Irwindale adventures day one.

We are again on the road for a drift event, this time it is for the Formula Drift Finals in Irwindale, California coming up this weekend. We do our normal thing, and get on the road from Vancouver, BC late as always. We tried to leave on time, but like always there is a oops. This time we noticed last second that we forgot our jack. Mat saved the day and met us with his awesome new floor jack. What a great team mate.

We crossed into the USA around 7pm and started our journey, just to get into Seattle and unload the car. Well we had to get a last second wheel alignment because, at last second Ian discovered a dead inner tie rod. Chris Jeanneret at Car Nutz help us out by providing a late night straighten with the new parts. 

Chris used Car Nutz awesome photo alignment system and aligned Ian's car with his weight and gear to ensure a proper balance.

Oh ya, this place is NUTZ, this is our reaction to the cars in the lot where we were...

From Ferrari and Porsche, to everything in between. All fun sports cars. We did have a trailer, and thought we could exchange Ian's R32 for one, and American's would still think it is a rare sports car, but we were too eager to go, so said, next time. 

On this adventure, Zack Geng volunteered his time to help Trent and Ian on this trip. He was a blast to drive down with, even half asleep driving.

During the drive down we saw various weird things, a small RV had caught fire and burned to the ground on the freeway. We remember seeing the same RV and trailer, hours before, swerving on the road. Carma. Also Road Kill is the norm at night through any trip we take, but this one stood out, we saw a baby bear cub just destroyed on the road. Hmm. Sad but we still thought, that is weird.

We made it through the hills in Oregon and started in California, thought, it is time to rest. We stopped at the greatest rest stop ever. This place was amazingly clean. Zack and Trent used the facility, while Ian took a nap. Good times.

After an our of driving, and the group waking up, we thought, breakfast...

Ian and Zack decided on this delight from the menu at Carl's Jr., and from the picture, it looked alright. Well, here is the description:

Warm sausage gravy, smothered over scrambled eggs, sausage, ham, bacon bits, hash brown nuggets and shredded jack and cheddar cheeses, all wrapped in a warm flour tortilla. 

Not bad, but then Trent noticed the "gravy" part, and said no way. Well Ian AND Zack regretted that choice later. HAHAHA

We passed a few cool sights in the great state of California, one was this guy, who we dubbed, Willie Nelson. He looked like him, and rocked streamers and all.

At lunch just outside Sacramento, we ended up meeting Roland and Walker, at well Carl's Jr. AGAIN. Damn. They left hours before us, how did we catch up. Well Walker began to tell us how he was following this truck, and there was a Semi truck beside him, then all of a sudden, a small bear was hit by the truck in front of him. With no where to go and avoid, he too hit the bear. Blood, Guts and Fur covered the underside of the trailer, and then hit the car that was following them closely. Walker's trailer ended up being damaged, and that is how we were able to meet up. Didn't we see a small bear earlier... lol

America has embraced drifting 100%. Here they even have a beer for the drivers...

We pulled over as a group to make a pee stop, just before the Grape Vine, the crazy mountain we drive OVER to get into LA. This was an iteresting exit. There was garbage all over the place, including a pair of little girl underwear that Zack wanted to keep. lol not really but weird.

From one side of the pass in the sun / cloud mix, to the other in flash flood. It rained so hard, they said 3/4" in a few hours. Damn

We managed to make it to a cheap 50 dollar hotel, but as it is not even 1 star, Ian had to use the luxury linens to dry off. Here is the towel he found.

We hit the shower, ate some pizza, then went to bed. 24 hours of driving, just to get the party started. Worth it? Always.