Vaughn Gittin Jr. swung by our house before having a meeting with an advertiser as he makes his round through Southern California. He brought over a 2010 Mustang convertible in my favorite color grabber blue. Here it is in the driveway next to Project350z!
Just before Vaughn Gittin had arrived my Christmas present finally came in. It’s a full NBA Jam arcade system which can play up to four people. We had some intense battles on the sticks before he finally had to head over to his meeting for the day.
A quick snap before he left of the Mustang and 350z from the front as well.
I made a list of My Road Trips I took in 2009. With two rallies, one move, and several OEM car manufacturer tests it was quite a busy year. Gumball 3000 was by far the most memorable trip I made this year over seven days in May. These were the 10 best trips I took and remembered for the year. Thanks everyone who came with me on these adventures and hopefully we can do 20 for 2010.
February 2009: Atlanta, Georgia to Los Angeles, California
May 2009: Gumball 3000 from Santa Monica Pier to Miami, Florida (Gumball3000.com)
May 2009: Dubai, United Arab Emirates (You can only do public transit maps on Google Maps here so I just marked some places I went on a drive)
July 2009: 2010 Ford Mustang Road Trip (Red Rock Canyon, Formula D Las Vegas)
August 2009:2010 Hyundai Genesis Road Trip (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle)
August 2009: 2010 Nissan Altima Hybrid (LA to SF)
September 2009: 2009 Targa Trophy Rally: Los Angeles Leg
October 2009: 2010 Mitsubishi RalliArt Sportback Evo (Lima Ohio to Los Angeles, CA)
November 2009: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro (San Diego Beaches & PCH Cruise)
I went to the NHRA Museum and watched the Bergenholtz Racing CRX get inducted to the museum. Here is my 1991 CRX DX lined up at Silver Dollar Raceway in southern Georgia. I owned four CRX’s in my life and looked up to the Bergenholtz Brothers drag car for years. Here are the four CRX’s I owned.
1989 Honda CRX – Nitrous D16
1991 Honda CRX Si-B16A
Tried to make this swap look as factory as possible and it worked pretty well. It was a pretty clean B16A swap with a S1 transmission.
Here is a snapshot of our garage right now with the 2010 Camaro SS we have on loan from Chevrolet for a Road Trip and my 1966 Mercedes Benz. The cars are lined up front front/back if you can believe that the HUGE 2010 Camaro is that much shorter than the Mercedes. I have been loving every second of driving the Camaro SS around!
I’ve had my chance to play Forza 3 for a while now but it’s finally out to the public. Stay tuned to the main blog since I will be releasing a basic “drifting starter tune” along with ways to get the Wrecked logo for your own cars and content from the premiere.
Don’t worry about me here out on the west coast. I know it’s flooding, pouring rain for the next 70 days and you guys might need boats to make it around but I pulled the weather report for the rest of 2009 in Los Angeles and it says sunny. Cody Wellons from S3 Magazine has even started a website called ATLflood.com which has a photo that looks strikingly like it was from my old house at 1280 West.Thank goodness we moved out west to the drought. I have yet to see a harder rain than a sprinkle in the year I have lived here and it rarely lasts more than 30 minutes, amazing I know. One thing I don’t miss is the stupid rain.
Sorry I have been posting so much non automotive related content but I will work on getting some more of that coming on the blog when I can. I am a huge tennis fan and have been for quite sometime. When I was little my Memere (French for grandmother) would always take me to watch her play tennis and I’ve been a fan every since. Countless travel hours on the road are wasted playing Virtua Tennis 3 and many hours watching endless coverage of the major events.
Watching the US Open I first noticed this girl from Marietta, Georgia when she faced off against my favorite female tennis player of all time, Maria Sharapova. Watching Melanie stay composed and defeat her was truly amazing. Melanie managed to win me over as a fan from her residence in Marietta, Georgia. I grew up right there until I moved to Los Angeles last year and love her representing in the US Open for Georgia.
Appearing in only her second US Open,, Oudin ousted seeded players Elena Dementieva (4), Maria Sharapova (29), and Nadia Petrova (13) on her way to the quarterfinals. Entering the quarterfinals she was the youngest to enter since Serena Williams in 1999. Last night she was defeated by a 19 year-old Caroline Wozniacki from Denmark in a tough 6-2/6-2 set. She shook up woman’s tennis and hopefully the next majors will be as exciting as this US Open ladder.
Although I have been a resident of Los Angeles, California for almost a year I have not attended a baseball game in Los Angeles since my arrival in November. In the honor of celebrating America I decided what better weekend than Labor Day to head out to Dodger Stadium to eat a Dodger Dog, drink some beer, and enjoy America’s past time.
An interesting fact that most of you might not know about me is that for two baseball seasons I operated the Publix Friday Night Fireworks at Turner Field for the Atlanta Braves with Jason Small. Here are some photos of a Friday Night Firework Show at Turner Field. So I may not be the die hard baseball fan I once was growing up hoarding Topps Rooke Cards but I still have a pretty jaded view of professional baseball you can enjoy below.
I have to admit that I haven’t been a huge fan of baseball in sometime but when I did follow baseball back in the 1990′s I was a huge Cleveland Indians fan. Back in the Cleveland Indians glory days we had two stars that now play for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the likes of recently acquired Jim Thome and of course Manny Ramirez. So getting a chance to see those guys in person was pretty exciting.
While the game I attended saw the Los Angeles Dodgers fall just short with a 4-3 loss to the San Diego Padres I have to admit that I like the ballgame culture around the Dodgers more than I do about most teams in the MLB. Sure, most fans show up in the 2nd inning and cheer louder/more about the beach balls flying around the stands than the actual baseball game unless Manny is up but the stadium is old and built for baseball and you have to respect that.
For those of you that don’t know Dodger Stadium is the third oldest baseball stadium still in use. The oldest stadium being Fenway Park (Boston RedSox) and second oldest field is Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs). I’ve been to baseball games in roughly 6-10 MLB stadiums and the first thing that strikes you about Dodger Stadium is the seating capacity. They fill up at 56,000 making it the largest stadium seating wise in Major League Baseball. This title was handed to them recently with the retirement this year of Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium.
Some other notes on why I like the Los Angeles Dodgers:
-The stadium is named after the team which is a true rarity these days in pro sports period.
-The whole place is BLUE. Anywhere you look in this place screams it’s love and support for the home team.
-It’s a stadium built for baseball and only that unlike all these new modern “multi purpose stadiums” that suck
-People in Los Angeles actually take Manny Ramirez serious and don’t seem to wonder why he plays in the outfield.
- They play fundamentally perfect baseball which I never saw growing up National League East.
Back in high school I owned this amazing 1996 Midori Green Honda Civic. Quite often some friends and me would drive in the empty mountain roads near where we grew up. This night in the video me and a friend went out in his Ford Focus. He got a little too excited and took off way to fast for this very confusing turn. It’s a huge S with a 40 foot elevation change with a kink at the top of the S which you cannot really see.
He didn’t know the road that well and wound up hitting his brakes and dropping a tire off the road. The ground drops off just off the street and the car flipped into the ravine, slide around, and landed against a tree. He was completely fine and more pist that his CD’s flew everywhere into the forest. The car was totaled without a question but a crazy video came of it which I just found in some old files. Below is a picture of my 1996 Civic Hatchback that was the camera car in the video above.
