The Drive Home II Gang started another early morning
with a series of Fox 17 TV interviews at the station's Grand Rapids studio.
After a couple of news
interview segments, I took reporter Annie Szatkowski for a ride-along to
our Cars and Coffee event at Lambert, Edwards & Associates, and she did an 11-minute
Facebook Live segment during our trip.
When we arrived, Annie also wanted to do a
segment with the 1917 Crane Simplex and our team went about unloading it to
meet her live-shot deadline that was about 8 minutes away. Dale repositioned
the truck and trailer for the unload; at that point we were down to about 4 minutes and
the real fun began. The lock on the trailer was unexpectedly frozen so Dale grabbed
a propane torch and heated it until it opened. Three minutes to go, and we discovered the
back door of the trailer was frozen shut and two people had to put their
shoulders to it from the inside with more pulling from the outside to pry it
open. Two minutes to go and Dale is scrambling under the car to unhook the axle straps and
then winch it off the trailer ramp for the shot. One minute to go and Annie
tells me to get in place in front of the trailer as we’re going live. The live
shot starts and the camera rolls just in time
for the camera to roll – the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
We then added a new driver, auto industry journalist Steve
Purdy, who piloted the Mustang on a snowy four-hour trip north to Traverse
City, MI. Steve was new in Grand Rapids, but not new to the Drive Home effort as he drove part of the Drive Home I effort from Tacoma to Detroit last year. Along the road to Traverse City, things got icy and slick with occasional white-out
conditions, and at one point Steve looked in the rear-view mirror to see a
pickup slide sideways off the highway and roll into the median. It was at that point
our good Samaritan mechanic Dale pulled over, called 911 and stayed with the
uninjured passengers until the state patrol arrived.
Thanks to Steve Purdy for relieving me from an icy Mustang drive and thanks to all the folks at Hagerty for their tremendous hospitality.
On to Lansing tomorrow for more events – Go Spartans!!
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