Hot Rod Power Tour 2024
2024 marked 30 years of Hot Rod Magazines Hot Rod Power Tour, whiplashing north and south through the Midwest with calculated routes for all the townsfolk to observe.
This is our 4th time hitting the show, and we’ve marked 2 years without a medical incident. I’m of course referring to the great heat stroke of Memphis ‘22. The trick is to chug a Gator-lite the night before the show and to not say no when people offer you water.
Since then we’ve posted up with our friends at Pilot Transport, with GM Joe Parks rocking our John R’s on his Ford and the Weavers bringing their yearly tour build with some steelies too. This year they brought “Black Label”, their ’58 Apache on Detroit Steel Wheel Macks.
We hopped on in Hebron, OH, catching our buddy Brian Measel in the AM for set up after a long night of traffic jams for them. The pilot guys are rockstars and crush it every year with their dedication to repping successfully at the show. Along with them is Murray Pfaff with something unique and the Tredwear USA crew displaying their product on their latest builds. No group we’d rather be with!
So like I said, we hit set up in the morning in Hebron, getting our Detroit Steel Wheels suburban displayed and waiting for the noon start time. Plenty of rides were rolling in pre-show so I hopped on my incredibly efficient if not dorky scooter and set out to find our people. Cruising parallel to the strip, I spotted the Knox family and their Truck, two tone sitting on our Delrays. love seeing some newer vehicles kicking it oldschool with our products.
Zipping back up, Painless Performance Products was setting up, with our buddy Tim King brought his Cadillac (Brodillac) Limo to display. He’s been taking this everywhere for as long as I can remember, one of a kind ride on our D-Towns.
The show is massive, and honestly I can say I blanketed the scope all day and still missed some rides. There were obviously a couple I had been tracking on social but I knew there’d be even more that I needed to be prepared for. Front row in the lot right next to the entrance sat the little mechanics suburban, with parents Ryan and Kristen Miller towing the little mechanics, their sons Jameson and Joshua. My goal was to get a group together for photoshoots later on that day and so far we had some nice diversity in builds.
Our friends at QA1 (shout out to Dave!) housed Jonathon Urquhart’s Cummins swap 1959 Ford on our Ambassadors, complete with an EV charging port because lol. We had Jon and his crew link up with us after the show at our shoot location, but before we get to that I have to give a huge shout out to the hustle from Adam and Steve in productivity and efficiency in covering the rides that landed in Hebron. Steve would flag down anyone rolling through the exit for a shoot, I’d do my thing while they’d hang out, whole thing just worked out perfectly.
Had these two chevs roll up and a sick ’69 Lincoln owned by Chad Lane on our D-Towns. He’s running 20×11″ in the rear, don’t see a lot of those and it looked killer. I worked through shooting the rides while all their friends hung back to wait for them, chilling with our crew and giving us the opportunity to answer any questions they had too.
With no time to run home and change, we took the show aura with us to Hereinafter Tavern, a little place that was close to where we were staying that looked close to the charming Ohio man-made lake. All I had was my map view of the area to work off of, and I wanted to make sure everyone could hang out and grab dinner while we shot.
The spot had a perfect back yard, nestled next to a little creek, farmland in the background, memorial site, and posed perfectly in the sunset. As always with these things, I proceed as planned and ask for forgiveness later. Adam went inside to snag a 20ish-top and Steve and I got started placing vehicles.
I’ve got to say thank you to Matt and his crew at Hereinafter Tavern for the hospitality and incredible food. The building looks pretty industrial on the outside, so we weren’t expecting anything more than some standard bar food. Everyone kept coming out as we switched rides and said how amazing everything was in there, and when I tell you I had the best one-of-a-kind shrimp and lobster Reuben, like, I mean it. This aint a foodie blog though, so let me wrap this up.
This show has been so much fun every year. We get to be on the ground and hang out with everyone, catch up with long time friends, and capture every moment. We love being right there to celebrate our customers. As we were waiting at the exit gate, I couldn’t help but notice we were the only ones there pulling rides aside to shoot. That’s who we are, that’s why we choose to roll with everyone and walk the show finding everyone that reps our brands. We are here to invest in those that invest in us, and we always will be. Company growth builds success, and we will always stay true to our promises reflecting our character and values that built our brands.
So, to close things out, check out some of our photoshoot pics!
