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10: Several thousand filled the grandstand to watch the burnout contest.
11 11: Project aPocalypSe Horse was on hand after hitching a ride with from Virginia. RPM was in the house, too, handing out free mags and talking horsepower all weekend.
9: Tommy & Joy Phister’s ‘67 Camaro is as cool as they come. With owner-done paint & body, an incredible all-leather interior, and an NOS nitrous equipped 572 big block, it is the total package. It took Best GM in the Street Machine category. grounds as a total of 25,089 spectators looked on. Saturday was undoubtedly the busiest of the weekend with the long cruise circuit that ordinarily would take 15 minutes tops with no traffic slowed to a crawl, requiring more than an hour in the crush of stop-and-go high horsepower traffic by high noon. With participants hailing from all over the nation, none travelled a greater distance than Aussies Grant Hodgson and Colin Gobby. “If you pull out a globe and use a piece of string to check, you can see that there is no place on Earth further from Perth than Du Quoin, Il-
linois,” Gobby said. The cool blown and EFI’d righthand drive 1973 Falcon XA Coupe was recently awarded a Long Haul Gang award on the Power Tour and was a fan favorite at the Nats. The car will be driven to Chicago and soon will be crated in order to be returned to Australia later this year. A sprawling Manufacturer’s Midway allowed spectators plenty of chances to interact with representatives from a number of automotive performance companies. The COMP Cams Engine Builder Duel pitted teams against one another to see who could put together and fire a small block
Chevy engine the fastest. Nearby Southern Illinois University’s Department of Automotive Engineering hosted a Car Clinic to help participants with mechanical troubles either get repairs, source tools, or both. The well-appointed food court area kept the air filled with the smell of freshly grilled brats, funnel cakes, and other fairgrounds staples. The Lucas Oil Dyno Challenge gave participants the opportunity to see what kind of power their ride could put to the rear wheels. On Sunday, the Mickey Thompson burnout competition was a crowd favorite viewed by thousands in the
www.rpm-mag.com | august 2015
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