There are so many races and shows this year I feel like my column is already written before I even get to the office. This time I feel like writing about something other than my normal words of wisdom. This time I'm going to write about one of my few weekends off.
With the new race season underway, not to mention car shows galore planned for this year, free weekends have become few and far between. Most of our readers think we're lucky to live, eat, breathe and shit cars while traveling around the world, and in a way it's true-but heavy doses of it can really wear you out. Think about it this way: If all you could ever eat was green eggs and ham for breakfast, lunch and dinner, day in and day out, you would eventually get sick of it.
You might think having a weekend off would also mean I'd be sure to get away from industry people (mainly people who work in the auto industry who I see at all the shows and races). It turned out that Castrol's all-motor driver, whom we all know as "Yappy," aka Joel Mandl, was headed out to the California desert to have fun in a few sand toys. I decided to go, too, but not having a sand toy of my own I made a quick call to Rex Urasaki from Edelbrock to see what he had. It was good timing. Edelbrock had a built H2 Hummer loaded with an array of suspension upgrades. The deal was I could borrow it if I shot it and tried to get it into one of Primedia's many truck magazines. I accepted the challenge, and thus had a sand toy of my own for the weekend. (For the record, Rex and Frank specifically said to beat the crap out of it!)
Joining in our festivities (pictured) was Jensen Oda of A'PEXi Integration, Mitch from GM Racing, Stephan Papadakis, Greg Nakano from AEM, Roger Willis from Rob Gordon's Offroad, and our good friend Thuy Nguyen. I said earlier that Yappy and the rest of the Castrol boys also came along, but they were having so much fun destroying their Chevy Avalanche that they couldn't stop for the picture. Oh, by the way, both Edelbrock representatives, Rex and Frank, thought Glamis would be fun so they also decided to make the trip out in their own toys. Steph ended up borrowing a sand rail from Robert Wilson of Modern Image, and Rex brought out his Toyota Tacoma PreRunner and nitrous-enhanced quad. The place in Glamis where all the action is is a spot known as Oldsmobile Hill. It's here you prove if your particular toy has balls enough to climb the 1/4-mile dune at about a 45-degree angle. We hung out there for a few hours and it was a blast.
By day's end, Steph ended up breaking the gas tank in the sand rail, as well as uncovering a few ECU issues. Rex ended up blowing up his quad when he tried to purge the nitrous-did I mention he used to work at NOS? I lost the front grille on the H2 by nose-diving down a steep dune. Besides the fact that we were left with a bunch of broken toys, I still had a lot of fun. Even though this wasn't exactly a day away from the industry, it sure didn't feel like work. Now, what did I say earlier? Oh yeah, the staff barely has weekends to themselves without industry involvement. Sometimes I think I'm the one to blame for my negative feelings, because a lot of the people working in the industry really have befriended me. These people aren't just advertisers and racers; they're people I can actually call good friends of mine. Damn, I guess I do live, eat, breathe and shit cars!