09/16/2025
Our last full day together was also our best day together. We did so much, it's going to be hard to cover all of it. Everyone went to bed smiling and laughing--a great way to wrap up the tour.
We got up early and headed out of Owen Sound, on our way to Grand Bend, home of the Grand Bend Motorplex--more on that in a moment.
Along the way, we stopped to see Bob Becker's collection in Goderich. Bob is the former President of the A-C-D Club and an all-around nice guy. He welcomed us into his newly renovated car barn (which was formerly owned by Ken McGee, who many of you might know as a literature vendor at Hershey) and showed us just a few of his cars, which were nevertheless spectacular. Pulling up, we found a pretty little Desoto convertible and most of you know I have a thing for tow trucks, so he had one of those, too. But inside there were two absolutely gorgeous Chrysler Imperials, a 1932 CL convertible sedan and a 1931 dual cowl phaeton. I'm not sure which one I liked more, but I'm thoroughly convinced that the Imperial is the best-looking car of the 1930s. Just wonderful.
After visiting with Bob and Ken for about an hour, we drove up the road to Beach Street Station, a beautiful restaurant built from a converted railroad station. The building itself was moved from its original site to this location near the waterfront in 2013, which must have been some undertaking. Lunch was excellent and the scenery couldn't be beat. Goderich is also the home of the world's largest salt mine, and there was a freighter being loaded with several thousand tons of salt.
After lunch, we climbed back into the cars and headed south towards Grand Bend, where we'd spend our final night. It was another easy drive at 50-55 MPH on smooth roads with light traffic, the same kind of roads we've had all week. These have been some great drives. All five cars just purred along, happy in the 80-degree weather. This has been one of the best drives I've ever had--my only complaint is that the Buick constantly wants to run faster. Keeping it around 50 MPH (80 kph) requires some attention.
We checked into our hotel, then drove up the street to the Grand Bend Motorplex, where we had both the drag strip and the road course reserved for our group. While we expected there to be some reticence to run the cars on the track, we were completely wrong--everyone was eager to get on the drag strip and see what would happen. So we lined up, watched the tree, and hit the throttles!
The Limited was the fastest of the bunch, but not by as much as you would think. Margus Sweigard and his 1932 Buick Model 91 sedan was shockingly fast. I was at the top of 2nd gear and figured that it should be over and--holy cow!--he's still right next to me. I beat him, but if I had let up, the finish would not have been a foregone conclusion. Go Buick! And an extra fist-bump to Tom Barrett and his big torque 1931 Pierce-Arrow, which chirped the tires on launch. Nice!
After we finished a few runs at the drag strip with no rods liberating themselves from the block, we headed over to the road course and took a couple of hot laps there, as well. The steward gave us two parade laps and then we were free to head out on our own. I think I hammered the Buick around the track five or six times until the brakes started to feel a little spongy. That's A LOT of car to hustle around a road course!We drove back to the hotel, stopping to fuel up for our trip home tomorrow. After a quick clean up, we went next door to a pizzeria and had a great meal. There was a live band and it was like they were playing our personal playlist. Too cool. Everyone was smiling, laughing, and having a great time. I think this may have been one of the best days of my life. I was so glad to share it with friends. Everything about this tour that Melanie put together was enjoyable, there were no major problems, all the cars ran like Swiss watches, and everyone is going home happy.
We have a 70-mile drive tomorrow back to the Retro Suites hotel, where we'll load up trailers and head for home.
