The March Meet is very unique when put next to our other broadcasts because it is a four day event and it takes place at one of the coolest drag strips in the known universe. There’s lots of things that you can’t predict about the March Meet. There’s the weather, there’s the car counts, there’s the actual city of Bakersfield, and there’s the smell of the compost piles next to the track, the level of “fun” the fans near our scaffolding will be having, and how hungover everyone will be when the sun rises the next day. We can never predict how long the races will run each day, how much sleep we will get, and whether or not Chad’s truck will get ripped off. So you get the idea, it is always kind of a “fluid” situation…except this year it was even way more fluid-er.

If you watched the show, you know that Chad was only there for Thursday and then he was gone for the rest of the weekend. This was the case because Chad accepted an offer to become the host of a new tv show set to air on MAV TV this summer, chronicling the Optima Search For The Ultimate Street Car events being run by the Ultimate Street Car Series. Filming for the first episode was to take place on the March Meet weekend from Friday through Sunday, so he was gonzo after Thursday. In his place, we had our pal and former AV Kid Dustin Gould in the house to drive the camera and keep stuff on the rails. Dustin and I get along great and have the same twisted sense of humor so between insulting each other and water fighting, I think we pulled off the show pretty well. He’s a life long California resident, so when we had temps in the 50s for the first part of Friday he donned more gear than some guys I have seen climbing Mt Everest. Not missing the chance to verbally sucker punch Chad on camera in his absence, I declared that, “Chad has been replaced by a ninja and is no longer welcome back here anymore.” –

Ninja or not, Dustin did one heck of a job and those are some long days up on the scaffolding with little time to take a whiz break or do much of anything else. The good news is that we had awesome hotel accommodations to relax in at night…or we didn’t. You know us, we’re simple guys. We live on a budget so typically we’re not booking rooms at the flippin’ Ritz. Most of the time we try to find a decent middle of the road place to stay and we split rooms, etc.  Due to some sort of snafu on the part of Hotels.com, we were left with no place to stay like two days before the race. Quite literally the only rooms in town left were at the Motel 6 and because beggars can’t be choosers and previous Motel 6 experiences have been fine, we snapped them up. Let’s just say that this place is less a hotel and more a place that we’re pretty sure even law enforcement fears to tread. This was funny –

The large number of people that seem to be living at the place full time and conduction business in the “distribution” industry (if you catch my drift) creeped Chad and I out so bad that we pulled everything, including the generator into our room. It isn’t like that room was nasty, smelled like a tire dump fire, had a shower that didn’t drain and flooded torrents of water into the room, had furniture that had clearly been used as weaponry at some point, a fridge that smelled like Jeff Dahmer had used it for food storage, and a floor that would make an adult theater owner grossed out. At least we didn’t have blood smears on the doors…because Dustin did in his room.

I have stayed in some real shit-dumps over the years but believe you me, this place took the cake. Dustin isn’t exactly “germ tolerant” as it is, so the blood thing really spun him out. We found him another place to stay the next night. Egads. Next year, we’ll be booking the rooms about three months in advance and….screw it, I am calling right now.

Back at the track there were the normal great sights at the swap meet. This guy with the sprint car chassis on his van cracked me up because I wasn’t sure how it was coming down if someone actually wanted to buy it. You may be shocked to learn that the guy operating this “store” was among the most grizzled dudes in the swap meet area. Frankly, anyone who would roll down the highway with this rig is probably a guy worth having a beer with. This probably isn’t the craziest thing the guy had done that day, let alone in his life.

One of the things that is totally amazing about Bakersfield are the sunrises and sunsets. The colors in the sky are always very dramatic and beautiful. I zapped this photo in the parking lot with my camera as we were splitting on Thursday evening from the track. These skies, combined with the cars on the track make dusk a really magical and cool thing at Famoso. I often think about the racers who were there in 1959 reveling in the same beauty as we do today. Who knows if they did or they didn’t but I choose to believe that they did.

In about a decade (maybe a little less) I plan on having both Tom and Jack as active parts of the business of BangShift. For now, being that they are seven and five respectively, they aren’t coming out on the road. My wife sent me this photo on Saturday and it made me both smile proudly and get pretty weepy for a few minutes. I am always regretful leaving Kerri and the boys but I also know that they’re as into this whole thing as I am and to see Tom watching the broadcast and having Kerri tell me that he was glued to it for days on end was pretty freaking awesome.

You never know what you’re going to see when you look off the side of the scaffolding at Famoso. This tracked side by side was trying to slink away but I was able to get a photos of it. In terms of cool pit vehicles, this thing reigns supreme.

This was the sunrise that greeted us when we pulled out of the crappy ass Motel 6 for the last time. It was a beautiful thing both in the physical sense of looking at it and the metaphorical sense because it meant I would not be killed at the Motel 6 as I vowed to never return to that pit of disaster ever again. This sunrise was almost biblical in the colors and scope of it. It looked like the sky was ablaze.

At the end of the stands on the tower side of Famoso a great group of freak cars collect every year. There are traditional hot rods, ratty looking gasser type machines, vans, and generally stuff that is off center and cool in its own way. I am not sure if there is an official name for that part of the place but every year it is where the guys and girls in their period attire hang out and where some of the neatest iron on the grounds live. This van had one of the most incredible paint jobs on it that I have ever seen. It literally stopped me in my tracks. It’ll be an enduring memory from the weekend.

The Food Report –

I promised to tell you where we’re eating on these trips so you can make notes for yourself if you are ever in the areas we are passing through, here’s the rundown for Bako based on a scale of five BSs being the best.

Wednesday night: Zingo’s Cafe – legendary local greasy spoon diner that is open 24 hours a day and has a menu with EVERYTHING on it. Little rough around the edges and some of the best food ever. Chad and I eat here whenever we are in town. Five BSs

Thursday night: La Hacienda – great Mexican food, cold beer, two thumbs up for a first visit. Four BSs

Friday night: The Black Angus – chain place, has burgers, steaks, etc. Bacon cheeseburger was good and massive beers were gooder. Three BSs

Saturday night: Sushi Kato – small hole in the wall sushi place. Pretty good, little on the expensive side, but overall we’ll give it two and a half BSs

Sunday night: IN-N-Out burger on the side of the highway – Literally impossible to go wrong. Double-double with onion FTW. Five BSs

Until the next time…..(next week)