5 Highlights From the 2023 Hot Rod Power Tour

I’ve been to plenty of car shows over the years, but I’d never been to one that required a spare change of underwear until I drove out to the 2023 Hot Rod Power Tour.

Or at least that’s what I thought to myself as we lost control of the 650-horsepower ZL1 Camaro and blew through a tight lefthand turn, sliding backward off the race course through a cloud of flying gravel and tire smoke.

Lesson learned: The Hot Rod Power Tour is no relaxing reunion of pristine garage queens. On the contrary, this is a serious driver’s delight through and through.

Don’t get me wrong, spectators are more than welcome here, and this year over 10,000 locals made their way out to witness the spectacle in Atlanta alone. Still, there’s one thing that truly sets the Power Tour apart from all the rest: It’s about driving cars as much as it is about admiring them.

The tour moves around the country every year, but die-hard fans drive hundreds of miles from anywhere and everywhere to join the parade for the week. This year’s Power Tour covered the southern United States, bouncing from Atlanta Motor Speedway up through the race tracks and dragstrips of the Carolinas before finally wrapping up at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee.

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I met more than a few folks coming from California, Oregon, and Washington to join in on their second, third, or even fifth Power Tour in a row. After getting a behind-the-scenes look at the event for myself this year, I completely understand the obsession.

If you missed this year’s tour, don’t fret: It’ll be back next June celebrating its 30th anniversary in a city near you. In the meantime, however, here are five highlights from this year’s action to hold you over.

Getting Sideways in the Autocross Free-for-All

For many Power Tour fans and attendees, the main event here is autocross.

If you love driving and you’re not familiar with autocross, you’re missing out. This is easily the most accessible and budget-friendly automotive racing on the planet, and literally anyone with a car can do it.

All you need is a helmet, an empty parking lot, and a few dozen safety cones. Carve the parking lot into however many corners, straightaways, and braking zones you can reasonably fit, then go hit the impromptu racecourse as hard and fast as you like.

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The Power Tour’s Atlanta autocross track was open all day to registered attendees, all of whom were welcome to cut as many laps as they wanted free of charge. Should someone happen to blow a corner or get a little overzealous on the gas, the only things they could damage were their egos and a few rubber cones, so it’s high excitement and low risk for both your health and your car.

Don’t have a ride of your own to race? Just hop in the passenger seat of someone else's for a rollercoaster ride unlike any other. This is where that extra change of underwear would have come in handy for me, which was a small price to pay for cutting hot laps in a few of my dream rides.

Drag Racing for Bragging Rights

Prefer your thrills in a straight line? The Power Tour has you covered.

If you’re registered for the tour and your car can pass a basic safety/tech inspection, you’re welcome to hit the dragstrip free of charge in your personal vehicle. This year’s first stop in Atlanta featured a 1/8th-mile course complete with officiants and track workers, and was the exact kind of chaotic free-for-all I can’t take my eyes off.

I watched a 1998 Daewoo Lanos line up next to a 1970 Chevelle SS. A shiny new 2023 Corvette paired against a 1964 Mustang Fastback. A 2004 Hyundai Genesis squared up next to a 600-horsepower race truck. Sheer madness just for the hell of it.

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Anything goes here and it makes for damn fine entertainment. There’s nothing to win but bragging rights and nothing to lose but fuel economy (unless you’ve got some side action going under the table), and it went on all day from 10am to 5pm.

Interestingly enough, Power Tour management only has one restriction when it comes to the drag: No rental cars allowed. We weren’t able to coax a full explanation out of the event staff, but considering the way most of us drive rental cars on public streets, I can’t say I’m surprised.

Take a Spin on the Mobile Dyno

We’ve all seen mobile homes, mobile restaurants, and even mobile barbershops grow in popularity over the last decade, but for this year’s Power Tour, they brought out something I’d not seen before. A mobile dyno.

Strap your pride and joy to the back of a pull-behind trailer, throw ‘er in drive, and put the pedal to the metal. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ll admit it feels a bit sketchy, but hey, where there’s danger, good times often follow.

Of course in reality it’s perfectly safe, and dozens of vehicles took their turns on the rig throughout the day without issue. I will say that there was a notable lack of spectators standing directly in front of the show, but even from the relative safety of the sidelines, the sound and fury of eight cylinders winding out to redline was arguably the sweetest music of the day.

Touring the Parking Lot

While high-octane thrills are an important part of the Power Tour, it’s still a traveling car show at heart and a damn good one at that. This year saw the tour bounce back to pre-covid numbers with a whopping 6,000+ vehicles in the motorcade and another 6,000+ on display in the surrounding parking lots.

The Power Tour may revolve around old-school muscle and vintage charm, but I found something for everyone in ample supply scattered around the lots. You’ve got your usual fare like golden-era Mopars and fastback Mustangs, but you’ll also find Japanese drift missiles, European exotics, and a slew of custom one-offs to nerd out on.

Truth be told most car enthusiasts could spend the entire day just cruising around the lot getting their fair share of eye candy and chatting it up with the owners. I spent a good two hours just browsing myself and barely scratched the tip of the iceberg.

Unveiling the New “Project X”

Muscle car enthusiasts and Hot Road readers will undoubtedly be familiar with “Project X,” the “most notorious ‘57 Chevy of all time.” If you’re new to the car, it’s been around the Hot Rod garage in one version or another since 1965, but Hot Rod replaced the car’s V8 engine with an all-electric powerplant back in 2021 to the dismay of their readership.

This year, the tour kicked off with an unveiling of the latest version of the big yellow beast, which has been converted back to gasoline power by popular demand. Hot Rod Garage hosts Alex Taylor and Lucky Costa pulled the covers off Project X before firing up its new 632ci big block engine for the crowd.

Electric propulsion may be the future, but for now, there’s still no substitute for standing downwind from a 1,004-horsepower V8 to get the juices flowing. Go big or go home, as they say: The 632 is the largest and most powerful crate engine GM has ever produced, and was a welcome overcorrection for the electric faux pas in the eyes of attendees.

Celebrating Hot Rod Magazine’s 75th Anniversary

Hot Rod Magazine is the guilty party responsible for hosting the Power Tour for the last three decades. This year marked a special occasion for the magazine, as 2023 is Hot Rod’s official “diamond anniversary,” marking 75 straight years of publication for the longest-running custom car magazine in the world.

It was an important day for the staff, and editor John McCann was on location to celebrate with the Hot Rod faithful. McCann spoke from the stage, looking back at how far the magazine had come since 1948 when the first issue launched as little more than a glorified brochure with just 22 pages in all black and white.

Much like the Power Tour itself which started back in 1995 with just 16 cars, Hot Rod has become nearly unrecognizable from its humble beginnings. The magazine now boasts nearly 1,000 issues under its belt, which regularly span well over 100 pages a pop.

In addition to the car show and driving events, Hot Rod brought out live music, an abundance of food trucks, and handed out thousands of dollars of giveaways over the course of the week. When all was said and done, this year’s power tour saw record numbers with over 75,000 attendees over five days and roughly 4,000 cars joining the parade for all five stops on the tour.