Day Four may have been the coolest of all. Our first stop was to West Mineral, Kansas, where we made a visit to "Big Brutus." Ron was looking forward to Brutus for reasons I couldn't understand until I saw it for myself. If you have no idea of what this is, you're not alone. Turns out "Big Brutus," although no longer in service, is the second-largest electric shovel in the world. Weighing in at over 11 million tons and with a top speed of .22 mph, this isn't exactly what you would call a "hot rod," but it is a must-see for the mechanically inclined.
Our next stop was to Carl Junction, Missouri, where we visited Rusty Jackson's Odd Rod Creations. Rusty opened for business recently and invited the Americruise tour to stop by for some down-home cookin' and to check out the new digs. As one of the most talented of the new-generation car builders, Rusty will be making his mark on the hobby very soon.
Next stop was Springfield, Missouri, at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds as we again joined up with the Hot Rod Power Tour. This was a great venue for the tour as there was more room for the cars to comfortably park during the event.
On Day Five we finally got a new cooling fan shipped over from Vintage Air to our hotel in Springfield. With no time to install it right away, we headed out to Gateway International Raceway to join up with the Hot Rod Power Tour one more time. Along the way, we made a stop at Bigfoot 4x4 in St. Louis for lunch and a shop tour. This shop is where they house, build, and maintain all the Bigfoot monster trucks. It was quite amazing to see the size of these trucks in person. There's actually quite a lot of history here that made this stop really interesting.
Being that Gateway International Raceway is just about 15 miles or so from the Bigfoot shop, we made it to our destination in just a few minutes. The heat and humidity became somewhat of a concern since we hadn't installed the new fan, but we made it to the show without any overheating problems. After taking in a few drag races, we made our way through the midway to present Flowmaster with a plaque recognizing them as one of the official sponsor of Americruise 2004.
Day Six was a long one driving-miles-wise, so we had to head out early. After chasing an electrical grounding problem with our roadster the night before, we didn't get to our room until after midnight, so we were feeling a little rough around the edges. I took the opportunity to travel with a few different guys so I could get some shots of Ron driving the Road Tour car. This may have been the biggest mistake I made the whole trip. Due to our trusty driving instructions not being so trusty, some of the group got separated on the way to Heidt's Rod Shop in Wauconda, Illinois. I realized we'd taken a wrong freeway ramp and were heading in the wrong direction for about 8 miles. After a look at an atlas, we got turned back into the right direction. Ron, on the other hand, was in possession of the same directions that got us lost. After a few mayday calls on the cell phone, we got our man turned around and we were all heading in the right direction.