Burnouts, Rainstorms, and Good Times at Day 3 of the 2021 HOT ROD Power Tour!

HOT ROD Power Tour Presented by HP Tuners and Driven by Continental Tire

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We were really looking forward to Day 3 of the 2021 HOT ROD Power Tour. Partly because we love the destination, Indianapolis, Indiana, and partly because we were starting to figure out the program for how this event works. The drive didn’t look too long, just 128 miles. But Tuesday taught us that the estimated time, in this case about 3 hours, may not be accurate in the real world.

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This leg would have us leaving Ohio for Indiana. Now anyone that lives here can tell you that the weather is a bit unpredictable. The forecast called for rain but we were hoping we would luck out a bit.

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The cruise started out great and our 2019 ZL1/1LE was a blast to drive. We think all of our old cars need to get retrofitted with ventilated seats.

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Yeah, the odd things you find along the way during the Power Tour. We’re not even sure what this is, but we really want to LS swap it.

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Lots of small towns along the way which gave us plenty of places to stop for some coffee or snacks. We must say that it’s been great to see these slices of Americana that are off the main interstates that most people take.

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There were also lots of tracks along the way.

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About halfway through the cruise we came across a large group of cars that had pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned business. As we suspected shenanigans were about to go down.

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Yep, burnouts. Aside from the white caddy four-door in our lead image there was also a nice red 2005 GTO that was lighting them up. Sadly the high RPM tossed the belt, but the owner said this has happened before so she grabbed some tools and sorted it out.

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Yes, that’s a Honda mini-bike doing burnouts in the bed of a classic truck. The truck tried to do a burnout while the bike was doing one but couldn’t break the tires loose. Too bad, it would have been the beginning of a burnout turducken.

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Does the Hot Rod Power Tour still happen in the rain?

And that’s when our cruise went from fun to soaked. A huge lightning storm enveloped us and there was torrential rain, lighting, and heavy winds. Flooded streets provided a fresh challenge for the drivers as we crawled our way towards the Lucas Oil Raceway drag strip. The Hot Rod Power Tour is a “Rain or Shine” event.

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By the time we got to the venue the storm had passed and things were slowly drying out. As you can see the rain didn’t scare away the participants.

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Like yesterday another participant found himself swapping out a blown third member. This time it was in an LSA-swapped 1968 Camaro. Like we said, pack well for Power Tour and try to think of the common, and less than common, parts that can fail on such a long drive.

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Just after lunch the track started drying off the drag strip so people could get some racing done. By 2pm cars were making passes.

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That massive storm hammered our Camaro and it was a muddy mess from driving through construction areas. Thankfully TJ was there with his mobile car wash truck. Let’s just say he washed a lot of filthy hot rods that afternoon and he was worth every penny.

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A Mini Cooper at the Hot Rod Power Tour? Well, for one we allow all cars on the Power Tour, but if you look closely at the engine on this one you will see that it’s every bit a hot rod.

Burnout Winner! | HOT ROD Power Tour 2021 at Summit Motorsports Park

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UP NEXT

The guys over at HP Tuners offered to clean up the tune on our Camaro and tweak it a bit to take advantage of the Rotofab cold-air intake we installed before leaving North Carolina. We’re glad they did since we found the intake tube had popped off at some point, which wasn’t helping our performance at all. They also deleted the annoying CAGS (also called Skip-Shift). Tomorrow we head to Saint Louis, Missouri, and good times at World Wide Technologies Raceway! At 242 miles it’s one of the longest legs, so we’re going to want to get an early start.

Watch: The burnout competition winner from Day 1 of the Power Tour.