Sweet rides, prizes and an Easter Egg Poker Run make this cruise unlike any other

The POL (Performance Online) Cruise, known for its scenic drives and monthly change of routes and locations, just completed the 10th event. This time around, we held an Easter Egg Poker Run.

The Cruise started at Dos Lagos, California, where roughly 500 vehicles met up and received their first egg, and map for the cruise route.  At 10 am sharp all 500 cars rolled out with a map in hand to direct them to the next egg/poker card pick-up point.

The Cruise route started off with a scenic drive around Lake Mathews and the first stop… what better place than POL headquarters.

After that stop, the Cruise headed over to Brothers Trucks, also located nearby. All the muscle cars and classic trucks looked cool lined up to receive their next egg.  The Cruise then headed over to Currie Enterprises to pick up their 4th egg. Once that stop was made it was off to the final destination, Evans Brewery in Corona, where the final egg was given out, and there you could park your ride.

Once everyone arrived, a bullhorn was used to call out the winners. Determining the winning cards was easy since Ace Fuel Injection was the official Easter egg sponsor and had arranged to give away products to the winners. Whoever randomly drew an ace card out of the deck were the winners. Of course, there were four ace cards out there and those winners came up and received their prizes.  Once those prizes were given out, lots of hats and T-shirts were being thrown out to the crowd just to continue in the excitement. The nice thing about having the end location at Evans Brewery was of course the beers and the taco truck serving everyone, making it a great after-party.

Now you are probably asking yourself how the POL Cruise came to be. Well, it started out with the first get-together in the Inland Empire back on June 7th, 2020 and it was quite a surprise that little over 200 cars showed up. We started out at Dos Lagos in Corona and drove around Lake Mathews and finished in a closed-down grocery store parking lot in the middle of Corona. Larry Ashley says he was looking for a way to promote the POL brand but with the absence of the show scene, he was wondering what we could do differently. Larry remembered a cruise he would attend every New Year’s morning in Orange County over the last few years and boasted about it being one of the best events he had attended and then when another group had a cruise event in the OC that he attended with longtime friend Johnny Hammonds, owner of Johnny’s Auto Color & Body Works. They knew that was what was missing in the Inland Empire.

With the magic of Photoshop and few pics from POL past open houses, Larry put together a flyer and hit social media for a month straight promoting the first POL Cruise. Johnny also hit up local meet-ups with printed flyers in hand. After that first Cruise, we were onto something, so we started hitting up other manufacturers for support and increases outreach which now includes FiTech, Western Chassis, Eddie Motorsports, Champion Cooling Systems, and Currie Enterprises.

The next event was on June 28th, with a little over 300 vehicles. What to do next? Well with a few talks with co-sponsors we decided to do product giveaways. Fitech was the first to do this and we got just under 400 vehicles. Next, it was Currie Enterprises turn and Jon Henson suggested we need a cool ending and had friends that owned a brewery called Evans Brewery. Wow, what a hit that was. We had over 500 cars and the buzz was out. We were the talk of the community.

So, the inland empire as big as it is, was not enough. So it was time to test a new location; Orange County. Can we pull off the same or bigger group? How do we do this?

Well, we hit social media again with the catchy title -”The POL Orange County Invasion Cruise #8” We kept with our cruise style by driving through the hills of South Orange County. We added more manufacturers to the list which now includes American Racing, Baer Brakes, Brothers Trucks, Champion Cooling, Currie Enterprises, Eddie Motorsports, FiTech, Johnny’s Autobody, Orange County Hot Rods, Magnaflow, Restomods and Western Chassis.

We chose a parking lot that was not being used (a movie theatre that closed due to COVID) and had the Cruise ending there. To add more spice, we had all manufacturers do a free raffle. To our amazement, the attendance went well over the 700 mark which then we said we must keep this going.

So here we are now promoting the 10th Cruise with even more sponsors, which now includes Black Widow Exhaust, Original Parts Group, and a new player, Aces Fuel Injections. We will have an Easter Egg Poker run with “egg pick” destinations at various sponsor locations. The eggs will be the playing cards and those with the best hand will win great prizes.

Ashley says he is doing his best to keep the Cruise new and entertaining, keep the crowds growing, and sharing the fun they experience on their social media spaces.

One thing’s for sure, the consensus is that these Cruises will stick around for a while and could become a traveling cruise in your local area.

Stay tuned!

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