Day 7- Mobile, AL

Before I get to the beef. Let me start off by saying how big the PowerTour and our exposure was this year. We started the Powertour “officially” in 2007 with the re-launch of Cherry Bomb. Prior to that I did this show in a purple Dodge Caravan for two years, in some cases by myself no less. Every year it has grown exponentially.

 On to the stats.

Unofficial numbers for attendance this year was 3800+ Long Haulers, 25,000-35,000 spectators per stop, that’s seven stops at 245,000+ people came to see it. This not counting all the hundreds of people that was along the roadsides in all those towns as we blasted thru in the Dodge truck with our logo in their face. Not only that but there was Hot Rod TV filming (Speed Channel 2 million+ viewers) and Hot Rod website (with a couple of million hits per month!) documenting the event. The PowerTour issue of Hot Rod that comes out in Oct is their number one selling newsstand issue for the whole year. Their subscription base is over 450,000, which means newsstand is close to 1 million.  Last but not least Chad Reynolds at Bangshift told us today our coverage of the Dodge truck adventures was the most viewed portions of their website all week. They have over 6000 forum members not counting all the people that are not forum members that just go to the site to read hoodlum gearhead news.  Outside of Hot Rod the build of the Dodge truck by Stacy David was all we freakin talked about all week. There was not a single person that had not seen or heard about that truck we talked to. And the booth was packed every single day, even when we where shutting down to leave there was people in there the whole time. It’s awesome when people come up and say “thanks for doing this, we could not have Powertour without the sponsors” we heard that at every stop thru out the day. Since those first two years in a purple Carvan when it was “is Cherry Bomb still around?” to now its  “do you have this kit or that application and where can I buy it?” It blows my mind. So I am grateful to be a part of it all the way back to the start to now.  It’s all about building a relationship with people and making yourself legitimate to gearheads that buy the parts.

On to the grand finale.

We got up this morning in Birmingham and it was already hot, unbearably hot. Like I said in yesterday’s update Birmingham was too easy, we paid for it today. We drove thru the back roads of deep Alabama greeted by lots of Greg Fetner type people everywhere we went. We started into Greensboro, Al when I told Jon that something was not right with the truck. He was driving and pulled in by luckily an oil change place. I got out of the truck and checked the wheel that was bad from Chattanooga and sure enough it was coming loose. We pulled the truck around to the back of the shop and asked if we could use some of their tools. Those guys jumped right in and lets us do whatever we needed.  The inner race was egg shaped and was dark blue from heat. I needed some special tools to fix it and a guy that was just hanging out there offered us his shop up the road. Well turns out him and his brother restore classic Thunderbirds, so we were in luck. It’s amazing how the car people find each other no matter how far out in the bush you are. Too long hot hours later, we got everything buttoned up and laid down rubber to Mobile.  We stopped at a highway joint choke and puke and got a couple of “rib” sandwiches, forced them down and went on. This seemed like the longest, hottest, loudest, dirtiest, road trip I have ever taken in just the last two hours before we reached downtown Mobile. I was pretty much delirious for the last 30 miles. There was Powertour cars littering the sides of the road from broken driveshafts, overheating, brake problems, “rib” sandwich issues etc. Me and Jon was totally stoked to have actually driven this thing from Iowa to Mobile, it’s really not set in yet. There was people giving us high fives and thumbs up all the way into down town since we were like the last ones to get there. But we made it unscathed for the most part and got the Disturbing the Peace lifestyle spread out from Iowa to Mobile. Now what do we drive next year? You’ll see soon.

Bangshift

http://www.bangshift.com/blog/Guerilla-Power-Tour-Coverage-Cherry-Bomb-Guys-Finally-Defeat-Their-Own-Truck.html

Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photos.php?id=226976532204 

(Day 7 pictures are still loading)

Flickr from the road

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cherrybomb68/sets/72157624256269098/

June 6th Springfield, IL Downtown