The Mother Road Ride/Rally ^® NEWS

When next we 'meet' here, we'll be bringing you a preliminary report on The 4^th Annual Mother Road Ride/Rally®. This is the last newsletter you'll receive before we Get Our Kicks on Route 66! (And if the rest of the summer is like previous summers people will already begin planning for The 5^th Annual Mother Road Ride/Rally®, We go the second Saturday of June, so the 1999 run will be June 12-19, 1999. The last run of this century.

Reminder: There is no on site, walk up registration for The 4^th Annual Mother Road Ride/Rally®. Let us hear from you right away if you'd like to come along this year.

Kelly from Karnack

Yup, Johnny Carson's 'seer' has a town named after him (or, perhaps, the other way around?). Don Kelly is from Karnack, Texas and will be joining The 4^th Annual Mother Road Ride/Rally® at Holbrook, AZ. Don has been riding for 35 years (!) And will be on his Honda GL1500 SE for this ride. The 2,400 miles of Route 66 would hardly be a good warm up for Don. He and his wife rode from Rock Island, IL to Winnipeg, Canada, then across Canada to Vancouver, BC, down to Los Angeles and back to Illinois, 6,200 miles in all.

Video Confusion

Ever since we started producing motorcycle touring videos (two titles now finished), the office has started looking like an explosion in a cable factory.

The machines themselves are not all that complicated BUT hooking them up to work together is a nightmare. We're looking forward to adding more Route 66 footage when we meet up with the Chicago starters on June 13.

Our current titles: Ride D/FW and Ride Route 66 - Arizona. We invite you to call 800-553-5883 (817-488-4940 outside the United States) for a description of those videos.

Route 66 Resident Rides

Zane Robbins, of Edmond, OK, plans to join up The 4^th Annual Mother Road Ride/Rally® in Oklahoma City. Edmond is just a bit north of Oak City and the original Route 66 passed right through the center of town. That original route is now State route 66.

Zane told us he had 'been thinking about doing [Route 66] for several years. Didn't know about the rally until I saw it in Wing World.' Zane, a project engineer for Conoco, has his fingers crossed that he will be able to go . . . his work load is such he may not be able to make it.

Powerhouse Visitor Center

Kingman, Arizona has opened the old/new Powerhouse building right on Route 66 in Kingman (Andy Devine Blvd). It also serves as the headquarters of the Arizona Route 66 Association. Mary Felty has extended a special invitation for 'mother roaders' to stop by and see the building. It is the oldest known reinforced concrete structure in Arizona boasting two feet thick concrete buttresses and ten feet thick equipment foundations. Construction features that kept it from being demolished when it went out of service in 1938. Quite a sight to see.