Yesterday, the Holden Owners of Indiana put on a cruise called the Fall Foliage Cruise. I had Amelia with me and wanted to take her on a proper ride in her papaw’s car.
The route began in Nashville, IN with a destination of Bo-Mac’s Drive-In located in Shoals, IN. We then took a separate route towards the starting point, which literally took me home, ending the cruise for us.
We all hung around for about an hour, talked to each other and then took off. Shockingly I has the most conversation with a guy in a Mustang. I was the only Camaro on the cruise.
On the first leg, not too far out of Story, IN we ran into a group of 4 bicyclists. We were all running pretty hot, warming up the road and our tires. The car in front of me, a Geo Metro Convertible locked his brakes up and went in the other lane. That was when my own brake light came on and I lost a lot of my own braking power. For the rest of that first leg, I had to press the brake pedal about 3/4 of the way before the brakes began to work. We drove by Bedford North Lawrence High School, which is right by where my daughter now lives. It would have been nice if her mom and stepbrothers would have came out and waved in support.
The next leg took us to Shoals, IN and the drive-in. Getting there was a bit of a battle though, as our group of 60 cars was split by a stranger and a tanker truck on US50. This road isn’t exactly “friendly” for safe passing of vehicles. One by one, the guy in the Mustang I mentioned previously, an AMG Mercedes and I passed them both however. Amelia loved it.
When we arrived at the drive-in, Amelia ranted and raved about the place. As a friend of hers had three t-shirts from there. Later in the day, she found out this friend’s grandfather owns it.
We all ate, rested and chilled for a while. Then a group of us, mostly driven by members of the BAC, decided to leave early to do some more “spirited” driving. We of course, went with the group. This became the hardest, fastest section. We took a county road the hardest I’ve done since I was a teenager. At some points my tires were telling me I was pushing the limits. I was proud of the IROC’s performance however, beating anyone was not what I was trying to do, keeping up with the pack is all I needed to smile.
Then we had another “incident.” We had moved from the county road to US450, a proper two lane highway. We turned a corner and were on a bridge when everyone just began braking, hard. It took everything I had to not hit the car in front of me. The 4th Generation WS6 Trans Am behind me almost hit me, but he later said he was under control. Then to my left, a white Fiesta went flying down the oncoming lane, hard. He later said he was going to make that oncoming truck stop, and he did! A couple of minutes later, we ended up on US50 at a gas station with a large parking lot. Upon arriving we all got out of our cars in a collective WTF just happened?
In all the years dad owned this car, he never really tried to see what it would do except for the few times we took it to Indianapolis Raceway Park to drag race it. Those who know IROC-Z’s know they aren’t a drag car in stock format. They are killer in the corners however, and can keep up with brand new sport cars in that regard.
I talked to Amelia about this, and how I hoped we were making him proud from wherever he is. It’s all I want to do, make him proud.