The Countryside Cruise at Holley's Ford Festival 2021 is a bit of serenity in a quite dynamic event. After spending the day enjoying the views and noises of Beech Bend Raceway Park, a cruise through Kentucky backroads is the perfect way to end the day. Drag racing, autocross, and drifting are all a blast to watch and even compete in, but not much beats cruising down backroads in your hot rod.
Only a few hit the deadline for the cruise, but we took off down Garvin Lane for a cruise northeast through the hilly Kentucky countryside. During the scenery, they had a scavenger hunt for specific landmarks that if you found enough of the items, youโd be entered into a drawing for a $500 gift certificate to any of the Holley Performance Brands.
We followed along behind and a beautiful Ford Maverick that had been treated to a Shelby taillight conversion that treated every stop sign as an invitation for a good spirited launch. The hills echoed with the sound of its hot small block and occasionally a bit of tire squealing. This Grabber Green ride was apparently finished very recently and has been in the process of restoration for 20 years now. The grin on their face reminded us of the reason we build these cars. There is a blissful feeling of cruising your hot rod down the road after years of building it. Itโs a release that people outside of our hobby donโt quite understand.
We took one of Holleyโs product development Broncos out to lead the cruise along. There may be no other Bronco color that looks better than Cyber Orange Metallic in the Kentucky sunset. Cyber Orange is a great name, but Sunset Metallic sounds a little better to us. The Countryside Cruise is an event you donโt want to miss at Holley LS Fest, Ford Fest, AND MoParty. With each show providing tons of action and noise, maybe a quiet cruise out in the country is just what you need!
True Street is a racing classic for mildly modified or wildly modified Ford-based street-legal vehicles that must be registered, licensed, and insured. The other caveat to this class is that their vehicle must be able to drive over a 30-mile distance. This is where the True Street Cruise comes in handy. Everyone in the True Street category, which was quite a few, was required to leave Beech Bend for a nearly one-hour round trip to a church outside of Bowling Green before returning to Beech Bend.
We tagged along to see the wild variety of cars in the True Street category. Everything from nearly daily driver modern Mustangs to a classic Galaxie with a huge Thunderbolt-style hood hit the road. The variety may have been impressive, but the comradery of the competitors was apparent. They couldnโt pass by each other without waving or giving a thumbs up.
Originally, the cruise was going to leave at 2:00, but with impending rain, they sent them out early. The participants were required to leave the park via the racer gate to get their pre-punched run card for the cruise. Then, they had to get it stamped at the church and then again back through the racer gate. With a fully stamped card, they turned them in at the staging lanes to confirm their eligibility to compete in the True Street class. Without that run card, theyโd be immediately disqualified.