As if worrying about gas mileage wasn't enough, this section of US 70 must have been chosen by Hot Rod for it's bone jarring roughness! Throughout the rest of Arkansas, you could see that the high spots in the asphalt, where it cracks and pushes up, had been shaved down. This stretch however, hadn't received that treatment yet, and we were taking a beating!
"How far to the Checkpoint, Boone"
"Well we turned on 70, at 257 into the trip, and the checkpoint is 271, so about 10 miles left I'd say".
We clawed on through the pitch black darkness, thump, thump, thump, the headlights shaking with every impact. When the lights of the town finally began to come into focus, it felt a heck of lot further than any 10 miles!
Less than a 1/2 mile into the small town of Brinkley AR., we rolled up to a cruddy, filthy little hole in the wall convenience store with a torn up cratered lot and two pumps that looked as though they had been in service for twenty years! I was 145 miles on a 15 gallon fuel cell that I've never put more than 13.5 in at any one time, so I had no qualms about pulling right in!