The Hot Rod Power Tour is a lot to take in. There are thousands of participants with a wide array of vintage and custom cars at each of the five venues. Each stop along the way is a massive car show on its own, but Power Tour strings them together with drives that range from around 100–200 miles per day. The constantly changing scenery keeps things interesting as new backdrops unfold and interact with a vast parade of cars. It’s a unique event that keeps people coming back year after year. Here’s a quick look back at a week on the road with Power Tour 2025.
Traditionally, the first day of Power Tour is the largest. Now that Power Tour starts on a Monday, we expected things to be a bit smaller. We were wrong. Thousands of cars flooded Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, filling the asphalt lot southeast of the dragstrip as well as the vast lawns on the west side of the strip. Participants took advantage of the opportunity to test their cars and driving prowess on the dragstrip. We scouted the fields of cars to see what stood out among the thousands of vintage and modern trucks, muscle cars, and road-trip-ready wagons. There were some interesting rides you don’t see every day.
Hagerty’s booth, next to the Power Tour main stage, hosted Wayne Carini, who spoke with fans and fellow classic car lovers. In addition to some Hagerty swag, visitors to the booth could get a Hagerty Power Tour 2025 license plate custom pinstriped by Perkins Signs.
The first drive of Power Tour 2025 turned every gas station between Indy and Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Indiana, into a car show. Some Power Tour participants, including us, stopped by Rad Rides by Troy to see what the award-winning fabricators there were cooking up. We’ll share more of that later. Once in Joliet, attendees could once again hit the dragstrip. This was also where we got a better look at the highly customized Chevy 3100 from Weaver Customs.
Porsche Carrera Cup driver Sabré Cook was in the Hagerty booth to speak to fans, and another local pinstripe artist delivered custom artwork while making it look easy.
This one might have been our favorite drive of Power Tour 2025. The route headed almost due East through beautiful small towns and lush farmland studded with impressive homes. Spectators congregated in towns, intersections, and sometimes just driveways to watch the hours-long parade of classics roll by on the way to the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. We compiled some of our favorite photos from this drive into a gallery that you can find here.
The third drive of Power Tour 2025 featured picturesque towns and some great highways as the convoy rolled into the Monroe County Fairgrounds. TV host Cristy Lee joined the Hagerty booth and was welcomed onto the Power Tour main stage for some questions. We’ve put some of our favorite shots from this drive into the slideshow above.
The final drive of Power Tour 2025 brought us to Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, and one last chance for drag racing. We’ve got a gallery of our favorite racing shots here. Hagerty had YouTube hosts Newbern and Cotten stop by the booth on the final day for a meet and greet with fans, and the last lucky ones took possession of their custom pinstriped license plates.
As far as Power Tours go, 2025’s was a great one. It was packed with amazing cars, and the fickle Midwest weather was in our favor, making for great drives without scorching heat or humidity. Even though things have just wrapped up, Hot Rod is already planning Power Tour 2026. If you’ve never made the trek, hopefully 2026 is your year.
Ummm….Were they in Joliet, Indiana or Joliet, Illinois? Since Route 66 and Route 66 Raceway are in Illinois I’ll go with that. Wasn’t there, but am pretty sure. Thanks.
This is definitely on my wish list of car things to do.