Happy New Year And Here We Go Again...

1/2/19 -- The America's Automotive Trust Drive Home events celebrate the past, present, and future of the automobile. These drives are fun and exciting and at the same time challenging; after all, 12- to 14-hour days behind the wheel of a 50+ year-old car with no power steering that handles like a... 50+ year-old car with no power steering... takes focus and energy and isn't for the faint of heart. That's probably why at the end of the last two Drive Home events I told my wife: "Do me a favor, don't let me do this again..."

Well, she didn't do her part and here I am, like a moth to the flame, readying for our longest Drive Home yet -- a 2,700-mile zig-zag route that begins in Houston Jan. 3 and culminates in Detroit Jan. 12 with a drive down Woodward Avenue and a celebration to help open the North American International Auto Show.

And as if the distance wasn't enough, there's another little twist this year: We're driving some of the highest selling and hardest working vehicles ever made, ones that have been in great measure the backbone of our country's transportation network and a seminal part of our automotive history -- pickup trucks. 

Below are a couple of the workhorses that our friends Renee and Dale from LeMay-America's Car Museum readied for our little jaunt. We'll also have trucks from Hagerty, the NB Center and other car caravan-crashers we'll welcome with open arms. More photos and trucking tales to come as we make stops to check in with sponsors like State Farm and Shell as well as car collectors and other enthusiasts along the way.     

Now don't let my initial trepidation and second-guessing fool you; at the outset of this shiny new year I'm stoked to reunite with the team and climb behind the wheel for this next great Drive Home adventure, truckin' style. And as I get ready to board the plane today for Houston, I feel the Grateful Dead whispering in my ear:

Truckin', got my chips cashed in. Keep truckin', like the do-dah man

Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin' on....

Day 1 – A Staccato Rhythm With Hard Transitions

1/3/19 -- Professional journalism might be described as the art of connecting observations and perspective in a finely-woven story, a tapestry from which a compelling picture emerges. Or something like that.

Well, this is not that because the only way I can describe today is in a staccato rhythm without the luxury of smooth transitions, so here goes:

1. Pre-dawn start and the lights on my 55 Chevrolet ¾ ton truck don’t work. Quick text conversation with Dale Wickell back at LeMay; he cogitates a bit and says the dimmer switch in the floorboard may be stuck; bingo, lights on and running.

2. Great morning event hosted by Shell Oil, courtesy of Pam Rosen and her team. They wined and dined us with breakfast burritos, coffee, and a full tank of gas, and Houston State Farm Agents Jose Vasquez and Bao Tran came by to help give us a sendoff.

3. Houston was wet and the drive to Dallas was wetter. Stayed off the interstate to take the load off the trucks and things got interesting a few times.

4. Great lunch at Doc’s BBQ in Crockett, Texas, but our chief mechanic and schedule manager Dave Hord says we’re an hour behind and we gotta go.

5. I lag behind in the 55, lose my way and somewhere north of Palestine in the middle of the south Texas scrublands the engine starts knocking. I think she needs oil but oil’s in the other truck. Dang. I stop at a house that has Texas Chainsaw Massacre written all over it and thankfully no one answers.

6. I go another couple of miles down the road and find a house with a polite old gentleman curious about my predicament. About that time the Hennessy boys (more about them tomorrow) come by in the TrackHawk jeep and give me oil. The 55 is still knocking so I call Dave with the truck and trailer and he rescues me.

7. Riding with Dave and towing the 55, he starts making calls – and this is the amazing thing about the car community. A half dozen phone calls later he’s got the okay from Aaron Kaufman (Gas Monkey Garage fame) to take the truck to Aaron’s shop for diagnostics. Crazy good luck.

8. Dave drops me off at our scheduled event at State Farm Cityline in Dallas and heads for Aaron’s shop. I connect with State Farm colleagues include my old Public Affairs compadre Jeff Davis.

9. Oh, in the meantime, the International Travelette lost power along the road and the team put a new battery in it to get to the State Farm event. More to come on that as well.

10. Crap. Dale just texted me. He spoke to Dave at Aaron’s garage. No. 2 rod bearing is bad on the 55 and it damaged the crankshaft. Looks like we’ll be towing it to Detroit. Crap.  

Sorry for the staccato rhythm and hard transitions. More sorry that the 55 is in tough shape, but Dale is already talking about how we can get her running for the drive down Woodward Avenue in Detroit. That’s the spirit of the Drive Home Team and the spirit of the car community in general. You enjoy the ride, you take some lumps, but no matter what happens, you have to keep on truckin’. 

PS: Special thanks to State Farm and Shell for their gracious hosting and to Aaron Kaufman and Arclight for being there when we needed them! 

Day 2 – Of Cannibals, Porters, And Disturbing Dolls In Cars

1/4/19 -- The Drive Home IV Team was on the road today out of Dallas well before sunup after route instructions from Dave and a quick Starbucks breakfast. I was nominated to drive the 1966 Ford and had the pleasure of Arkansas native and journalist Kevin Jones of Trailer Body Builders as my co-pilot and navigator.

It was at this point I learned that Brad Phillips of Hagerty had cannibalized the generator from the still-trailered 55 Chevy to solve the electrical problems of the International Travelette. 

Concerned at first, I soon realized that the ol’ 55 was like an organ donor whose harvested generator would help save the life of another of our vehicle brethren. Besides, Brad promised to give it back by the time we reached Detroit – and returning donated organs doesn’t often happen in the medical world, right? -- so I chocked it up to another creative solution by our DHIV Team. Way to go, Brad.

On the road, our first “must-see” stop was the Texas-stylized Eiffel Tower in Paris Texas, and we all agreed that everything is big in Texas with this as the potential exception.

Moving on, we tooled through a sliver of Oklahoma and into De Queen AR, for lunch at the Stillwell Restaurant. While there, we attracted the attention of Meghan McMahen, president of the De Queen Chamber who posed with some of our team in front of her office.

Speaking of our team, yesterday I promised detail about “the Hennessey Boys” -- David Hebrank and Coleman Kirkpatrick -- who were dispatched from Houston to join our caravan in a Jeep Trackhawk by John Hennessey of Hennessey Peformance.

David and Coleman are porters for Hennessey Performance, a job they describe as “doing a little bit of everything,” but in my book they’re also the luckiest guys in the world. I mean whose boss tells them, “Hey, why don’t you take this 1200-hp Jeep Trackhawk on a cross-country trip with a bunch of Drive Home IV yahoos and have some fun?” That’s pretty much the way it happened, and btw the 1200-hp is not a typo – the Trackhawk is a smokin’, screamin’ performance marvel. Anyway, the Hennessey boys, David and Coleman, are cool young fellas who are fun to have around, and they’ve brought the average age of our group down by a decade and at least doubled our hipness.    

Back on the road in Arkansas we tooled through beautiful downtown Hot Springs, and after a gas stop my partner Kevin took the wheel and led the procession to downtown Little Rock for a great dinner at the Copper River Restaurant, where we were joined by his darling wife Laurie.   

But there was one event that left Kevin and I a bit unsettled. When he at one point on our journey popped open the Ford glove box, inside was a Barbie Doll in a somewhat scantily clad summer dress and a cigar. Odd, disturbing, and a bit weird, right?  

I confronted Bill and he claimed – with at least a fair degree of credibility -- no knowledge; I called Dale at LeMay and he gave me a virtual shrug. My hope is that the doll soon disappears as quickly  as she showed up. More to come on that mystery and onward for a looooong drive to Sewanee, TN tomorrow!

Cheers and Regards from Little Rock, which bills itself as home of the cheese dog and brown-and-serve rolls, and the only purse museum in America!

Day 3 -- Highway 61 Revisited And Four States In One Day

1/5/19 -- The morning of our Drive Home IV Team’s third day on the road found us motoring east out of Little Rock enjoying a foggy and gorgeous sunrise, passing vast rice and soybean fields and a sky full of ducks (this territory has some of the best duck hunting in the country according to our friend Kevin Jones).

Crossing the mighty Mississippi we couldn’t resist an unplanned hard right turn south on Highway 61 (think Bob Dylan) to Clarksdale, MS, home to the Blues and the famed Devil’s Crossroads. 

There, where 61 intersects Highway 49, it’s said that in the 1930s Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for tuning his guitar to give him mystical talent. 

Apparently, part of the legend grew out of the fact that Johnson was an aspiring blues guitarist who disappeared for a few years and resurfaced a much-improved blues player.  

We rolled into Clarksdale and after investing in the local economy at a T-shirt shop, we checked out the Delta Blues Museum. Incredible music history here.

Just before leaving town, we bumped into Bubba O’Keefe, a Clarksdale native and director of tourism. Bubba was full of information about the area’s redevelopment, and he and David Madeira connected immediately, discussing how America’s Automotive Trust might partner with Clarksdale in the future.

Speaking of partnerships, David offered to be an angel investor in a new business opportunity I found along the way that I'm sure we could get at a fairly reasonable price. 

Because of our detour, lunch was a hurried Shell gas stop in Tupelo where Brad Phillips swore he ate the best gas station chicken in the world. For myself, I dined on fried shrimp and hushpuppies and topped it off with my first-ever fried Twinkie. Like Brad, I have to say that – besides chicken -- the Tupelo Shell puts out world-class fried Twinkies.

The rest of the afternoon was a drive up the absolutely beautiful Natchez Trace Parkway with very little traffic and Muddy Waters playing on my iphone. By evening, four states, 13 hours, and 531 miles later, we arrived at our hotel in Kimball, TN. Over margaritas and Mexican dinner, the Hennessey boys (who had been separated from us for a portion of the afternoon) shared their encounter with an Alabama police officer who gifted them a citation for going 80 in a 65. Non-plussed by the event, the boys said they congratulated the officer for pulling over the fastest SUV on the planet, and they even treated him to a bonus tour of the engine compartment, which they said he greatly enjoyed.          

Big day tomorrow, 300 miles to Greenville, SC, a trip over the historic Cherohala Skyway, and much more fun and adventure ahead for the Drive Home IV Team.  

Day 4 – Today We Got Our Money’s Worth -- And We Had A Lot of Fun To Boot

1/6/19 -- Like preceding Drive Home events, America’s Automotive Trust designed this one with its own unique concept to help celebrate the past, present, and future of the American automobile. Besides using pickup trucks, Drive Home IV is focused on traveling America’s backroads, touring two-lane byways to give us a visceral feel for the geography and landscape that you just can’t get from the freeway. A really cool concept and today delivered that experience in spades. Today we got our money’s worth for nearly 300 miles from Tennessee through North and South Carolina, and I was struck by the fact that the hills of the Carolinas seem to go on nearly forever.

Out of Kimball, TN in the morning and up over Cherohala Skyway, I rode with our road boss, Diane Flis-Schneider (we call her Vonda, but that’s another story), in the hefty Chevy Trail Boss pickup that GM provided for the drive. With trailer behind, Vonda handled the thing like a Porsche on the narrow mountain roads. She was most impressive and if I ever learn how to pull a trailer, I want to pull one like she does. For context, Cherohala is North Carolina’s most expensive highway that extends 18 miles up to an elevation of 5,400 feet with magnificent views of the Appalachians, and we ran across patches of ice and snow at various points along the way.

On the other side of Cherohala we had a team lunch at Lynn’s in Robbinsville, and then I again took over the 1965 Ford pickup, piloting it through the winding terrain for what was absolutely the most exhilarating driving experience I have had in my life. We drove about 140 miles for the next four hours mesmerized by never-ending curves and I swear I saw more than 100 of these signs along the way:

The only concern that arose during my drive was a glaze on the windshield that made it difficult to see at times in the glare of the afternoon sun. Bill attributed it to salt laid down for the ice patches on Cherohala, but I’m convinced it was caused by vapor coming from under the hood where he had placed a taco in tin foil on the manifold earlier in the day. (Yes, taco on the manifold. Tasty.) 

A few more fun tidbits from the day:

Here’s Brad showing that Drive Home IV photographers will do anything to get a good shot of their vehicles with an interesting background. 

Here’s Tellico Plains, TN Police Chief Russ Parks admiring the Track Hawk and posing for a faux arrest of the Hennessey Boys.

Here’s a shot of Dave applying bourbon maple syrup to a squeaking belt in the Ford (It did the trick, and as a Canadian, Dave knows a lot about the many uses of maple products). And to toast the successful belt application, Dave and Bill decide to have a belt of their own.     

Today we got our money’s worth and then some – great weather, scenery and fun, all with a great team. Finally, we also got some terrific news: Dale back at LeMay arranged for the 55 Chevy to be fixed by a shop in Hendersonville, so Dave dropped it off there and we should be able to pick it up tomorrow. While we’ll still trailer it to Detroit, if all goes well we may still be able to drive it down Woodward avenue for the final procession into Cobo Hall. Thanks, Dale and Dave!

Day 5 – Warm Weather, New Friends, and Flying Sparks

1/7/19 -- Day five of our Drive Home IV trek was full of warm weather and warm receptions by new friends, many of whom were introduced to us by Pam Rosen and Jim Applebee from Shell. We started with a gathering at Tommy Pike Customs in Greenville. Tommy does elaborate restorations and customizations and he gave us a tour of his shop before following us on our trip to Charlotte. Besides turning out exquisite cars, Tommy has a hilarious sense of humor and would be a rollicking fella to have a beer with. Next time, Tommy.  

While at Tommy’s, I was introduced to my F-100 driving partner for the morning, Emily Reeves of Flying Sparks Garage. 

“Flying sparks” pretty much describes Emily – she not only has an electric personality, but she’s also an amazingly focused businesswoman and entrepreneur -- and she somehow fits in modeling and acting into her world as well. But wait, there’s more! For the last few years, Emily and her husband Aaron have focused their attention on creating a broad and rapidly growing YouTube presence with Flying Sparks (more than 67,000 subscribers), and their new series Live Love Wrench just premiered on MotorTrend TV. If you haven’t checked out Flying Sparks on YouTube (or Instagram, @imemilyreeves, 91,000 followers), you’re missing out; in the meantime, here’s a clip of Emily driving the F-100 and describing how she and Aaron came up with the name “Flying Sparks:”

https://youtu.be/Bbl_Ewi3aew 

From Greenville, our caravan headed north in the morning sun to Mooresville, N.C., home of Penske Racing. There we met NASCAR driver Joey Logano, an incredibly personable and friendly Team Penske racing superstar, and we were given an insider’s tour of the enormous Penske Racing headquarters and shop. 

Back in the trucks we headed for a grand opening event of an Autozone superstore (open 24 hours!) in Charlotte where we attracted several enthusiasts who brought out their own vehicles to help us enjoy the sunny North Carolina afternoon.

Finally, we drove a few hours into the evening and made it to Asheville for the night. Tomorrow we turn the trucks back west toward Louisville and new adventures. Stay tuned for more Drive Home IV fun to come! 

Day 6 – Long Drive, Long Lunch, Short Blog

1/8/19 -- Today was a 330-mile jaunt from Asheville to Louisville that puts us at close to 2,200 miles for our trip so far. With so much driving there and all the rigs running well, there wasn’t a ton to report but here’s a few snippets:

Our first stop outside of Asheville was Hot Springs, the other Hot Springs in Tennessee. A cute little town with many quaint storefronts and a great place to get a photo of the Drive Home IV cars.

Next up was lunch at the County Seat Café in Tazewell, TN, a referral we got from a guy in a parking lot who said it was the best lunch in town. A little hard to find, the County Seat appeared to be in an old VFW hall and was spartan in its furnishings, but it made up for things in its great viddles. Run by a pair of sisters and one of their husbands, the restaurant had all the markings of a classic cafeteria and because the food was a little slow in getting to our tables Vonda quickly pitched in to help serve. 

Earlier that morning, Brad (the cannibal from previous posts) confessed that he had lost the gas cap on the International and tried to pirate away the Chevy’s gas cap but it didn’t fit. (Really, Brad, stealing the gas cap, that's what it’s come to?...)

Speaking of the Chevy, bad news – while the bearings and crankshaft were given temporary repairs in Hendersonville, it would be foolhardy to try to drive it down Woodward Avenue for our final procession, so she’ll remain trailer-bound for the duration of the trip. The good news is that Dale from LeMay has already identified parts to get it repaired when it returns to Tacoma.

We topped the evening off with a grand BBQ dinner at Against the Grain Brewery in Louisville, where we toasted Brad Phillips, Steve Purdy, and Bob Giles who are heading out tomorrow, but welcome Tabetha Hammer from Hagerty!!

Stay tuned for more Drive Home IV adventures to come as we ready for an early morning Shell event and head west toward Indiana tomorrow!   

Day 7 – Goodbye Mr. Sunshine, Hello Mr. Snow

1/9/19 -- Winter was in the windy Louisville morning air on day 7 of our Drive Home IV trip. Joining us was Hagerty’s Tabetha Hammer, our road boss from last year’s drive, and she replaced Brad Phillips who left our cadre for business on Day 6. Up early as is our pattern, we helped Shell celebrate the opening of one of its new prototype stores called Shell Select. The store’s modern design (think upscale Starbucks, deli, and fuel stop rolled into one) is certainly a cut above the normal gas/convenience store, and the staff were all super friendly.

Shell corporate also brought along the Rotella Gas Truck that is being raffled off, and it made a bold statement in front of the store. This is a Tommy Pike Custom Ram 1500 with a hemi, full wrap, and all the rack fixin’s to haul a four-wheeler. Bill is convinced he’s going to win it, but I entered the drawing to help spoil his chances.

ESPN Radio Louisville showed up as part of the festivities to do their morning show and interview David; beyond hearing about our drives and America’s Automotive Trust, they got an extra bonus courtesy of Monte Cristo, one of our sponsors.

Departing Shell, we pointed the trucks west-northwest into Indiana with Bill as my navigator and co-pilot in the strong-running F-100. At some point we realized that Barbie had been sequestered too long in the glovebox so we brought her out to get some air, but it’s obvious we need to take her somewhere to get her hair done.  

Lunch at the 12^th Street Café in Muncie, IN offered home cooking and good conversation with Vonda and David about our trip so far and how we can make future Drive Homes even more successful.

In the parking lot of the café we finally pulled the trigger on a prank that Dave engineered. A couple days ago, he wired the International’s horn to the blinker with a switch that he could activate at a strategic time. Our original target was Brad Phillips, but his departure left Tabetha as our victim. Dave gave our group the super-secret signal that it was time to execute the gag, and we watched Tabetha’s confusion unfold as the horn blared in synch with her blinker. The only disappointment was that Tabetha is a graduate of McPherson College and an ace mechanic so after about 10 seconds of laughing she was under the dash and quickly disarmed Dave’s work. It’s hard to pull one over on Tabetha.

Back on the road to Auburn with the wind whipping up snow flurries, I contacted several State Farm agents to let them know about our cars and coffee event at the Gilmore and National Automotive and Truck museums the next day and invited them out. 

One of them, Morgan Hefty (a third-generation State Farm agent in Auburn) is the archetype State Farm agent who loves to help people, and he volunteered to come to the Country Heritage Winery just outside of Auburn to meet us. 

He then gave us recommendations for dinner, and when we parked our cars at our hotel (which was right beside his office) he chauffeured us in his Suburban to dinner downtown. Morgan was so welcoming and personable that two members of our team asked if I knew him. I’d never talked to him before today, but as I reflect on my 33 years with State Farm, it’s people like Morgan who have made my career so special. As huge as our company is, there is still a sense of family among our agents and employees, and I’ve often told my kids if they are ever anywhere and get into a jam, they can always go to a State Farm agent’s office for help.

Thanks for “helping life go right” for us tonight, Morgan – our team looks forward to seeing you tomorrow at the museums.