This morning I packed up all of my stuff and headed out to Freddie’s Lakeside and checked in. It’s an interesting place – they’ve taken what seems to be a pre-fab metal building and divided it into 3 cabins. I had the leftmost one, which has an extensive fishing theme. They used a variety of trims, including rough-sawn wood, beadboard, tile, etc. You can tell that it was a pre-fab building – the floor is concrete (with area rugs) and sloped toward the standard 4″ drain found in that type of building. There’s a combo entryway / kitchen, large bathroom, living / dining room, and a separate bedroom. Since I was using it mostly as a place to pass out when I got back from the track, it was a lot more than I actually needed. There’s at least one motel a little closer to the track, the Keystone Lake Motel with a big $39.99 sign out front. No idea what that place is like, though.

I brought the stuff I didn’t need at the track into the cabin and then headed off to the track. Various Atom folks had arrived and were in different stages of getting set up. The day was rainy off and on, so the event that was running over the weekend had a large number of their attendees leave due to the weather. By early afternoon, the weather had cleared somewhat, but because they had so few cars, they invited all of the Atom owners who had gotten set up out on the track. Eddie Hill took them up on the offer and ran a few laps. I’m not sure they knew who he was 😎

Randy got a bunch of us together and treated us to a great Italian dinner at a place called the Spaghetti Warehouse in Tulsa. By that time it had started to rain, so I asked Tim Webb to drop me off at my cabin and to collect me in the morning.

Last night, after I posted the update, I get a call from the front desk. They say “There’s a Tom Smuh… Smi….” and then I hear Tom say “Smurzynski” in the background. The front desk wants to know if they can tell him my room number. I tell them “Of course!”.

Turns out they’re in the room across the hall from me. Tom saw an Atom under the outdoor car cover and peeked under. When he saw the Wildberry Metallic fenders, he knew it was mine.

He and Judy (his wife) were heading out to dinner and wanted to know if I wanted to come along. Unfortunately, I just received a delivery from the Italian place that advertises in the hotel elevator, so I passed. When they got back from dinner, they invited me over to their room and we spent hours talking about Atoms and other things.

This morning (well, as early as I can rouse myself) I drove out to Freddie’s Lakeside Cabins and confirmed that they did have a room for me. Then I went to Hallett (the track). The guy handling the gate (the road to the infield crosses the track, so there’s a gate to prevent accidents) called me by name, as he remembered me from 2 years ago. Mostly I just watched the group that was running on the track, as none of the Atom folks were there (one guy had driven his rig in earlier, but had business elsewhere, so he was away). After a fun day, I went back to Tulsa for the night.

Well, I’m close to the track and 2 days early, since I didn’t take any days off due to bad weather. Unfortunately, the bad weather seems to be saving itself for the track:

I’ll be staying here in Tulsa until Sunday morning. Sunday morning I’ll check into Freddie’s Lakeside Cabins (presuming that they actually processed my reservation) and unload a bunch of stuff, then I’ll head to the track (unless it is really pouring down) to help Randy set up stuff for AtomFest.

I’m on schedule, staying tonight in Huber Heights, Ohio. Depending on how the weather looks on Wednesday, I’ll either stay another day or move on to Greenville, Illinois.

So far I’ve been pretty lucky with the weather – it just started misting when I pulled into Somerset, PA last night. It was quite humid there, though – 98%.

The weather was a bit chilly this morning when I left there, but it warmed up later in the morning. There was intermittent rain for most of the drive today. Every time I’d pull over to put my jacket on, the sun would come out. And when I took the jacket off and put sunscreen on, it would start raining again.

I apparently missed a torrential downpour near Columbus, Ohio by less than 15 minutes – someone else staying at the same hotel I am said that when he came through, he could barely see the road to drive.

Here’s a picture from my rollbar camera:

The second US  AtomFest will be held on September 15th through the 17th. I’ll be driving there and back like I did for the previous event. I’ll be driving the shortest route there, which is on the interstate highways. But I’ll be taking the long way home, meandering through the South and sampling lots of BBQ and the best driving roads. I’ve posted a tentative calendar in PDF format here.

I’ll have the same Atom Across America hotline number as in previous years – 551-580-0100 – if you want to call in to see where I’ll be. This number will be active starting September 7th and through to October 1st. I’ll try to update the message each evening to say where I’ll be on the following day.

Here’s a group shot from the first AtomFest in 2007 (click on the picture for a full-size version):

You can find more information about AtomFest at http://www.atomfest.net

The January 2008 issue of Sports Car International has a road test of the Atom as well as a feature on my Atom, with some pictures of the car in New York City. This issue is at newsstands now (November 2007) through the end of December (or whenever the issue sells out). Starting in January 2008 it will be available for purchase as a back issue from the above link.

If you’re just coming to the Atom Across America site because you read the article, welcome! Feel free to explore. You can start with the categories to the right – The Build, The Trip, etc. Note that the posts are in reverse order, with the newest at the top. Also, please look at the Links section to the right – the official web sites for both the US and UK factories are there, as well as the Ariel Atom Owner’s Club, which has a huge amount of information for anyone interested in the Atom.

Here’s an image of the part of the article dealing with my Atom. Sorry about the blurring of the text, but I assume the folks at SCI would prefer that you purchase the magazine from them. Once it is off the newsstands, I’ll see about getting reprint permission to show the article here.

I’m about 400 miles from home tonight. I decided to splurge and stay in the mansion at Col Alto, which is now part of a Hampton Inn – but what a place:

The car has 15,850 miles on it.

Tonight I’m in Asheville, NC. I was up on the Blue Ridge Parkway today, but it got pretty chilly (there was ice on the rocks at the side of the road). I’ll probably take the Interstate back home and come back in the spring to finish up my Parkway drive. Here’s a picture of the Atom on the Parkway:

Here’s another good reason to always wear your helmet – up on the Parkway, I heard a “plonk” on the right side of my helmet. After I stopped, I found this critter stuck in the Atom’s intake snorkel:

Tonight I’m in Olive Branch, MS. I’m avoiding Tennessee due to the boycott arranged by Tail of the Dragon, so I’ll be moving through Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia before heading up through North Carolina. Not much else to report.

Today I drove the Atom up to Eureka Springs, AR. I visited the Eureka Springs & North Arkansas Railway, a 2-mile scenic train route. They used to operate steam equipment, but the federal boiler inspectors have become a lot tougher due to an incident elsewhere, so they can only operate diesel equipment now. [I used to work on steam equipment in the summer when I was in High School, so I’m familiar with the enormous time and expense to keep it running.]

This is one of their steam locomotives, and is probably the closest to operable of all of them:

This is the diesel they use to pull the passenger car(s). While this is a very small operation, the engineer has an incredibly good hand with the throttle – the coupling and uncoupling was done perfectly:

Afterwards, I drove the Atom down the Pig Trail, which has some nice twists and turns. It turns out I just missed Willie Nelson in Eureka Springs – he was in a bus in the parking lot of City Hall when I stopped in and asked for directions.