Peachstate PCA has conducted multiple Drive Toward a Cure tours supporting the Emory Udall Parkinson’s Disease Center, but none as successful as this one! The tour departed Covington on Wednesday morning March 19, having already raised $4,500. We spent the first night in Jekyll Island at the Holiday Inn Resort on the beach. We had a group dinner at The Warf where, of course, most of us got seafood.

The next morning we drove through Amelia Island on the way to Jacksonville where we visited the Brumos Collection. We were greeted there by Mr. Hurley Haywood. We auctioned a copy of his book, which he autographed for the winning bid of $500 to bring us to $5,000. Mr. Haywood talked to our group and interacted with us for the entire time we were at the museum. Then we drove to Melbourne, FL for a group dinner at Grills Riverside Seafood.

The next morning we went to the American Muscle Car Museum which has over 480 cars, including over 100 Porsches, every color of Ford GT40, and just about any muscle car you can name. It was a bit overwhelming to see that many cars under one roof! Mark Pieloch, the owner of the museum, came and greeted and interacted with us which helped make the event even more special. The museum even provided a pizza lunch for us. I should mention that the only way you get into the museum is by being part of a charity event, and we had the place to ourselves which was very special. The next day there was an event on the grounds of the museum that brought in thousands of spectators, and Mark indicated that he expected 2,000 + to visit the museum. After the museum visit folks had some time to do whatever they wanted before dinner. Some went up to the space center, others to a treasure museum containing artifacts from sunken treasure ships that went down off the treasure coast of Florida. We ate dinner at River Rocks Grill, which provided the best meal of the trip.

After the fantastic experience at the American Muscle Car Museum I was informed that our group had donated an additional $10,000 bringing our total to $15,000.

We returned the next day to the museum site to see the Florida Owners Group 356 concours and the AACA Celebration of Cars show which had 500 + cars registered. Again it was a bit overwhelming. A group of us went to Ford’s Garage for lunch before continuing on to Ocala to visit the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing. We were on our own after that.