Year One Experience at Road Atlanta

Year One, a leader in Muscle Car restoration parts and equipment, held its annual Year One Experience this past weekend at the Road Atlanta road course in Braselton, Georgia. Road Atlanta is located 45 miles Northeast of Atlanta and this beautiful facility hosts many road racing events each year. There were all types of muscle car and street performance vehicles, 470 in all, with a variety of on and off track activities. The event kicked off on Friday morning with the arrival of a cruise called the "Bandit Run 2008." The cruise started in Columbus Ohio with more than 70 participants, mostly "Smokey and the Bandit" Trans Am cars, traveling together and ending at Road Atlanta.

The Year One Experience had 68 Manufacturers on hand with displays of all kinds of products available through retail store and catalogs. There were many events for participants throughout the weekend, like the Stainless Steel Brakes 0-60-0 course, the Air Ride Technologies wet and dry autocross course, Year One had track cars giving rides at race speed and BF Goodrich hosted a burnout contest. Parade laps were also available to participants who wanted to have pictures taken of their vehicles on the famed track. The Year One Experience also had a joint effort with ORSCA at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, GA that allowed participants to test their vehicles performance on the drag strip.

The highlight of the event for me was getting to ride with a Skip Barber race school instructor, who is a Flowmaster customer and uses our products, in a new Porsche Cayman sports car at speeds reaching 130mph on the 2.54 mile road course. It was definitely a nail bitter!

Many magazines and television shows were on hand at this event such as, My Classic Car, American Muscle Car Television, Dream Car Garage, Horsepower TV, Muscle Car TV, Car Craft magazine, Corvette Fever, High Performance Pontiac, Hot Rod, Mopar Muscle and others. I had the privilege of doing three TV spots with RTM Productions about Flowmaster and Hushpower products.

The vehicles at the show were some of the most beautiful cars I have seen at any car show this year. The most prestigious award winner was a 1955 Chevrolet convertible, grey in color, which received the coveted Year One Cup award. Some other special vehicles on hand included a Impala with suicide doors and flames using a pair of Super 44 Mufflers, a Spiderman themed car, the Dale Earnhardt Jr. race car and his new Camaro, and many others.

—Dave