Hot Rod Power Tour putting Starke County on the map

HAMLET, Ind. --The Street Freaks, a car group made up of Hamlet community members, welcomed thousands of hot rods into the Starke County Fair Grounds all day Wed. for a pitstop on The Hot Rod Power Tour 2025.

The Hot Rod Power Tour is America’s largest traveling car show, lasting a week. It’s been around for over 30 years, with over 6,000 hot rods traveling together, making stops for rest and good times on the road.

This year, the route passed through Starke County while making their way from Joliet to Fort Wayne. So, the Street Freaks banded together to find a way to for one of those stops to be in the small town of Hamlet.

“They went from Indianapolis, to Joliet, from Joliet, they were passing through here to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and this is about a halfway point, Hamlet, Indiana,” said Steve Bernet, a Street Freaks member.

In order to have the tour stop in Hamlet, Bernet said they needed to give a reason, or point of interest, for why it would be a good draw. Bernet said it was easy to decide the interest point: The Lincoln Highway.

“Hot Rod said we had to have a ‘point of interest’… we don’t have much here, but we do have the Lincoln Highway which is very old… the oldest highway in… Indiana,” said Bernet.

“This is a once in a lifetime deal. This is the 30th [31st] year, it’s come down Lincoln Highway like one other time in the whole history, so this is probably, this is it for all of us,“ said Todd Leinbach, treasurer for Street Freaks.

So, the community made sure to make the most out of the moment in history, turning the tour stop into a full-on car show with live music, vendors, and a sea of cars.

“This is something that benefits the whole community, not just the exposure to Hamlet, but while we had this going on with a couple thousand cars, we had over 300 cars of local people that were waiting in another lot kind of far away to come here and enjoy all of our venders,” said Dave Pearman, a Street Freaks founding member.

The tour came through Starke County just in time for the Street Freaks, with their own upcoming car show happening the third weekend of August during the Yellowstone Trail Festival.