The direct trip from Bowling Green, Kentucky to Pontiac, Michigan should take approximately eight hours. That’s a long stretch of driving, but with just over five hundred miles to cover, that’s entirely reasonable. To drive the Woodward Dream Cruise in it’s full route, from The Loop to 8 Mile Road and back, is about 35 miles. Driven on just about any other day, that trip should take you about an hour there and back. Keep these notes in the back of your mind…
Last year, I did not drive Woodward at all. Not one bit. I stayed in the MSHS lot, I shot photos, and I tried to absorb all that I could from what I was seeing…and I got a rash of hell for not cruising Woodward. Here’s my reasoning for that: I’m one man, and I had work to do. This gig is a fun job, no doubt, but at the end of the day it is still a job, and things have to get done. I didn’t see a way to take in the Cruise without slacking off on coverage. This year, my wife Haley joined me on the trip and agreed to shoot photos to help augment the coverage, which meant that we could drive Woodward. So, for the first time for us both, we hit the road to see what we could.
On Friday, the day before the actual cruise, things weren’t too bad. We went live, showed off the sights, and in the trips we made, the turnaround from leaving the MSHS lot to where we made a U-turn at either 12 Mile or 10 Mile put us back in the lot within two hours. Not normal time, but still a decent, solid pace. Saturday couldn’t have been any wilder…after shooting stills for a couple of hours, we jumped into the Chrysler and took off down the road at about 11 in the morning.
FIVE HOURS LATER, we were back in the lot. What happened? Here’s the long and short of it: Woodward is more massive than I can explain. I’m genuinely at a loss for words. There was a club for just about every possible car or genre present! The variety blows my mind…I saw a late 1990s Pontiac Grand Prix with it’s roof and trunk long gone cruising up with a sweet C2 Corvette next to it. I saw six Pontiac Can Ams near the GM H-body parking lot. I saw a fleet of DeLorean DMC-12s driving down the street with their doors up. An unrestored LimeLight Plymouth Superbird that hadn’t been restored was just sitting in a parking lot like nothing was wrong, while a BMW Isetta with the most pissed-off VW mill I’ve heard in quite some time was in the curbside lane. Woodward combines the best elements of a car show and L.A. gridlock. We were stuck in hellish traffic, but it was okay because on one side of us was a Mercury Marquis with a Dyers-blown big-block whining away, and on the other side of us was Ferrari F430 rapping out every few feet for the audience’s approval.
That morning, Chad had shot me a message, asking if I could stop by the Ford and GM displays to shoot some footage. The best I could do was to have Haley point the cell phone as we drove by…there was no way I could park a car for miles. And I mean that…parking is a premium along Woodward, the entire length. The tell was when FCA approached MSHS about joining them in the lot this year. Dan VanHorn got a Demon, a Widebody Hellcat Challenger, an SRT Durango, and Steve Magnante to appear, and SRT and FCA execs were coming and going throught the event, checking out cars and asking questions the whole time.
Now, in Royal Oak and further south, the police were present and more than happy to knock people for being a bit liberal with the throttle. As we finally made our way back to Pontiac and around the Loop, however, you could tell that we entered the Wild West. From the moment we passed the Pontiac Public Library, Woodward became a burnout pit. The fans were restless, wanting burnouts, engine revving, and whatever else the drivers were willing to do. At one point, I heard one lady yell out, “The damn police would do a burnout, but you won’t? That’s f**king sad, man.” I didn’t know quite what to think…on one hand, I don’t want to inform the bosses that I got hit with a “Driving While Stupid” ticket, but on the other hand, I’ve been that fan. I know the joy of hearing a driver giving in to the demands and unloading some anger out onto the roadway.
But did I actually let loose? Eh…use your imagination. I will say that the blown Monte Carlo, the 1976 Trans Am, and a couple of MSHS folks flat-out repaved sections of the road…anything I may or may not have done was child’s play by comparison.
The more I see of the Woodward Dream Cruise, the more I like. But I either need an older car or a truck with a camera mounted like a machine gun on the back to truly deliver the scope of what a first-time visitor is up against. Words fail.
Woodward is an experience all it’s own. Everyone needs to get there at least once, and going every year is not too often.