Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Flagstaff Update

Finally after two solid days of nonstop traveling and events on Route 66 I have a moment to update my blog. It may have to be in outline form.

First let me tell you that all of our postings from the road have been primarily on Twitter. The iphones work with Twitpic the best on the road and on the fly. We have really done a good job with Twitter and it has the most current info. Go to our website for the link. Setup an account if you dont have one its really not that hard.

The Santa Monica pier sendoff was fantastic. We had experts from the pier and route 66 that allowed us to shoot video interviews. The car looked fantastic on the pier and I got to drive it off on the start of the trip. It was really exciting.

The fillup at Barstow went really good and we rode Route 66 all the way to the California Route 66 Museum. We had an amazing greeting party waiting for us. There were Hot Rod guys and Mrs Route 66 waiting for us there. We had a pizza party blast. We made many new friends here.

The rest of the day we traveled to Needles California and stayed at the Needles Inn. We ate at the Wagon Wheel Resturant which had a great breakfast.

We got up Monday moring and left for what turned out to be a jam packed day. We drove to Kingman and stayed at the Power House Museum for a couple of hours. We then drove to Huckberry General Store and the real Lizzy from the movie "CARS" in the garage. The next stop was the Road Kill Cafe near Williams. After Williams we drove the GTO all the way to the Grand Canyon. All of the buses in the Grand Canyon run on CNG!! But we were unsuccessful getting fillup for the GTO from this source. We got in really late almost midnight to Flagstaff.
Mark and Libby left for Phoenix to refill our refueling pickup truck and plan on being back in Flagstaff on Tuesday morning.

We refined our calculations for the CNG usage and due to the heat in the desert we are only getting 70% capacity fills. The refueling is working great for the GTO, We did a rough conservative calculation that we should be able to travel 378 miles from each filling station. What has really given us this range was the awsome work the IMPCO guys did with the tune up and the dyno work. On the highway we are getting 15 MPG or better. (not bad for 455 CI, 390 horsepower, 470 ft pounds of torque monster)

I hope it wont be this long again before I can update the trip.

REMEMBER FOLLOW US ON TWITTER.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

WE ARE OUTTA HERE

We are loading up the car to hit the road. See you in California!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The trip begins

Its late on Tuesday night and I have been working for the last week solid getting ready for the Route66GoatGas trip. Mark left Monday with the GTO, Truck/Trailer, and Family. He will pull into LA tonight before he finishes. Me and my family are getting up early on Wednesday morning and hitting the road. Everyone is hopefully asleep and tomorrow will begin the two week saga we have been looking forward to for 9 months. I only have one thing left to say....

"Are we there yet?"

GTO Launch

The GTO had a wonderful launch party at the BJCTA Max Refueling Station in downtown Birmingham. So many of our friends attended from the natural gas industry Alagasco as well as Alabama Clean Fuels. We were very happy to have a huge contingency of friends from Trussville Utilities. The coverage of our event was provided by Roy Williams with the Birmingham News as well as representatives from Fox 6 and CBS 42. As soon as these stories are available I will post links to them on our face book page and do some mail outs. Thanks to everyone new that signed up on our www.route66goatgas.com page yesterday. As word spreads that the trip has started we hope our friends and followers continue to grow.

Monday, June 21, 2010

3105 8th Avenue North

Please join us today at 9 am Central time for the GTO to depart for its historic record breaking trip. The send off party will be at 3105 8th Avenue North in Downtown Birmingham. Lots of our friends will be there to see us off. Last night and this morning Fox 6 news ran a story on our departure. Search for "Fox 6 Departure" to see the video on YouTube. We hope to see Roy Williams with the Birmingham News, Mark Bentley with Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition, and several of the City of Trussville leadership who helped publicize our trip.

Hope to see everyone down there.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Obama Speaks to the Nation

I watched the Presidents speech tonight about the Gulf of Mexico crisis with great interest. I watched his plan for energy independence, looking for America's way out of this mess. He challenged Americans to break our dependence on foreign oil and to do it with the same vigor as the race to the moon.

If Americans want to fix our nations dependence on foreign oil the quickest, they should join our group of followers, and spread the word to all their friends and family, that we have found the solution the Presidents has asked for tonight.

We were put in the right place at the right time for this perfect storm. Nine months ago we launched our effort to build a grass roots effort to move quickly to Compressed Natural Gas.
Everyone on the television is giving lip service to this idea.

But a handful of people are actually DOING something about it. That handful of people will launch a trip across America next Monday, June 21st from Birmingham, Alabama to showcase that CNG is a practical solution to our problems, that can be used by ordinary everyday people to end the madness of foreign oil and stop forever the calamity in the Gulf of Mexico from happening again.

Join us because Now is the time to deliver.

"One approach I will not accept is inaction" President Obama

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Parker Gas Guys

As the trip comes flying towards us, its easy to let small items fall through the cracks. One missed item that would completely make the trip impossible to pull off is our CNG Transfer hose. The fantastic guys at Parker Fittings committed to us back at the Barbers Indy Races to build us a custom CNG Transfer Hose to refill the GTO from our large refueling tanks in the IMPCO Pickup. Because Flagstaff AZ and Amarilo TX dont have CNG refueling stations, our backup supply will be necessary to bridge the gap. The fuel is under 3600 PSI so it is impossible to transfer from tank to tank without the proper High Pressure hose. Since the fittings are a air chuck design you cannot even undo the hose while it is pressurized. So this custom hose will have a venting valve on it just like the filling hoses at the CNG stations. Monday the Parker Fitting guys will be in Birmingham, to be sure the hose works, and to plumb our refilling tanks together.
This post is a huge thank you to Parker Fittings for being our official valve and fitting company and taking such excellent care of the Route66GoatGas Project.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Barrett Jacksons June 25th and 26th

To all of our friends and followers living in California, the GTO will be at the Barrett Jackson Car Auction on Thursday Friday and Saturday June 24th thru 26th. Please come by during the auction and talk to us about the trip cross country on Route 66. We will have the CNG GTO on display. We have already met tons of new friends in our efforts to make this trip and look forward to meeting you too. If you cant make the show in Orange County, then you can see our Sunday departure from the Santa Monica Pier. More details on that to follow.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Countdown to the Trip begins

It time to start the countdown to the Route 66 trip. Lots of the details are finally beginning to be finalized. Today was a milestone because the official departure from Birmingham was decided. Mark your calendar for Monday June 21st at 9 am for the official send off. I know most of you may follow our send off from our web site and facebook/twitter postings. But for the lucky few of you that are close enough to Birmingham to see us off, you are all invited. We will hold our send off party, hosted by Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition www.alabamacleanfuels.org , at the Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority CNG filling station located at 3105 8th Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35202. The rig including Mark McConville, the CNG GTO, the CNG refueling truck and car trailer will all be there for photos and press coverage. The GTO will be hauled across country to make its first appearance at the Barrett Jackson Auction in Orange County California on Wednesday June 23, 2010. More to come on the events planned for the cross country record breaking trip soon.