RtthIV

[Bill Howell]

I will spend much more time with all the results, etc here later but just wanted to start a thread about this years event and some of the winners.
Besides the regular autocross and dragracing event winners this year, Larry and I decided to crown a "King of the Hill" winner which we feel would best represent the genuine, best of the best Protouring Car at the event. There were several factors and a point system that we planned to use to determine the winner. First, points would be given for driving your car at least 75 miles to the event. Sure, that was a pain for some, however, to me, Protouring is about just that, touring, so, you gotta drive it to be a "TOURER" to me. Second, you had to drive your car on the cruise if you wanted to be in the running for KOTH. Again, Touring being a key factor to being a true Protouring car. Then there was a points system for the autocross and drag racings elements. Later we added a "Fit and Finish" element just to round out the KOTH.
After we set this up, Larry and I discussed the "what if" about a tie. That turned out to be what determined the winner,and for those wondering, the tie breaker, as per the rules written back in the thread about rules, would be the driver with the best autocross time.
After all was said and done, three hard days of racing, thrashing on cars, a hard luck award, and a first ever beauty contest that many had questioned, Kyle Tucker in his second gen camaro and Vinnie in his first gen camaro tied with 23 points each.........
Kyle was crowned King Of the Hill simply because he had the better time at the autocross, congratulations Kyle for a prize well deserved.
There is so much more to the story, like the fact that Vinnie's best drag strip time was ran 2 seconds before the cut off for scoring ETs and he missed being the winner of best ET by .01
Had he won best ET, he would be the King of the Hill.
I swear folks, you can not make this up, it was hard to believe it came down this close.
Add in all the thrashing at the shop on broken parts on several cars, all the bs sections at the Toy Box, all the great friendships renewed and made and this just could not have been a better event IMO.
Thanks to everyone that helped, especially those that went over and above to make things go so smooth. Most here barely know Danny and Yancy, but they both live here in Pigeon Forge, and were so much help getting things ready and working behind the scenes this weekend, Thanks guys.

[tom_a]

Sounds like a great event. Wish it were closer for us on the west coast. I had figured it might be between those two cars. I also thought the white second gen (Splitter ?) would have had a good showing. Not even sure if it was there. Hopefully you update drag/autox times for those of us not present.

[David Sloan]

Thank you Bill
We had such a good time as always.
Your friendship an all the hard work means so much.
Puttin me up for the night at the last min.
Man what a great show the excitement at the auto cross was just sick!!
You an your crew are the best, a class act!

When i grew up i want to be like you.( damn i better hurry)
Thanks

[Bow Tie 67]

My thanks go out to everyone for a long needed break from the day to day grind. It was great to meet some members for the first time and see old friends.

Thanks Pro-touring community,

Matt

[Ron S]

This is the best event,where else in the world can you see that many high end cars being beat on in so many different ways,and meet that many great people.Once again Bill,Melinda,Larry and everyone else who works so hard to make it this much fun,Thanks so much,Paul and I really enjoyed ourselves,can't wait till next year.Thanks again,Ron

[crazyfireman]

It was great to meet all the great people, and to see the outrageous cars in person. My wife and I had a great time, and plan on making it a yearly event. Thanks to all who assisted in putting on a great event!

[Bill Howell]

Quickest autocross time, put down by Kyle was a 35.4.
Quick ET was 7.96 by Bret at AirRide followed by Vinnie with a 7.97

There were some faster times at both events, but they were disqualified because they were on Racing tires, or not a protouring car. Jeff Schwartz I think was the quickest overall, but he was in a speedracer...hehe (thanks for coming btw Jeff and putting on a show, it gave us all something to shoot for.)

The drag strip is a 1/8 mile track of course and in bad need of repair but it is all we have around here to use. Also, we were running in the heat of the day, so not the best time to dragrace on street tires, but fun none the less.

We also had 53 or 54 cars on the cruise, plus about 6 pickups/suv/rollback/other vehicles participating. Thanks to Ron Huber, Jason's father for always being there to help out with the tow truck if needed, we always seem to need it.

[parsonsj]

Thanks again Bill! I had a great time, and thoroughly enjoyed spilling gallons of gas in your shop. A great time, and well worth the thrash and travel time to get there. Looking forward to next year. I need to learn to drive my car!

A funny thing happened at dinner Saturday night. I found this on my Duramax when we got back from dinner (around 9:30) at Alamo Grill:

jp

[Bill Howell]

Barney Fife strikes again......

[Vegas69]

Sounds awesome

[yellowrallys]

A big thanks to Bill, Larry, and all of the unknown volunteers for putting on this show. I had to bail on the drag racing, but the rest of the weekend was great.

Steve Moore

[datsbad]

Man I had a great time.
The DEMON did unreal , I was very surprised!
I sure wish I could have stayed for the drag racing, I think things might have changed some.

I went a 36.8 in the Demon and was blown away with that result. I know I had more but next time maybe.

Bill once again you stepped it up with this event. I LOVE IT. Count me in every year

[datsbad]

Any video of the DEMON ?

[01badz28]

Thanks for a good event, and letting some us non P-T guys tag along. Here are some of the pics I / my GF nabbed at the event on our cheap camera, forget it if you have 56K internet.

http://www.highperformancetoys.com/f...ad.php?t=14781

[datsbad]

Thanks for a good event, and letting some us non P-T guys tag along. Here are some of the pics I / my GF nabbed at the event on our cheap camera, forget it if you have 56K internet.

http://www.highperformancetoys.com/f...ad.php?t=14781

do you have to login in to see it .

[Roger M]

Thanks for a good event, and letting some us non P-T guys tag along. Here are some of the pics I / my GF nabbed at the event on our cheap camera, forget it if you have 56K internet.

http://www.highperformancetoys.com/f...ad.php?t=14781

Thanks for posting the pics and link. Great pics, regardless of quality. I really like the blue datsun Z car in one of the pics. That is how i would do it if I owned one. Thanks again.

[Larry Callahan]

What a weekend. I had a great time and it sounds like a lot of others did as well. I am writing this from a private mini office in the Atlanta airport you can rent for $29 an hour. Due to Ike they killed my flight yesterday. So, I had to find a hotel last night and today I’m stuck with a 6.5 hour layover. At this point if all goes as planned I should arrive at my front door in time to see Susan my wife I missed very much and pass out. I guess I should not have checked the “Play hookie on Monday” option during the RTTH registration. I also feel for Steven Rupp. I just got off the phone with him and he is stuck in the airport I flew out of this morning for the first leg of my flight. Nothing against TYS airport but it’s not my first choice for a 7 or 8 hour delay. There is just nothing to do but eat at one restaurant.

Back to the event.

I really had a great time and it was great to see everyone that came out to play and or watch. I flew in with Zbugger from California and we split a suite. The rooms at the Mainstay Suites are really nice and they were very accommodating to our group.

I wanted to say congratulations to everyone that took home a trophy. In the end some of the scores and times were really close. While Bill, Yancy and I were calculating the totals it was getting really exciting. At various times we had ties in several categories. I’m sure glad we added the tie breaker clause. LOL!

Anyway, I have much more to talk about but my brain is really fried. I’m thinking about booking this mini office for a couple more hours just to sleep in. It’s REALLY busy and noisy here at ATL due to being Monday morning and all the flights that were canceled over the last few days due to Ike.

Thanks again to everyone that helped out and I can’t wait for RTTH V

[nc69rs]

Thanks Bill and everyone else for such a great event! First time autocrosser here, and i'm hooked. I don't think i've ever had so much fun with my car. Looking forward to next year.

Bobby

[ProdigyCustoms]

First off, Thank you Bill and larry again. What a awesome event.

We had some great fun at RTTHs IV. Good Friends, good times, good comrades. Unfortunately we grenaded the rear (AGAIN) on Project Prodigy on the cruise showing off for some Cameras. Nice little 7200 RPM blast, pulled second gear and capow! That car simply has way too much power for the C4 rear. That is the 3rd rear we have broke and now a completely different center is going in Prodigy after SEMA. We were disappointed as we had looked forward to competition with that one.



But we still had Project EmptyNest and had some fun. We did not enter the King of the Hill Competition because we did not drive at least 75 miles to the event. Also, a customer of mine with bad vision (67 572CI Chevelle) asked me to drive him in his car on the cruise Friday, so we did not do the cruise in EmptyNest either. So we had no chance at KOTH, but the customer having fun was more important.



At the Friday night party at Bills Toy Box Prodigy Customs bought the beer and Bill said I tried to drink it all myself, so I was hung over and late for the autocross Saturday morning! We did however get a couple autocross laps in. I am no autocross racer as evidence in the video, but we did respectable with a 38.3 time. Considering some experienced drivers were not doing that good, I was cool with that, but would have loved more laps. But ran out of time


Sunday morning at the dragstrip, we were again late, but not from a hang over this time. Had a friend in need and had to get him running which was way more important then our fun. So I got in 3 dragstrip runs before we had throttle cable issues. We could have fixed it, but after thrashing all morning on the other car, we really did not feel like screwing with it. We did get a 8.03 at only 86MPH coasting through the traps on the street tires on motor only. I think it has 7.70s? on street tires in it and 100MPH trap speeds, which will put it solidly in the 10s on the quarter based on MPH. I am sure on slicks 10s will be no problem, but I think we will be lucky to break into the 11s on the street tires. After SEMA we will try that 10 second quarter on motor.



Anyway here is a autocross video and a great burnout and subsequent throttle cable breaking on the 1 / 2 shift. Lisa did not get a chance to run, but was overheated anyway in the 90degree heat. So she will get her chance after SEMA

So anyone that did not make it, needs to be there next year.



Enjoy




Copy and paste this link

http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u...t=MOV01020.flv




Copy and paste this link

http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u...t=MOV01029.flv

[damannhw]

I would like to thank you guys for putting this on. My wife and I made the trip up for Shades last week, and to the Rod Run and RTTH this week. WHAT AN EVENT !!! The cars are second to none, and I met alot of folks from the boards. The autocross was a blast to watch, but I plan on participating next year with a 65 Lemans that this website has inspired. Many of you guys stood around and answered my car questions and were super friendly.

I took a few pics, and will provide a link for those who would like to see some of the cars (sorry I didn't get all of them). If you have never been, don't miss this event next year !

http://s126.photobucket.com/albums/p...annhw/RTTH_08/