I think I am still trying to figure out where I am and what the smell is. Last week we were trying to goad you into guessing where we were headed on the BangShift Road Trip Of Doom 2014 edition and a couple of you were pretty well on the stick. Over the course of a couple days, Nutting, Fitzgerald, and I drove some 2,000 miles from Massachusetts to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and home visiting places like Trick Flow, Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, the Lingenfelter collection, the MotorCity Hot Rod and Racing Expo, and some bitchin’ restaurants along the way. There was lots of laughs, little sleep, a few beers, and a diesel powered Jeep provided by Chrysler for us to amble down the road in. We’ll be sharing our adventures starting tomorrow and going on for weeks as we gathered truckloads of content in the course of our trip.
This was one of the best road trips I have ever been on because we laughed so much, accomplished so much, did cool stuff, and got home in one piece. I was just about to go face first into the London Broil at dinner due to being exhausted but I still found myself laughing at some of the idiotic jokes and phrases we were slinging during our vast number of hours in the Jeep. This of course raised a natural question for the day:
BangShift Question Of The Day: What Is The Best Road Trip You Have Ever Been On?
“Yes, officer? Craig Fitzgerald is about to drive me off a cliff…”
Nutting, Craig Fitzgerald, Ken Lingenfelter, talentless hack writer, Brian Thompson
had quite a few good ones over the years but a couple that stick in my mind were both work trips…one was Adelaide South Australia to Alice Springs – 3 days to get there ( stopover in Coober Pedy) in a late 90’s Holden Commodore wagon..myself and a female co worker…highlights included pulling over for a urine break in the middle of nowhere, walking off into the scrub to find, behind a big arsed rock, about 20 old cars – one was a 1970 Falcon on its roof but otherwise untouched, undamaged – peered into the engine bay expecting a 6 but surprised by a 351 clevo – just as I was thinking `why has nobody touched it?’ a snake struck at me and juust missed. Didn’t give him a second chance… oh, or kicking around the carpark in Coober Pedy ( big opal mining town) and unearthed a rock with a 1/2″ wide vein of opal thru the middle of it… still got it, worth a number of dollars!! Oh, and as you cross over the border into NT, no speed limits…..sooo, as we crested a hill at around 170 kp/h, quite surprised to see ooo 60? 70? brumbies standing in the road…..much scary swerving and braking, nobody got hurt. New undies all round though. The other one, also a work trip, had to go from Port Lincoln to the top of the Flinders Ranges in a Toyota troop carrier 4WD – actually planned it that the trip from Copley back to Wilpena Pound was cross country – no tracks at all – just creek beds and compass type stuff – 6 hours totally off road, off track, no wheresville. Lots of Kangaroos, emu’s, snakes and wedgetail eagles – amazing journey!! And, best of all, getting paid for the whole thing!!!
brumbie???????
ah sorry, brumbies are smallish wild horses…
btw in your group shot the second guy in from the left is the spitting image of John Bowe, famous Aussie racing driver! Google him, you’ll see what I mean…
Any trip with my wife and youngins when they were growing up. Now with my wife and any of my grandyoungins. It doesn’t matter where we’re going.
Going to the 1988 Mopar Nationals in my friend’s 1970 340, four speed Challenger convertible, with a 1970 Hemi Challenger behind us.
The best part of the trip was seeing the Air Force Thunderbirds as we were just cresting a hill in Indiana.
Calif to Memphis to swap the wife’s 2001 ZO6 Road racer for a 53′ trailer. My buddy Chris had me busting up the whole trip…we spent 3 days in Vegas “resting” up…then visited evey roadside hookie attraction on the way. Berringer metor crater..crap like that !… Ate on Beale street…got straight razor shaves from Memphis barbers…went to Graceland… Almsot got hit by lighting in Texas….Met Walt…picked up motors for Chad….and made it back without one blown tire or ticket !!!!
Hauling my landspeed racecar to Maxton using my stepvan . Low dollar. 60 mph . sliding doors open all the way all night. Running 200 +. then trip home full of adrenaline, Fully pumped on Redbull.
I would have to say the only road trip my father and I took, just the two of us. I was 15 and just literally finished driver’s ed the day before. Dad didn’t know if my learner’s permit was any good outside of Nebraska. We would play dumb if it came up. We drove from Omaha to DC with stops in Pittsburgh and Virginia Beach.
We drove my mom’s ’80 Eldorado. The driving part wasn’t that memorable, but we had a great time. Dad’s language got progressively saltier as the trip went along. I didn’t sleep much. We shared a hotel and he snored the siding off the damn building. I slept in the bathroom,on the balcony, in the car to get away from his noise.