America's Coolest Road Trip

Going on Mid-Americruise '03

By Tim Bernsau, Damon Lee

Photography by Damon Lee, Tim Bernsau

Forty years before the first issue of ROD & CUSTOM, the idea of driving your car across the country made about as much sense as paddling your bathtub across the ocean. Back in those days, the only decent paved roads were in cities and towns, and there were no real highways connecting one place to another. Then in 1913 Carl Fisher (the same guy who created the Indianapolis 500) came up with a plan for a road running all the way across the continent. His idea sparked the creation of the Lincoln Highway, which stretched coast-to-coast from New York to San Francisco and was a giant contribution to the progress of transportation. Old Carl's highway also paved the way for the greatest American pastime: the road trip.

The road trip doesn't have anything to do with transportation. Transportation is about arriving. The road trip is about going, and as everybody knows, the coolest road trip going is Americruise.

Americruise was ROD & CUSTOM's idea, and we've been fine-tuning it for 10 years now. This summer we increased the fun of our state-to-state rod run by hosting two separate events: Mid-Americruise in June, followed by Americruise East in August. For the second year in a row, we included our sister mags Street Rodder, Custom Rodder, Classic Trucks, and Kit Car in the fun.

Mid-Americruise (which was sponsored by Flowmaster) started in Wauconda, Illinois, up near Chicago. Wauconda is home to Heidt's Hot Rod Shop, and bossman Gary Heidt took a few days off from building independent frontends to lead the way to Lincoln in his '57 Chevy pickup.

As usual, this Americruise drew a real variety of iron. Over the course of the trip, more than three-dozen rods, customs, and classic trucks joined in and dropped out of our caravan as we cruised through northern Illinois, across Iowa, and on to our destination city of Lincoln, Nebraska, roughly tracing a portion of the famous old Lincoln Highway.

Day One of the three-day cruise included a five-pack of shop tours. From Heidt's it was a quick hour run to La Grange, Illinois, where the guys at Billet Specialties treated us to lunch and a guided tour of the extensive factory. By mid-afternoon, we'd made it to Bill O'Rourke's 17,000-sq-ft Roadster Shop in Elgin for more eating, and eyeballing some of the in-progress rods around the shop. By the time the sun was setting, we were in Belvidere at Hopperstad Customs, a prominent Midwest shop owned by Kerry Hopperstad. After dinner we ended the day at Ken's Street Rod Repair in Rockford for an evening of cake, a poker run, trivia prizes (Auto Meter, Heidt's, American Racing, Billet Specialties, Johnny Lightning, and The Absorber/Glosser contributed awesome prizes, and Speedway Motors kicked in some cool goodie bags), and bench racing with fellow Americruisers and shop owner Ken Barnhart.

Day Two was twice the mileage of Day One, with only a couple shops on the itinerary. First stop of the day was in Stillman Valley, Illinois, at Rock Valley Antique Auto, owned by Dale Mathison and Scott McCullough. We made it to Yogi's Inc. in Calamus, Iowa, by lunchtime and were (as always) met by a bunch of regional rodders. By the end of the day, we were in Des Moines. Lincoln, Nebraska, was only 200 miles away.

One of the rodders we met at Yogi's was a Des Moines resident named Jim Coon, who kindly invited the whole growing group of Mid-Americruisers over to his house for coffee and donuts the next morning--big surprise for Mrs. Coon, no doubt. The big surprise for us was Jim's extensive personal collection of machinery, which, in addition to rods and customs, included trucks, musclecars, and boats--and filled a bunch of garages and barns on his property. After leaving Jim's place, we continued west, crossing the Missouri River into Nebraska and finally dropping down into the familiar city of Lincoln.

Landing in Lincoln
When our band of travelers arrived in Lincoln, the city was waiting, and the Mid-Americruise car show was already going full-tilt at State Fair Park. For the next three days we enjoyed the Sonic poker run, numerous T.O. Haas Tire tech seminars, the Marshall engine-building competition, the Miss Mid-Americruise contest, an ice cream social and museum tour at Speedway Motors, and being part of hundreds of participants cruising the fairgrounds by day and the streets of Lincoln by night. Fun for sure, but like we said at the beginning: Americruise is about the road trip, and the road trip is about going. Our best memories from Mid-Americruise are of the people who became brand-new old friends out on the road, and the rods and customs they drove along the way.

Six weeks after getting home from Mid-Americruise we hit the road again with Americruise East, running from Texas to Pennsylvania. We'll tell you that story in next month's R&C.