greg Smith leads the pack in his ’65 Comet, with Car Craft’s Art Director Tom Donchez riding shotgun. Wait, how did King Matt’s Volvo get in there?

Battle of the burnouts: The...        read full caption Battle of the burnouts: The two fastest cars at LACR were Scott Oksas’s ’69 Mustang...

...and Tim Allen’s ...        read full caption ...and Tim Allen’s ’68 Cutlass. The ’Stang ran a squirrelly low-10-second pass, and the Cutlass ran in the 11s, but both cars were a little off their peak potential.

Chris Light and David Allison...        read full caption Chris Light and David Allison flew out from Tennessee to join our tour. We were beyond flattered. Chris’s plans to drive out his sweet ’68 Malibu were thwarted when his boss wouldn’t give him enough vacation time.

So David rented a V-6 Mustang...        read full caption So David rented a V-6 Mustang and beat the snot out of it. Nice burnout, Dave. They’re called “smokies” in Tennessee. Seems every time the group stopped at an intersection we’d see a cloud of tire smoke erupt from the ’Stang. Dave told us the car had “a few more rattles and knocks” when he returned it to an unnamed rental company.

This sedate-looking Falcon...        read full caption This sedate-looking Falcon surprised us, running uncorrected mid-13s.

FNG succumbed to peer pressure...        read full caption FNG succumbed to peer pressure and ran the Buick at the drags. Here he’s blazing by, tripping the clocks in a lighting-quick...16 seconds? Hey, at least the mph was over 90. He pleaded a lame excuse about not wanting to power shift his numbers-matching four-speed.

Road trip veterans Steve Warchola...        read full caption Road trip veterans Steve Warchola and Michael Lyster cruised this awesome ’70 AMC Javelin—the only AMC in the group, but one of the nicest rides of all. A built 401 kept the black beast at the front of the pack, altitude be damned.

Special thanks to Neil Zakar—driving...        read full caption Special thanks to Neil Zakar—driving his 427, four-speed Galaxie—who owns Amigos Mexican Restaurant...

...and kept the doors open...        read full caption ...and kept the doors open late for us when we rolled into Bishop Friday night.

Yeah, it’s the only...        read full caption Yeah, it’s the only evidence we have to prove we really made it to Reno.

Terry Webb brought the whole...        read full caption Terry Webb brought the whole family along for the trip. Hands-down, his small-block ’71 SS had the most awesome-sounding exhaust system of any of the cars. We were even more jealous of the Chevelle’s cold A/C.

Sunday’s big event was...        read full caption Sunday’s big event was when John Stalker’s ’72 Chevelle lost a rear upper-control-arm bolt, which made for some sketchy driving manners.

Nothing a screwdriver and...        read full caption Nothing a screwdriver and some duct tape couldn’t fix. It worked well enough to make it to the next town, where he located a bolt and reinstalled the control arm. And he made sure the rest of the bolts were tight!

Former Car Craft intern...        read full caption Former Car Craft intern and current Sport Truck staff editor Taylor Vlahos drove the entire distance in her ’68 Satellite without drama. She just finished installing her 400hp 360, but tuning issues and weak highway gears kept her from breaking out of the 16s at LACR. Just enough to sneak by FNG’s Buick. Did we mention that’s a stock Buick? Thought so.

If something works the first time, it’s damn sure worth another shot. So after the unexpected success of last year’s Car Craft Anti-Tour, we were jazzed to do it all again, not necessarily bigger, but better. So how do you top a road trip that consists of drag racing, car-show spectating, and cruising with a great group of people in cool old cars? Well, you keep the drag racing and hit a bigger car show. And you, er, change the name, to the “Car Craft West Coast Road Trip” so as not to offend the sensitive collective ego of our sister publication. Our 2001 plan was set: We’d convene at Los Angeles County Raceway (LACR) and race to our hearts’ content or until severe engine knock—whichever came first. In the early afternoon, we’d head out up US-14, then US-395, and spend the night in Bishop, California. We’d arrive in Reno the next afternoon to check out gearhead nirvana, a.k.a. Hot August Nights, and Sunday we’d make the return trip to SoCal. And that was pretty much the extent of our trip planning. No formal invitations, except for the blurb in the Aug. ’01 issue. No celebrity guests, just the Car Craft crew. No trick tuner cars or corporate-sponsored courtesy cars, just our own beaters and the readers’ rides. No fancy tow-truck for roadside rescues, just the FNG’s AAA Plus card.

But these plans were made to be broken, or at least delayed, ’cause any Car Craft-related event seems particularly prone to disaster. The first omen came as we were leaving LACR and Randy Henniger’s ’67 Ranchero wouldn’t start. Deep-fried battery terminals and a visibly cooked starter solenoid pointed to a heat-soaked starter. Editor Matt “I don’t need no stinking starter” King happily swapped out a good solenoid from his four-speed ’65 Falcon and the ’Chero fired right up. Problem solved—we push-started the Falcon and steered the group onto US-14 toward Bishop.

There ain’t much to see on US-14, and by the time we hit US-395, the area had become totally desolate. On a chance gas stop, we stumbled across a cool junkyard—“Pearson’s Salvage Yard and Hubcap City”—and scoped out some cool old tin and some really strange old junk. Again, King Matt led the group out and back onto the highway, and appointed Henry and the FNG as tail-gunners in the Buick. Say, Henry, where’d Randy’s Ranchero go? We found Randy and his buddy Earl peering under the hood amid the stench of burnt electrical parts, just as we heard the last of our crew buzzing down the highway into oblivion. And we thought only Chevys got heat-soaked starters. Out came the FNG’s AAA Plus card, and in drove Mr. James Brown (really!) with a flatbed tow truck. Mr. Brown assessed the problem, walked to his truck, returned with a dripping-wet iced rag, threw it over the starter for a minute, and fired up the Ford on the first try. There you have it: James Brown, the hardest working man in the tow business. That got us working on a “Tech Tips from Tow Truck Drivers” article. We rolled into Bishop way late, but Amigos Restaurant stayed open after closing for us, thanks to owner Neil Zakar. He’s a serious car guy with a ’64 428CJ-powered Galaxy, which makes him even cooler in our eyes.

The next day didn’t go so bad except for a minor accident that put Matt’s Falcon out of commission. Check the sidebar. Oh yeah, and we eventually made it to Reno for Hot August Nights. But after spending the better part of Saturday afternoon banging and stretching Matt’s Falcon back into useable shape, the only cars we were up for seeing were the few in the hotel parking lot. We kicked back with a few drinks, lost some money on the hotel’s blackjack tables, and called it a night. Believe it or not, we didn’t get a single photo of the Reno event. We did get an enthusiastic recap of the cruising and car show action while we drove back the following day, so we figure you’d have had a good time. We did, too. ’Cause a road trip isn’t about where you go, it’s about how you get there.