As you are reading this, Brian and Chad are either on the salt at Bonneville or are en route to standing on racing’s hallowed ground for the first time in a couple of years. We’ve missed going to Bonneville, and sad to say, I’ll be missing it this year. It’s not that big of a deal though…Brian and Chad have both seen the racing and have been hooked on it. I’ve only seen one day of tech, found that there are sections of the “road” to asphalt that you can bottom out a Monte Carlo on, and learned that the bushes on the other side of the road from the campground are an excellent place to puke up bad fast food. Oh, and one other thing: the stunning beauty of seeing the salt flats at night on a full moon. No amount of creative wordplay can do justice to that sight. Sorry to quote the movie “Contact”, but it applies better than my own words: “They should have sent a poet.”

But like I said, it’s not that big of a deal this year, because at least three things are happening this year that I am extremely excited for. By the time you read this, I will be on the road in BangShift’s own gold brick, the Angry Grandpa Chrysler, on my way to Columbus, Ohio for the 2016 Mopar Nats at National Trail Raceway. I’ve said many times (and will probably say many more…) that I’m not a Mopar guy, that I love all cars for one reason or another…but let’s face facts: I’m still gonna run around snapping photos like it’s my first day on the job again. I’ve been trying to go to the Nats ever since I first hopped onto a message board in 1999 and learned what it was all about. I will be hitting the show car field, looking at everything from concours-level restored wing cars to…well, my kind of Mopars. I’ll also be hunting through the swap meet for cool finds, as well as things to add to my personal collections and projects.

The Nats themselves would be the pinnacle of this weekend, but the road trip itself is almost above that in importance. I love driving, I love meeting people and I love reconnecting with old friends. This run to Ohio is probably going to add another eight hundred miles or more to the Chrysler’s clock, but the time I get to spend with people I rarely see makes up for it. Even if you only hang out long enough to have dinner, it’s still worth the time. And I won’t just run up to Ohio, get photos, eat, and run home, either. There is always a few seconds to pull over and check out some cool stuff if I so happen to pass it on the way!

Now, this weekend is going to be good, but next week is going to be the most ambitious thing I’ve tried yet: I will be hitting the road, once again in the big gold Mopar, up to Detroit to link up with the Modern Street Hemi Shootout series. I had so much fun with Dan VanHorn and the racers from ChallengerFest 7 earlier this year that I owed it to myself to at least try to weasel my way into another race. Not only will I be covering the MSHS race at Milan Dragway, I will be running Angry Grandpa in a bracket class in competition…here’s hoping that the air is cool enough that I can finally get that tank into the 13-second range! I will also be floating around, covering the Detroit Area Modern Mopar (DAMM) show, and if my schedule permits, I might get to check a second automotive bucket list item off: The Woodward Dream Cruise. I don’t know how much of the Cruise I will actually get to see, because right now I’m not 100% on when I have to leave Detroit and head back south. But I don’t care if I only see five minutes…if I’m anywhere near that hallowed stretch of asphalt, I’ll be content. The days of manufacturers sneaking out cars is gone, and so are the days of Joe Ruggirello and Steve Lisk match-racing at the lights in cars that were barely street rides, but that road will always be legendary so long as the stories are still told.

All in all, I might be pushing 2,500 miles worth of road time by the end of all of this. Two Mopar shows, one for the old-school cars that gearheads view as royalty and one filled with bad-to-the-bone racers that double as modern drivers, at least two car shows, two bucket-list items, and a race. I can’t think of a better way to burn August down this year, can you?