CapriJakes American road trip - Hot Rod Drag Week 2018

[caprijake]

EDIT: Link to whole album 400+ photos
flic.kr/s/aHsmibB7eY

Inspired by grizz and his wonderful trip blogs to the USA. I thought i would attempt one myself.
Hopefully i can keep up and remember enough about the day to write some bits in the evening.

So here we go, the plan:

I am heading over to to watch and follow Hot Rod Drag Week 2018, in Georgia, South/North Carolina, with a few other stops along the way
For those who don't know about Hot Rod Drag Week, heres some info:
www.hotrod.com/events/drag-week/
www.roadkill.com/video-insanity-all-the-video-from-hot-rod-drag-week-2017/

Its been a bit of a bucket list item for me, one day ill ship something over and compete, or build a car in the states, compete and then ship it home.

Who am i traveling with?
My Dad, hes never been to the states before, and has been a bit jealous of my approx: 7 trips 5 of which have been on my own and have been having a blast.
He mentioned he wanted to go and see some Drag racing in America, being a regular attendee of Santa Pod himself.
I told him about Drag Week, and he seemed keen but wouldn't go alone. Being the kind and generous son i am, i offered to take him....if he paid.
Couple weeks later it was booked and paid....for by him. All planned and arranged by myself.

Heres a rough route. Will change day to day as i will be following mostly the official route the racers have to follow



We fly tomorrow morning at 11am from Heathrow to Atlanta and damn it feels good to have some time off work. Its been hectic the past .... 6 months.
Tonight is packing time. The important bits first. The documenting equipment



More tomorrow

[davethepieman]

Checking in and belting down.

[georgeb]

Oh aye, I'll have some of this.

[grizz]

Of course we are along for the ride.


Keep posting, we will be here.

[Deleted]

Have been on Power Tour once and visited the HotRod offices in 2007. I'm looking forward to your shenanigans!!👍👍

[ems1]

Excellent, another road trip to follow.

[caprijake]

DAY 1 - Saturday 8th

Woke up and headed on over to pickup my dad and head to the Airport. (7:30am)



Arrived and check-in was manic, took us 1.5 hours to get through the bag drop and still had a quarter left. Luckily they did a last call for our flight and ushered us to the front of the queue.
We made it though and our bags were safety on board.



To help me cope with my dad for a whole week, ive decided to amuse myself in taking alot of photos of him when he least expects it. Ill save you all from seeing every single one, but ill throw in the occasional snap



We landed! and waiting for a bus to take us to the Car rental place. We spent 2 hours in the passport control room waiting to get through. Every line they sent us in, had a constant need of translators. So when you have to wait 10 minutes every few people its get a little grating. Grabbed our bags (Already off the carousel in a pile of 4 bags. Everyone else had come and gone! grrrrr



Got to the car rental place and they didn't have the Mustang.... typical. They had a convertible. But we decided to go for the Camaro instead.


Didn't take a picture of the mileage as soon as i picked it up but was about 9,300
Also didnt get the GoPro hooked up as we just wanted to get today sorted. Plus a bunch of the driving would be at night


Met up with a friend of mine i met in NYC in 2014. Great guy kept in touch ever since, And as he was down the road. Ideal time to say hi and eat some BBQ food.



Its certainly not going to win any Instagram Food awards, but damn this Brisket was goooood


Obligatory selfie, terrible shot with the light behind. Oh well


Off we go up to Huntsville Alabama (3 hour drive approx)
I feel bad we didnt stop and photo some of the old cars/trucks and signs we saw along the way. But we just needed to get to our hotel and veg out. Eyes were starting to feel weary 2.5 hours into the drive and the hotel couldnt have come sooner


I promise retro goodness in the days to come!

A hint for whats on tomorrow (For my dad anyway)


BED TIME. CARIJAKE OUT - 05:04 UK time.

[Deleted]

That photo of the brisket is proper retro. Could pass that off as taken in 1970 😂😂😂

[georgeb]

Sept 9, 2018 4:34:56 GMT @johnnybravo said:

That photo of the brisket is proper retro. Could pass that off as taken in 1970 😂😂😂

If it was 1970, it'd have more chips!

[forkliftfred]

Two epic road trips to follow. Awesomeness.

[georgeb]

Good, innit?

[gtviva]

Ooh great another road trip! perfect breakfast reading, more tea required!

[Deleted]

What engine did the Camaro have? Do you like the car,how it drives?

Looking forward to updates!

[caprijake]

Sept 9, 2018 4:34:56 GMT @johnnybravo said:

That photo of the brisket is proper retro. Could pass that off as taken in 1970 😂😂😂

I know right. The place looks decent but the food they serv is like make it at home yourself style. No presentation points. But it was really nice. Chips suck, but that’s America in general!

[caprijake]

Sept 9, 2018 7:49:49 GMT @hotrodder said:

What engine did the Camaro have? Do you like the car,how it drives?

Looking forward to updates!

It’s the v6 unfortunately. It drives ok. Only done 9k miles so it’s quite new. But pulls slightly to the right when driving. All tyre pressures are the same. Little annoying.
The visibility is ass. I mean so terrible, pulling out of some tight junctions is like well. I hope there’s nothing coming and I don’t die...
I’m not dead yet tho. So 👍🏻
The v6 is lacking in power, quite slow tbh.
Gearbox is pretty sluggish, especially on the downshift. But I never get on with autos.

[Deleted]

You're describing the Camaro almost exactly like the guy in my village who has one too.

Another fellow here (Belgium) is gonna buy the 4 pot turbo,might be a bit peppier.

The V8 is hardly sold here due to taxes.

You hired a Mustang V8 earlier,didn't you? That was probably more your thing😉
Really looking forward to your trip! I follow drag week and pumpgas drags etc on the hotrod site too,and buy the mag monthly. Enjoy every minute of it guys!👍👍

[caprijake]

Day 2 - 09.09.2018 Part1 - Alabama Space and Rocket museum

So my dad likes all things NASA and wanted to visit this museum.
I had planned to go and see a friend in Nashville for the day while he was at the Museum, but last minute we had to cancel our plans. Originally we were going to do the Tennessee state fair. But weather put a stop to that, and also things came up for her and wasn't free within my Window. So i did the museum with my dad.

I'm not much of a rocket and space fan, but the museum was pretty cool and had a bunch of scale models of Army equipment i thought were cool.


Here's some photos. See full album link in original post to see all the photos.
Saturn 1 rocket

Saturn V







A real life barn find Airstream. Happened to be the NASA mobile quarantine facility






We left the museum to head back to Georgia Drag Way area ready for racing to start tomorrow.
Along the way we stopped at a few Antique shops first place we saw this awesome looking Ford, left out in the rain, looked clean hopefully its not going to stay there and rot.
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr

And an awesome home made tot rod inside. I really wanted to bring this home!



This place was cool, nothing inside we wanted but some odd stuff.
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr



Had a pretty clean looking Plymouth out the back, slowly going back to nature.



Bought a few license plates, although forgot to photo them. My goal is to collect one from each state i visit. Up until i have all 50.

Just arrived at the hotel. And there's some drag cars in the car park. Heading out for Dinner soon. So will post part 2 of today later. With some competing drag cars View from my rooms window, a bunch more round back

[grizz]

Cool update Jake, thank you.

Pleased you guys are having fun.

We are just headed up into Iowa tomorrow on week two of our trip, using Dennis’ son Adams Short Silverado.

It was a choice between that, the Hellcat or the Challenger.

Decided to try be real good ole boys.

[caprijake]

Sept 10, 2018 2:04:19 GMT grizz said:

Cool update Jake, thank you.

Pleased you guys are having fun.

We are just headed up into Iowa tomorrow on week two of our trip, using Dennis’ son Adams Short Silverado.

It was a choice between that, the Hellcat or the Challenger.

Decided to try be real good ole boys.

Cheers Grizz, thats a tough old choice, i would have gone for the Hellcat, or the Challenger or the Silverado!
Have fun on the next part of the trip! Only 1 week here myself

Spotted these cars tonight while popping over to Applebees for a spot of dinner and some beers. Didn't have to go out my way to find them!



These 2 guys have come from NY i assume driven as no trailers around. Props to them








Mustang on a drive past, iPhone camera not good in the dark with moving things!


My dads name is Steve...



The waitress did her best English accent, it was terrible. Apparently they like to do an English accent, you know the standard Downton Abbey style accent. When they are having a bad day to cheer each other up.

[SmokeEm]

You really are living my dream. One day I too will follow the drag week trail. Awesome!