Enjoying the drive?

I passed these 2 cars on SR-201. Do you think they have a boring commute?

 The top one was just plain cool. It just does not get better then that! One day when I can afford it I will be driving one of these everyday until my kids take my keys away because I am too old to drive.

This ford cracked me up. I thought maybe it just had a door missing but both of the doors were off. The left front wheel had some major problems. It looked like it was ready to bust a ball joint. The stuff in the cab was flying around from the air and the stuff in the bed of the truck looked just as sketchy. I am going to keep an eye out for cars that are out of the ordinary driving on the road and post them here when I find them. I generally only see about 1 car a week that will actually turn my head so we will see how many will end up here. Happy Labor Day everyone! We are going to attempt to BBQ some ribs for the first time. I hope they turn out. If not, I guess we will have hot dogs. So, until next time, Are you enjoying the drive?

Taking a stand against boring commutes!

OK so here is an official rant by me. I am SOOOOOOO sick of hearing about gas mileage this and gas mileage that. Blah, Blah, Blah! I am taking a stand against boring commutes. I figure I spend 1.5 hours on work days commuting. That adds up to 7.5 hours. I then end up driving a couple hours each weekend so I am going to estimate that I spend roughly 10 hours a week driving. That equals 520 hours a year at least, give or take a little. That equals out to be a lot of time spent on the road. I remember when I was in high school I loved to drive. In fact I lived for it. I had a big block trans am that was a blast to drive. When I got home from my mission I bought an Isuzu trooper. Not really sure what I was thinking there but that only lasted a few months and I ended up buying my brothers 69 Nova. I kept that car until I got married. After that there were many cars that came into and out of our lives. I bought my dad's 92 Chevy truck that he had bought new. I loved that truck and I only sold it because my family grew too big to fit in a single cab. That is when I bought the truck that I currently have. I put about 2000 miles a year on it now so soon it will be a low mileage truck. I remember the first car we bought was a Honda CRX. It was a little 2 seater that I used as a truck most of the time. I have to admit it was really fun to drive. I still liked driving back then. Anyways, time went on. A few years ago I bought a "commuter" car. It was a 96 Mitsubishi Galant. I look back now and can't really figure out what I was thinking. I never did like driving that car. (Dixie did though.) I ended up buying a Pontiac Bonneville that I was going to flip. I decided to put both cars up for sale and I would keep the one that didn't sell. I ended up selling both cars which didn't really bother me and I ended up buying my 1969 bug. For the past 3 years I have been driving aircooled bugs for my daily drivers. It has been many miles and I look forward to driving to and from work everyday. In fact if I have to drive my truck for more than a couple days I dread it. My bug doesn't have air conditioning, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, air bags, automatic trans, or cup holders and it rides fairly rough but I have a blast driving it. I feel like I am in a go cart wherever I go. It turns on a dime and I love to shift it. The radio is an old cassette player with one speaker in the dash but it works good. I get great tans on my left arm the longer summer goes on and it takes a little more maintenance then once every 100,000 miles like today's cars. I have vowed to never drive anything as a daily driver that is less then 35 years old. I don't want to be stuck in a cookie cutter car that looks like every other car on the road out there. Jay Leno is my hero when it comes to driving old cars. He has a big collection of cars and drives all of them. He even drives his old steamer cars to work. In fact here is an article he wrote about it.It's titled "Why I like em older."
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/articles/why-i-like-em-older/index.shtml
Here is another article he wrote that goes along with my thinking. It's titled "Why everyone should drive an old car."
 http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/articles/why-everyone-should-drive-an-old-car/index.shtml#item=84665
Here is my final argument for my stand. It comes from a roadkill episode on you tube. The part that I am referring to starts at 12:00 minutes and goes until 12:40. The parts about appliances and gas station conversations are so true! Check it out!

So, I guess I will end my rant. I understand that some people can't go without A/C and cruise but I can do without those creature comforts as long as it keeps my driving interesting and fun. Life is to short to drive around in an appliance. Ha Ha. My old cars may be the death of me someday but there are worse ways to go. Life is too short, you might as well enjoy as much of it as you can! Until next time turn down the i pod, put down your soda,  roll down your windows and enjoy some air that isn't getting blown through your cabin air filter (that has probably never been changed). You might decide you like it.


  

Speed Week 2013!

This week we loaded up and drove to the Bonneville Salt Flats for speed week. I went when I was pretty young with my Dad and I had good memories of it. I wanted my boys to have the same experience so we went this year. I REALLY wanted to drive my bug out there so I could get some cool pictures of it on the salt. I had planned on doing that but as I read up about speed week people recommended having a bike to get around. (The pits are 3 miles long to give you some perspective.) In the end I decided to drive my truck out there so we could load up our bikes. I also heard it is brutally hot out there so I worried about my boys. I figured if we had the truck they could at least get in it and have air conditioning to cool them off if they got too hot. I do OK in the heat as long as I drink lots and lots of water. We packed a big cooler full of water also. Here they are ready to go in the morning.

 I had to get a picture of the cement tree that is in the middle of nowhere heading towards Wendover. It is a little over one hundred miles to the salt flats from Salt lake and it took us about an hour and 45 minutes to get there.

 Here is the turn off. We were getting excited.

 We drove to the pits and parked just outside them. That's when we pulled out the bikes and rode them through the pits checking out all the cars, trucks, bikes and everything else that was running around there. It was pretty hot so we slathered up with sun block, put some hats and sunglasses on and took lots of water with us. Check out the cool cars in the back ground. Two guys cruised them all around the pits throughout the day. The boys loved riding their bikes on the salt. I have to admit it was a blast.

I was in car heaven. There were Hot Rods absolutely everywhere. It was like a sensory overload. I am surprised I didn't wreck my bike looking at all the stuff. I figured there would be some cool stuff there but I had no idea there would be so  much of it. There were cars from all over the world. Tons of different states, Canada, Australia, England. It was like the ultimate car show except at this show they were driving all around on the salt, wrenching on them, tuning them and racing them. It was amazing.

 This rod had a supercharged straight 8 Packard engine in it. It was awesome.

 There wasn't a cloud in the sky with only a slight breeze. The breeze was nice to cool you off. More pictures.

 I love the contrast between the white salt and the blue sky.

This is A LOT of engine in a little car.

 These guys are from California and they had a ton of old 50's style cars all over their pits.

Me and Isaac love to watch roadkill videos on you tube. I mentioned to Isaac that they might be out there and we ran across them actually filming one. If you don't know what roadkill is, there are 2 editors of Hot Rod magazine that film a bunch of crazy stuff they do with cars and post it on You tube. They are hilarious. If you haven't seen it, check it out. If your not into cars you may not understand it but if you are,  you'll be rolling with laughter. It does have a little bit of language in them so beware.

 We talked to them after they were finished shooting and they are both great guys. It really made Isaac's day seeing them. He is still talking about it.They drove to Bonneville and ran the camaro shown here. It went 217 MPH but blew up at 218. I can't wait to see the video. They said it will be out next month.

Here is one of my favorite episodes of roadkill. These guys are hilarious and a little bit crazy!

OK back to the pictures.

 These bikes were cool. I loved the discs on the one. He was selling discs. I should of bought some but then I would of had to buy a cool bike for them to be put on.I don't really need another project.

 I saw this truck everywhere all day long. He drove it all over the salt.

 This was a cool car. I bought a t-shirt off him to help his cause.

Like I said, Hot Rods EVERYWHERE!

 I would of like to see this one run but didn't get the chance.

 There were lots of pit bikes running around all over but this was one of the cooler ones.

 I love his turn signal.

So we started in the pits and after about 3 hours there we went and watched some cars race about mid track. I was listening to the announcer and he mentioned that there was some good food at the Enola Gay cafe which was located at the starting line. We decided to drive to the starting line and get some lunch. This picture is at the starting line. This car was just getting ready to run. I am not sure if it was legal but we basically walked right up to the starting line. No one gave us funny looks so we spent some time watching them take off. It was a blast. It is basically first come first serve to race. They have a few different tracks but we watched track number 1 which was a 5 mile course and the fastest cars ran on this track. The drivers are all suited up waiting to run so that is why the guy is holding an umbrella. It gives the driver some shade. It has to be pretty hot sitting in a car with a fire suit and helmet waiting for your chance to run.

 We watched this one run and it spun out just past the mile mark. That was impressive to see also.

 This was a camaro with a blown big block. It also spun about the same place the other one did. We saw both of them spin.

 Check out that engine. Whew, it's a lot of engine.

 This car would be a blast to race.

 Lots of rods like this were driving all over.

An unusual one. Funny license plate though.

Another cool bike. I like the engine. It would be really cool to build one like this.

 He even had flames on his tires. Ha Ha, those are my kind of tires!

 We finally made it over to the cafe. We ate track burgers which always taste good at the track. If you had them anywhere else they would probably suck. Ha Ha.

 Back to the starting line to watch more cars take off.

Everywhere I tell you!

 So after lunch we watched some more at the halfway point. We then drove back to the pits and decided to take our chances driving through them with the truck. Again, no one gave us a funny look so we went to the end of the pits and I saw some cars further down the salt. I drove out to where they were and parked. I realized we were at the end of the 5 mile track. We watched a few cars run. It was cool seeing cars running 240 MPH as they run across the finish line. I then heard the announcer calling out speeds on a car. It was going really fast. Anyways we watched it as it went through the traps at 424 MPH. It was awesome! It actually set a new track record for it's class. The old one was 422 MPH. I couldn't believe we saw that especially at the end of the track. We then drove back through the pits and took some more pictures.

 We talked to one of the guys on this pit crew. It has 2 blown big block engines. One in the front and one in the back. They were setting up this car trying to get it to pass tech. He said it should run 450 easily and has the capability of going over 500. That would be a rush to drive.

 They are towing this one up to the line so it can make a pass.

So it was an incredible day. I have only posted a handful of the pictures that I took. I quit taking pictures during the day because there was just too much to see and take pictures at the same time. I have gone to many many car related things in my life but this one has got to be the best I have ever seen so far. It is really cool to see the caliber of these cars all in one place and then to actually see them being used. I love that. I am not a fan of having a show car and then never driving it because your afraid of damaging it. I have a lot of respect for those people who drive these cool cars everyday. I guess this was just my kinda crowd. If you get the chance to go to speed week, take it. Sure it's really hot, you get salt everywhere, it's hard on your car but you will never find a better bunch of people and it is worth the experience. It's like a different planet where the conditions are brutal and there are hot rods driving everywhere. Ha ha I had a blast and am planning on going back. Next time I will drive my bug out there. It will be great cruise.

We bounced back to Lagoon this week also. Can't pass that up. It was a great week! I haven't worked much in august but it has been worth it. I could get use to this. Ha Ha, Here is Ellie and Steven waiting in line for the terror ride at lagoon.

Until next time, Take a stand against boring commutes, ditch the A/C and drive something fun!

Vee Dub Club Cruise and some Alan Jackson to end the day!

I had a heck of a day yesterday. Isaac and I started out the morning taking the bug up to Layton. We met the Vee Dub Club under the flag at the Layton Hills Mall. The club had been invited to go to Blackline Racing and check out the engine they built to giveaway at the no show car show. They were going to do a final dyno tune on it and add some pinstriping to the sheetmetal. It is always fun cruising with a bunch of VW's so we went to Layton to meet them. There were 8 of us that met there and we all cruised down to Murray to Blacklines shop. The weather was perfect for a cruise. Here is when we all took off about to get on the freeway.

You can see the bug in front and a bus in back of us. It was a blast and no one broke down so that was good.

This is the engine that they are raffling off at the no show. It's a 1776 with dual carbs. It ran really good and is pulling about 116 horsepower. That's impressive because a stock 1600 engine has 50 horsepower. The engine is hooked up to the dyno and it was LOUD!

I would love to win this engine. It would wake Ed right up.

Here they are running it. It was really impressive.

This is the control panel of the Dyno.

Brian is pinstriping the dog house in this picture. He pinstriped my vise. It takes a lot of talent to do this.

A little closer view.

And, here is the final product. It looks as amazing as it runs!

Issac loved the shop. It is packed full of all kinds of VW engine stuff. They specialize in VW's and they have everything to do it. They let us go all over their shop and look at things. It was awesome. They had 2 mills, a lathe, brakes, shears etc.... They also have the talent and equipment to weld aluminum and magnesium. It's a cool shop.

More shop pictures.

I think this engine was one they had installed in a bug that they raced at the salt flats. It went 140 MPH. Me and Isaac took off from there and had some lunch. We then spent the rest of the afternoon working on the trailer getting it ready to go to bear lake.

Dixie and I had tickets to see Alan Jackson that night at USANA. We drove the bug because driving the mini van on a date just isn't very cool. Here's my hottie waiting for the concert to begin. Our seats were pretty good and we had a good time.

Here he is at the beginning of the show. He sounded as good live as he does on his albums. He played all his great songs also. I normally don't pay to see concerts because I am cheap but he is my favorite singer and Dixie likes him too so we went.

It only got better as the night went on. We had a blast! I would pay to see him again.

So that was our awesome Saturday. It was a blast and the weather was really nice all day long. It was low 90's but that is so much better then the triple digits we have had lately. There is more fun stuff coming our way so stay tuned.