Ever year Baz Young makes a 2300 journey to race his Nitro FC at the Hot Rod Renuion.
He always post a very interesting diary of his adventure and with permission I'm re-posting here
Day 1
So it's that time of year when we find ourselves compelled to make the annual pilgrimage to the California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield. It makes no real sense of course? Four days and 2300 miles or so dragging the "Down Under Thunder" funny car across America for what could only ever be a few seconds (less than 40 if you complete all 3 qualifying runs and make it to the final) of racing. And then doing the same thing back home again afterwards.
However, what the folks who've never been to this event couldn't possibly know, is the magic of lining up with dozens of other funny cars in the staging lanes, the packed grandstands, the legends of our sport that will be mingling throughout the pits and watching us try our best, spending time with our friends that we sometimes haven't seen for many years, and most of all of course, the thrill of nailing that pedal to the floor, unleashing that Nitro powered monster and letting it scream it's heart out out for those 1320 feet...
Very poetic - but before we get to do that, we have to get there... So for those that have followed our adventures in the past years, you'll know we travel with our motor home and trailer on what we call the "Walmart tour of America". Every night of our journey we pitch camp in the parking lot of the nearest Walmart and dream of victory. We left home last night and nibbled 150 miles of the journey to Pontiac, IL.
Our plan today is to make it to Oklahoma, Tulsa at least, but hopefully a little further, I'll let you know later.
For regular followers of our madness, I have been lax in not reporting our last couple of races. We had a four run match race with Doc Halliday at Union Grove over Labor Day weekend, they were all close but we managed to win all four. A couple of weeks later, we were part of a four car "exhibition" race at the Good Guys event in Bowling Green, KY. Fantastic weekend where we won two and lost two trying some different things in preparation for next weeks CHRR.
So if you happen to be traveling on I55, I44 or I40 over the next couple of days, watch out for us and give us a honk of your horn, we'll be the motorhome and trailer rocking along with loud music and happy faces...
He always post a very interesting diary of his adventure and with permission I'm re-posting here
Day 1
So it's that time of year when we find ourselves compelled to make the annual pilgrimage to the California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield. It makes no real sense of course? Four days and 2300 miles or so dragging the "Down Under Thunder" funny car across America for what could only ever be a few seconds (less than 40 if you complete all 3 qualifying runs and make it to the final) of racing. And then doing the same thing back home again afterwards.
However, what the folks who've never been to this event couldn't possibly know, is the magic of lining up with dozens of other funny cars in the staging lanes, the packed grandstands, the legends of our sport that will be mingling throughout the pits and watching us try our best, spending time with our friends that we sometimes haven't seen for many years, and most of all of course, the thrill of nailing that pedal to the floor, unleashing that Nitro powered monster and letting it scream it's heart out out for those 1320 feet...
Very poetic - but before we get to do that, we have to get there... So for those that have followed our adventures in the past years, you'll know we travel with our motor home and trailer on what we call the "Walmart tour of America". Every night of our journey we pitch camp in the parking lot of the nearest Walmart and dream of victory. We left home last night and nibbled 150 miles of the journey to Pontiac, IL.
Our plan today is to make it to Oklahoma, Tulsa at least, but hopefully a little further, I'll let you know later.
For regular followers of our madness, I have been lax in not reporting our last couple of races. We had a four run match race with Doc Halliday at Union Grove over Labor Day weekend, they were all close but we managed to win all four. A couple of weeks later, we were part of a four car "exhibition" race at the Good Guys event in Bowling Green, KY. Fantastic weekend where we won two and lost two trying some different things in preparation for next weeks CHRR.
So if you happen to be traveling on I55, I44 or I40 over the next couple of days, watch out for us and give us a honk of your horn, we'll be the motorhome and trailer rocking along with loud music and happy faces...