(Sorry if my story clashes with what was already written, hard to have story elements perfectly match up when everyone is independent and writing at different times)
Team: Clutch Droppers
Columbus, OH, Day -3
The time had finally come to head off for the starting line of the event, which happened to lie on the other side of the country from us… The timing of the event was nearly perfect, coming in at the beginning of summer, when the weather would be nice for the majority of the drive out to the start line, as well as during the event. Ryan and I got together three days before the event was to start, gathering supplies and preparing for the cross-country trip. Jason would be of little help for much of the packing, so we decided to leave him out of our preparation until we had most of the work done.
Bob: Alright Ryan, we are gonna have to drive hard to get out to Washington before the event starts and I am honestly worried about driving all the way out there with the engine being as heavily modified as it is. I think we should put it on a trailer to take it across the country. I know we won’t get a proper shakedown, but we will have a better chance of the car living through the entire event.
Ryan: I understand what you mean, but I want to drive it! Isn’t that the entire reason for this event? But yeah… I have worries about the engine as well. maybe we could drive it every now and then just to make sure everything is running ok on the way?
Bob: I guess we could do that. Some short duration driving throughout the trip just to keep it loose would be good. Now, let’s figure out what we need to pack. We are going to need three tents, food and drinks, fire starting and maintenance gear, cooking utensils, spare parts… the car is going to fill up fast.
Ryan: Don’t worry about the survival stuff, I got us covered. We should head down to the auto store and junkyard to grab some extra parts though, just in case. Let’s keep our parts and supplies about equal, that should see us through this pretty well.
Columbus, OH, Day -2
After gathering our supplies and packing the car as efficiently as we could (our Tetris skills really came in handy), Ryan and I headed to Jason’s house to get this roadtrip started.
Jason: Sup guys, we ready to do this?!
Bob & Ryan: Hell yeah!
Bob: Ok, I’ll take the first driving shift in the Bil. Do you want to ride with me or Ryan, Jason?
Jason: No way am I riding in Ryan’s jeep if I don’t have to, that thing is annoying as all hell on the highway with his stupid off-road tires.
Ryan: Fine, I didn’t want you in my car anyway… but we will be putting the car onto my trailer in Indianapolis… so don’t get too comfortable.
Pulling out of Jason’s driveway, our 1992 jeep and 1996 sedan, both in fairly bad condition, made for a ragtag convoy, but with a thirty-seven hour trip ahead of us, we were ready for anything.
What we were not ready for was the massive thunderstorm that rolled in only a few miles outside of Columbus. The forecast had called for rain, but we were not prepared for the deluge that rolled over us in a matter of moments, completely obscuring the road and forcing us to pull off to wait it out. Turning off the Bil turned out to be a bad idea. Once the rain had passed we tried to get back on the road, but the car would not turn over. A quick check of the engine confirmed out suspicions, we were out of oil. We knew there was an oil leak and that the engine was burning oil, but we had failed to top it off before leaving Columbus, luckily we had brought a case of oil with us. One bottle of oil latter and some gentle coaxing of the engine later, the car sputtered to life and we were off.
Cruising along Interstate 70 towards Indianapolis we noticed that the storm must have cleared everyone from the road, we were all alone with nothing but the endless cornfields to keep us company. In order to spice things up, I flipped on my radar detector, hooked the car’s AUX cable into my iPhone, and que’d up some Queen. I pulled alongside Ryan in his jeep and rev’d the engine. The turbo whine sounded impressive, and even though we all knew the jeep would be no match for the Bil, Ryan still tried to take it on. Gunning it on a long, open, section of road the sound of the engine was ear-splitting, apparently there was a hole or gap in the exhaust, but Jason and I were putting quite a distance between us and Ryan. We just managed to hit the car’s “new” top speed before the temperature gauge reached into the red and the engine power suddenly reduced (a nice safety feature in such an old car). Once Ryan caught up we cruised on to Indianapolis listening to the sweet sound of Classic Rock.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, Day -1
The previous had been pretty uneventful, once we reached the far side of Indianapolis we loaded our car onto the trailer Ryan’s jeep was pulling in order to give it a rest. We followed our GPS along Interstates 65, 90, and 94 to Minneapolis, Minnesota where we found a cheap hotel and turned in for the night. 12 hours down, 25 to go.
Waking up at 6 am the next morning we made a couple stops for breakfast and snacks before continuing west on I-94.
Once we got into North Dakota the scenery started to get more interesting and beautiful. The side open spaces, sparse vegetation in areas, mountains slowly growing on the horizon, it all made for an epic feeling drive. Crossing in Montana the interstate changed direction to run along the Yellowstone River, giving us some amazing vistas and scenery to take in on the long drive. Accompanied by our diverse and excellent music choices, the hours slipped by, punctuated only by the road noise coming from the large off-road tires on Ryan’s jeep.
Roughly 12 hours of driving and it was time to call it a break for the day. We had made it all the way to Billings, Montana, and the pacific mountain range loomed large in the distance. We would be tackling those winding roads tomorrow and hopefully arriving at Birch Bay State Park in Washington before the sun went down.
Billings, Montana, Day 0
Waking up yet again at 6 am, we wanted to get an early start as it was going to be a 14 hour drive to make it to the Park. We grabbed some food to go and ate breakfast as we approached the base of the Rocky Mountains. As we neared the Idaho boarder we could tell the jeep was struggling with all the uphill driving and hauling the car was not helping. These old jeeps already had underpowered engines and we were barely doing 40mph at times. We decided to chance it and drive the car separately so we would not fall too far behind schedule. Without the load of the Bil, the jeep was much more capable and we were able to maintain freeway speeds all the way into Washington.
We stopped in Seattle in order to replenish our supplies. We grabbed some more engine oil and immediately topped off the car again, as well as some air fresheners, and rolls of paper towles. Then we made the most important stop, beer. We had brought a decent amount of beer along for the cross-country drive, but were running dangerously low. Only Ryan and I drank, making it a bit easier to pack, but we had built up quite a thirst over the long hours driving… and went a tad overboard. 10 cases of beer and one meticulously packed car later, we were satisfied and ready to meet the rest of the teams at the start line. It was a good thing we had Ryan’s jeep for at least another night, as the rear seats were currently occupied by beer, but that would be remedied later that night.
About a mile out from the camp site we pulled over and discussed the loud exhaust and what we should do about it.
Ryan: I think the muffler clamp has come loose, we can probably just tighten it down and that should get the exhaust going where it is supposed to.
Bob: I have a better idea, since we are about to get into camp why don’t we take off the muffler clamp and let the pipe from the cat hang open and really make this thing annoying. We can roll into camp reving the engine and let that loud-ass wastegate get everyone’s attention. They will either hate us or… probably hate us, but at least they might think we have something serious under the hood!
Jason: HAHAHA, I like it, let’s do it!
So after a few turns of the socket wrench, we fired up the Bil to find out just how bad the sound was. I punched the gas down for a second, but it was enough to leave all three of us temporarily deaf. As the high-piercing whine that accompanies hearing damage faded we all had the dumbest smiles… we were ready. We grabbed a few construction earmuffs from Ryan’s jeep and after we had a good distance ahead of Ryan, Jason and I turned off toward the campground.
Seeing the lights through the trees helped guide us towards the cap ground, the sun had gone down about an hour ago and we were a bit confused as to where exactly we were supposed to be camping. Turning into the clearing for the campsite we spied about 15 other cars, more than we expected. We decided to get everyone’s attention by putting our foot down a bit. Between the actually bassy rumble with the muffler disconnected and the massive turbo whine, it was clear people were startled by our appearance.
We rev’d a few times before rolling into a spot near a completely made hatchback. It was some sort of 4 door hatchback… with a giant-ass spoiler on the roof, neon pink rims, and flame decals. We felt inadequate next to such a monstrosity, but we hoped and prayed it drove as terribly as it looked in the coming event. Looking around we saw a large assortment of vehicles, an orange hatchback caught our attention, as well as a car from the 40’s, a station wagon, and not one but two purple cars! This was going to be an interesting event.
Due to our later than expected arrival, Ryan quickly went about setting up our tents and a nice fire pit while Jason and I scoped out the competition. We were able to talk to most of the teams to get a basic backstory and learn about their cars before our hunger drove us back to our now raging fire. In-fact it was more of a bonfire at this point, was easily reaching 20 feet in the air. We stared at Ryan disapprovingly, but we knew this was what Ryan always did when he was in charge of the fire. We pulled out a skillet and small metal stand which we placed next to the fire and dumped a package of hotdogs in. Popping open a couple of beers we stared into the fire while the dogs sizzled away. It was a perfect night in the Northwest, not too hot, not too cold, and it wasn’t raining!
Once we had finished dinner and packed up the cooking gear, we made sure the fire was at a more manageable size before preparing for bed. After polishing off the last of our, shared, third case of beer, we put the fire out and climbed into our tents for a goods night rest before the start of the race in the morning.
