Ogden represented in Montana 500

It’s a 500 mile race run by Model T Fords, their owners having put hours and a bit of cash into their pride and joy. 

I didn’t know it was on my bucket list, but it was. Riding in the kind of car my parents did decades ago made me feel, all of a sudden, closer to them. 

“Spooning” was a term Dad used when youth in their day and age ‘dated.’ I felt privileged to take a step back in time and imagine them tooling down the road, wind in their faces and a bit of a chill in the air.

It’s what I term a ‘visual oxymoron’ - the 1926 Model T Ford in mint condition sported a GPS system that helped measure the speed. It was kind of like having one foot in the early 1900’s, and the second foot in another millennium.

A BLAST! I would say. There was no heater, no air conditioning, no radio, not even a gas pedal. Dennis sped up or slowed down by moving the lever on the side of the steering column.  

Although it wasn’t spacious by any means, it was quite comfortable (however, I’m not sure you could say that on the down side of the 500 mile endurance race). On the day of my test ride, running about 50 mph, we even reached near 60 on a downhill slope.

“I’ll give you an interview on one condition - you have to go for a ride in it so you can get the feel for what a 500 mile race in it might require,” Dennis Powers said when I spoke to him on the phone.

Read more in the June 29 issue of The Ogden Reporter.