Day Two-"Direct Hits" Route takes on a new nameMarch 5, 2002Morning broke in Arizona and we were all tired as hell. There was ice on some of the cars from frozen muffler condensation, not a good thing considering all of the Trekkers at this point were from Southern California. The hotel staff was visibly distressed by the fact that Arnold ate every single glazed doughnut from the free Continental Breakfast tray. During our wake-up cigarette break outside, the Red Bull people showed up again, two girls this time. Someone invited them to ride along in the RV, but they turned us down. Oh well, we're all coffee drinkers anyway, so we just stood around pitying Turbo Magazine editor Evan Griffey for a while. Evan had volunteered to drive SP Engineering's Supra-powered RX7-800+ hp, 2,800 miles, no radio-on the Trek. No, Evan, we don't hear any kind of buzzing sound-we think it's just in your head.
Our lunch stop today was in Gallup, N. M. We ate at a restaurant that had an adjoining gift store, so all throughout lunchtime we challenged the A'PEXi and Team Bergenholtz guys to a game of "Who can solve this ring puzzle the fastest." Of course, the small children and a few farm animals around us were solving the supposedly difficult puzzles with relative ease, making us feel like the fools we appeared to be.
On the road again, nothing eventful happened-just the usual card playing, sleeping and trying to stifle the feelings of queasiness from being in the rolling breadbox while 50-mph crosswinds threatened to blow us completely off the road. Of course, since everyone else was driving performance vehicles, we were left for the vultures and had to fend for ourselves on the byways and back roads of the trip. Still, there's something to be said about the Ford Triton V8 engine that powered the motorhome. It kept us on the straight and narrow and only a few minutes behind our fellow Trekkers. We're not sure if this is entirely thanks to the engine, or the excessively fast driving habits of fearless "Designated Driver" Arnold.
When we finally got to Albuquerque, we were greeted at the Hinkle Family Fun Center by the park's staff and the president of Direct Hits, a new company that is starting to make waves with its proprietary ignition system. Of course, Direct Hits plus Family Fun Center Go-Karts don't add up to much, but leave it up to Jason and the Tunernauts to come up with their own equation. Since Jason is from England, he tends to drive on the wrong side of the road, and just plain wrong in general. So, instead of trying to get the fastest lap times, he administered his "Days of Thunder" version of kart racing-Rubbin' is Racin'! We didn't even have a chance to complete the required three laps before our karts were remotely shutoff and we were ejected from the course. One would think that being put in the penalty box was enough, but not for Jason-he went again and was ejected again. None of us suffered any bumps and bruises but we sure did have a whole lot of fun pretending to be Cole Trickle.
Later that night we all ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant and were treated to a real-life version of "COPS". A patron who had had a little too much to drink suddenly bolted out the side door, and we watched as the world's biggest dishwasher gave chase-and caught him. That guy must have been really drunk because that dishwasher was big enough to be an automatic dishwasher-he was PHAT in every vernacular use of the word. After that episode and an extremely large dinner bill, some of us went to a downtown Albuquerque hotspot to check out the nightlife, while others stayed "home" and watched DVDs on Gary's portable player. Who says that we don't know how to have fun?
High Point : Tuner staff is ejected for turning the Family Fun Center into the final scene of "Days of Thunder."