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Category: Events
Banks Hot Rod Tour Crew

Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour: A Huge Success!

Perhaps you’ve noticed the lack of blogs from all of us during Power Tour? The days went by like lightning. There was, literally, no time to blog. Here’s how our tour went.

Day one:
Wake up (5:30 a.m.); shower; shave; meet in hotel lobby (7:00 a.m.); quick breakfast (7:15 a.m.); schlep bags to the truck-of-the-day (8:00 a.m.); drive to event city (usually around 300 miles); park truck at booth (2:00 p.m.); get swarmed by gawkers (2:01 p.m.); talk to people about Banks products (2:01-8:00 p.m.); pack up trailer (8:00 p.m.); eat dinner (9:00 p.m.); sleep (10:30 p.m.); zzz

Repeat six times.

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June 15, 2005

Air Travel Hell: Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour (Pre-Tour)

4:44 a.m.
Okay, the trip stared off badly when the shuttle van that was supposed to pick me up at 4:00 a.m. hadn’t arrived by 4:30. When I called, they told me, “oh, our driver just now told us he was experiencing vehicle trouble…” Great. What about my ride to the airport?

The shuttle company called a cab for me and my $45 trip to the airport wound up costing $68.30. The shuttle company is going to pay me the difference. Yea – there’s money I won’t be seeing again anytime soon. The only saving grace was Richard, my taxi driver, was also an Armenian philosopher. I got an Armenian history lesson on the drive to the airport. Interesting.

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June 4, 2005

The President Digs Diesel

President Bush told a business group last Wednesday (April 27, 2005) that anti-pollution measures for diesel “will remove more than 90 percent of the sulfur in diesel fuel by 2010.” He also announced plans to provide similar tax credits to those already in place for hybrid and fuel cell vehicles for consumers who purchase light-duty clean diesel cars and trucks.

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May 3, 2005

A Ragin’ Good Read

I just finished reading an article in the May 2005 issue of Four Wheeler magazine entitled “Rage Against the Machine.” Awesome! Robin Stover details the success of Kent Kroeker’s virtually stock Dodge truck in the 2004 Baja 1000 (http://www.koreperformance.com). Check out this preview article on Four Wheeler online: (http://www.fourwheeler.com/brandpages/129_0411_500/) This adventure impresses me for many reason’s, but I think I just love to absorb as much off-road racing as I can, and this article offers a healthy dose of it.

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May 2, 2005

Who am I?

I said in an earlier blog that I was a Ford guy. Today I think I am changing my identity a bit. I think I am starting to consider myself a Diesel guy. I drive a gas-powered F-150 every day and keep thinking about what my fuel costs are going to be this summer. I would sure love to have a small diesel-powered car to commute with. Unfortunately being in California, it doesn’t look like that will be available to me anytime soon.

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April 29, 2005

Power Touring

A few of us here at Banks are stoked to be going on Hot Rod’s Power Tour this coming June. I’ve been threatening to go on Power Tour since they started it. What is it nine years already? Anyway, this was the year I was going to do the long haul in my ’63 Biscayne. Of course, I’d need to change its 4.56 gears to something a little more highway friendly. But, that’s easy.

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April 21, 2005

Giving Something Back

I’m sitting in my office waiting for the guys from WyoTech to arrive. This morning, I get to put something back into the diesel industry. I volunteered to work with WyoTech on the development of a light-duty diesel curriculum (with a high-performance overlay, of course).

We’re talking diesel pickups. There are now millions of them. The opportunity is huge for a young student as the demand is only going to get larger.

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April 15, 2005