Lame

Regardless of the price of gas, mopeds will always be lame. Always.

Things will slow down

With a much needed career change in the works, obligations to family, etc. shit is pretty heavy right now. I'm Going to focus my energy on what's important and that's not the blogger. I'll toss a little something up on the cars & bikes I'm taking pictures of and writing about or other occasional life adventures and random nonsense now and then, but it's time to hunker down.

Pic. of my Pan above by Good Luck Gary.

Thanks, Anthony

Hold

If you're milling, you better be holding. These little buggers hold the item your working on to the table.

Replace Crayons with Letter R

Lifted

From all of the pictures coming out of the desert of SoCal I've seen in mag.'s over the years, I've always wondered if the sky was really that blue. Yep, it is. Magnet crane from a friend of my buddy's scrap yard in Bakersfield. I guess it'll suck your keys out of your pocket if you get too close.

Back in the game

Soon it'll see backroads again. And city streets. Highways too.

I wish I could just ride off into it...

...because the state of our economy has me real, real worried. Sorry to be a downer but it's what's on my mind right now.

Monsters

There were a handful of these at The Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield last weekend. Yes, they're every bit as short as they look. Yes, that motor is as big as it looks. They're generally Hemi powered and run on nitro and the sound is pure glory.



Insane-o paint work. Fogging, panels, freak dots, fades, cobwebbing...you name it, these cars generally had it done to them paint-wise.

Just remember this...

Fucking A!

My friend Mike

One of the greatest people I know. And you know what's rad? His amps really do go to 11.

Fireball'n

Back from Bakersfield

The Hot Rod Reunion was one hell of a good time. There were an obscene number of vintage drag cars running hard, cool parts at the swap, and Hot Rods at Famoso raceway. That place is holy ground for sure.

Many of us were on hand to support my dear friend Steve in the loss of his late friend and partner in The American Eagle car John Shoemaker. John was an amazing dragster chassis builder and racer and I was so happy to spend time with his family and close friends again. Great people. Here's more about John, who was honored at the event and I'll be writing a story about shortly http://www.nitrogeezers.com/john_shoemaker.htm

I brought a camera, but found myself taking few pic.'s as I just wanted to have fun and enjoy the good company. The pic. above is of two Washington state buddies Hot Rods, along with our mini-van. We flew, they drove. They rule.



Here's Gary Ormsby Jr. and Corry, my friend Steve's awesome wife. Gary's dad brought sponsorship to drag racing and drove top fuel cars. Gary Jr. does the same. Nice guy.




BFF Josh (kneeling) and buddy Marshal looking over the Speed Sport car. The car is a Hemi powered, nitro burning '27 Model T with a track nose and the motor in the rear. With no traction, it ran in the high 8's in the quarter mile at over 160 mph. Pretty important car to drag racing and the owners were very nice. Josh is building a very similar car from a model A as we speak, injected Hemi and all. It's nutso.



And here's Steve, doing what he does best- Making shit happen. Great trip, great track, great cars, great friends, and a great wife for holding down the fort for a few days and keeping the team in check.

On the streets of Bakersfield

I won't be posting much over the next couple of days, as a crew of us are in Bakersfield for The Hot Rod Reunion. We ate at the place above last night, which is a Basque restaurant. I think Basque = grab whatever is leftover and serve it to people in a multiple course meal. Cow tongue, soup with salsa and beans in it, salad, spaghetti, cottage cheese with chopped chives...weird.

At-any-rate, Bakersfield is holy ground for vintage drag racing and there's ten of us down here in this dust bowl so it's a good time. I've heard the area surrounding the track is beautiful and that they farm flowers there. That'll be a welcome change because the town...well, it sucks.

Spindle mount

I was over at my friend Mike Soldano's taking some pic.'s of amps for him yesterday and snapped this one of a project he's working on. Mike is a true Hot Rod guy and an amazing and meticulous fabricator. This Radir is off a T he's building for a friend.

When you're too lazy to ollie

I don't skate much anymore except when Logan and I go to the skateparks, but I still keep up with it all. Here's a pretty neat ad for Sky Hooks from a 1978 issue of Skateboarder Magazine. The boards didn't have the right shape at the time for a good ollie but guys wanted to take it to the air and this was one way to do it. Weird.

Like the show

The Vampire thing had nearly buckled under its own weight until True Blood came along. HBO show that's pretty damn fun. Blood, guts, naked girls, bars, guitars, hillbillies, guns...pretty much covering all of my bases. Check it out.

Josh Higgins is a mad man!

Real Ford flathead. Real long time on the bandsaw. Real long time painting and assembling. Real, real impressive.

T-Bird

I like this era of T-Bird. The factory sure got it right on the design and all it takes to make one swanky is a good lowering and the right width whitewalls. A car like this will get you laid.

Morning

Morning wood, old growth style. The big ones are 40+ feet long.