2007 Hot Rod Power Tour & Collegiate Power Challenge

Hot Rod Power Tour(tm) Hhr Giveaway
Joe Wilkerson of Clearwater, Florida, is an employee at Maher Chevrolet in St. Petersburg, Florida, and wrote in to tell us that he had the distinct pleasure of handing over the keys to a brand-new Chevrolet HHR LS to Daniel P. Ellie of St. Petersburg, Florida. In case you missed the announcement last month, Daniel was the winner of our giveaway HHR on the '06 Power Tour(tm) and now has no excuse to miss any future tours with us. See ya in 2007, Daniel!

Power Tour(tm) Preregistration Phone NumberWe owe apologies to quite a few of you who couldn't get through on the Power Tour(tm) information phone number we printed in the Nov. '06 and Dec. '06 issues, since we printed the incorrect number. To preregister for the '07 running of Power Tour(tm) call 877/413-6515 or visit www.hotrod.com to sign up online. Join us as we invade the Midwest!

'07 Hot Rod Power Tour(tm) ScheduleSaturday, June 2: Cleveland, OhioSunday, June 3: Kalamazoo, MichiganMonday, June 4: Racine, WisconsinTuesday, June 5: Springfield, IllinoisWednesday, June 6: Evansville, IndianaThursday, June 7: Memphis, TennesseeFriday, June 8: Little Rock, ArkansasSaturday, June 9: Little Rock, Arkansas, Long-Hauler's celebration

'07 Uti/Hot Rod Q Collegiate Power Challenge
Last year, it was Factory Five Cobras. This year, the challenge for up-and-coming auto techs at UTI is building the baddest hot rod 5.0-powered Mustang. Crews of technician students from five UTI automotive campuses will compete not just to restore salvaged cars to their original glory but to build the best race car on budget and on deadline. Teams will be starting out with similar, salvaged cars, new Ford Racing engines, and Summit Racing and Comp Camps parts catalogs, meaning the winners will only have their dedication, ingenuity, and technician skills to make them rise to the top. Each team's car will be judged in a head-to-head showdown in quarter-mile performance, 60-0 braking, 600-foot slalom, rear-wheel horsepower, and a fit-and-finish inspection. That's a lot to do, and the UTI team's hot rods have to be ready to race by October 2007. For more info on the contest and UTI, check out www.utihotrod.com.

Here are the teams:
* Houston Team Torque (Houston, Texas). Their strategy? "Get the details right and execute flawlessly at track time." Sounds like the kind of confidence you'd expect from the defending Q Collegiate Power Challenge champs.

* Norwood Eightball (Norwood, Massachusetts). What, you might ask, does the Norwood team see as its greatest asset? "New England ingenuity." And their goal for the competition? "Dominating." Let the trash talking begin.

* Orlando Hurricanes (Orlando, Florida). These guys claim to be "hot rod gods." With a team picked from top students in UTI's Power & Performance courses at the Orlando campus, they might even be able to back up that boast.

* SoCal Krush (Rancho Cucamonga, California). The UTI instructors guiding this team have lots of experience in the racing and performance industries. Their game plan is to build a car with "engineering and performance that will be hard to beat."

* Sacramento Gold Rush (Sacramento, California). UTI's newest campus says it has a platinum team in mint condition that's locking its strategy "in a vault at Fort Knox until we're ready to smelt the competition." That plan sounds as good as gold.

Hot Rod 1 Rides Again
Sponsors of the HOT ROD Power Tour(tm) bus included SEMA Action Network, Mobil 1, HOT ROD Television, and C.A.R.S., the builders of the HOT ROD 1 Camaro. Many thanks to Jim Barber, Dirk Gilmore, and the crew from C.A.R.S. for participating as sponsors of the HOT ROD Power Tour(tm).