EP25: Hot August Nights 2024; BLS

• Black Label Society – Funeral Bell
• Pebble Beach parallels
• The Pleasure of a Road Trip with car guys
• Our route, over the Eberts Pass and Sonora Pass
• Black Label Society – Set You Free
• The Donner-Reed Party 
• A word on Reno
• The Grand Sierra Resort
• The Peppermill
• An imperfect Air BnB
• Black Label Society – Set You Free
• Black Label Society and Zakk Wylde
• Black Label Society – The Blessed Hellride
• Mercedes AMG E55 Barn Find
• The “Withnail and I” Jaguar
• You need an auto for Pebble, Hot August Nights
• E55 wheelbearing letting go?
• Hot August Nights like the Ford scene in Britain – its not whether you have a Cortina/Escort, it’s how you have built yours
• Forgiato wheels
• Forgiato steering wheel
• Cars of the Grand Sierra Resort
• ‘68 Mustang GT with and option pack to make it faster than a GT350
• A lovely ‘50 Buick custom
• ‘66 Fairlane with Coyote swap
• ‘69 Mustang 351 – J and O’s favourite car of the weekend
• Black Label Society – Stillborn
• ‘69 Pontiac GTO Judge
• ‘69 Camaro Yenko replica, green with side pipes
• Drag racing at the Nuggett
• Black Label Society – Stoned and Drunk
• Sonora Pass drive home
• Cliched car mods
• Comparing Pebble and Hot August Nights once more
• Freiberger spec Duster
• Black Label Society – Set You Free

[00:00:00] John Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.

Good day, good morning, good afternoon. It is John Summers, The Motoring Historian. Topic of today’s prattling, August 9th. I just went for the first time. I felt a need to unpack it, [00:01:00] frankly.

I’ve made an agenda, but let me try and, sort of, frame it from the top here. That, that, like Pebble, it takes place over a couple of weeks, but like, culminates in a particular weekend. Like Pebble, there was a sort of Genesis event, and then all these other events spun off from it. But, and it’s an automotive festival on the west coast of America in August.

But really, the similarities end there, and it’s kind of amazing that our hobby has that kind of, like, [00:02:00] diversity, because I didn’t see one Ferrari, I didn’t see, you know, beyond the old McCann in a casino car park, I didn’t see one European car, this is an event which is focused on Domestic stuff, so, you know, stuff from, from American makers, but, but more than that, um, the craftsmanship that comes with either preserving or restoring or putting your own modified touch on Something which everyone’s seen a million billion times before, you know, as a Mustang, a Camaro, and, and, and Impala.

So, and, and this, this is an event which at its genesis is a cruise. It’s a parade of cars, which you sit and watch go by. Which. [00:03:00] You know, sitting here in my spot in San Francisco here, looking at these jigsaws, some of which are functional, some of which aren’t, I, I, I struggled with that a little bit. The first night we were there, we went out for a meal and just sat on the balcony of some restaurant, and you know, out west, when you live on the coast here, LA, San Francisco, when the sun goes down, it’s cold, that’s why hoodies were invented here.

You know, you put the hoodie on, you have the hoodie in the car. Because when the sun goes down, it gets cold straight away. Well, inland there, it’s not like that. When the sun goes down, it stays warm. So, that means it’s like flip flops and shorts and, you know, cold beers. And, yeah, and, and cars passing you.

And my word, that was a better spectacle by some margin [00:04:00] than I expected it to be. That was, was really, um, a sort of enjoyable element of it. Not that we saw the parade. We just happened to eat somewhere where there were lots of cars, uh, passing.

I went with, uh, a couple of neighbors. Um, so there were five of us, me and Ollie, my son. Um. A neighbor who has a late model Hemi Challenger, and his son who’s about to leave home, you know, 17, 18, off to college, kind of age, and, uh, a guy who lives down the street who has, uh, a really nice feel for 60s and 70s [00:05:00] Italian stuff, has Alfa Romeos, has Ferraris, uh, and, uh, Uh, it judges in the Ferrari community as well, and I mention that because that shows what a kind of sensitive eye can be.

That he has, and, uh, we were friends before the trip, but certainly after the trip, I think we’re all a lot closer to each other. I had forgotten how a sort of road trip, and definitely a road trip where everyone’s a car enthusiast, and it’s about the drive as much as about, you know, no one needs to overtake.

Nobody needs to say, why did you overtake? There like obviously you’re going to overtake like we’re doing a driving trip and we all all like cars here. So, uh, so it had, um, the whole weekend had that kind of feel for me. It had, I can best describe it as as being similar. To, to the times in the early two thousands when I drove down [00:06:00] to to Lamont, where, you know, at the beginning of the trip, one drives in a way that one might normally drive in.

By the end of the trip, one finds oneself driving in a way that one might normally reserve for a slightly brained out moment on a sports bike and. The route that we took from, from here, um, involved visiting Copperopolis. So obviously I’m familiar with, with, with that, uh, uh, neck of the woods and, and, and highway four, which is in, in parts English B road, believe it or not.

European listeners, it really, uh, is that. Twisty and that, you know, you need a Fiesta ST, not a Chevy Camaro kind of, uh, kind of surface. But then there are also parts that, uh, you know, just French N Road, English A Road, you know, A4, where you can really just, [00:07:00] just wring the things out. So if, uh, if I tell you that the, uh, that the Ferrari guy chose to have air conditioning and reliability and brought his Generation 3 Prius, Um, we left him behind in, in the challenge.

I used the, the E 55 for, for, for this. And, uh, yeah. Um, so the driving element of it was, was extremely enjoyable and yeah, rather like a drive, uh, down to to, to Lamar. And, uh, you know, obviously, uh, I, with that comes, comes risk and, and I felt like. Uh, we, we mitigated the risks reasonably well and didn’t sort of act the goat too much whilst, you know, enjoying ourselves on some empty, quiet, fast roads.

Um, I should say that we organized the route to take us over two different, [00:08:00] um, passes in the Sierra Nevadas on the way up there. We went through Ebbets Pass, which. Is, is in places the road is sufficiently narrow for them to, you know, for them not to be room for two cars to pass, which is kind of, you know, one unusual hit in, uh, uh, and the Sonora Pass, which I’d driven over before, but, you know, you just, you’re not expecting like sweeping pain.

A road to turn into like alpine mountain pass, which is how it is. It’s switchbacks. It’s, you know, it’s the Mercedes picking up. It’s in a rear wheel and, and smoking it a little bit. If, uh, if, if you’re not, if you’re not careful, this[00:09:00]

feeling always the, when you stop in like a rest area, there’s like a plinth that tells you about like a version of the Donna. Party and I’m not sure if you know the story of the the Donna party, but but you know, if you don’t I’m not gonna Spoil it for you, but, uh, it involves being, trying to cross the Sierra Nevadas before there was a proper route, getting lost, getting snowed in, running out of food, uh, a general, like, you know, absolute, bloody, slow, nightmare, of, of, uh, Of a story where there are a lot of stories like this of the early pioneers trying to cross over the the Sierra Nevadas and I learned a few more when the others were doing selfies and and photographing cars and and things like that on this uh on this last trip.[00:10:00]

The event as I said runs a couple of weeks um we arrived the final weekend we booked an airbnb in Reno um now a word on Reno. Um, many of, of you non Americans will have visited Las Vegas, um, and perhaps have considered it a slightly tawdry experience. But if I tell you that Reno is a tawdry version of Vegas, um, you might get some idea of, uh, of what it’s like.

So look, it’s, it’s one of these desert communities, which, which didn’t exist. Um, you know, years ago, it’s a stop on one of the main runs West, uh, across the country. Um, my understanding is I’m not [00:11:00] a gambler, but my understanding is, is the odds are better. In Reno, so this is why there is actually a casino here, because if you’re a, you’re somebody who gambles for entertainment, um, you’re going to stay in the hotel, you’re going to gamble, you might go to a different casino or something like that, you’d be to Vegas.

The fact that Reno offers better odds, that represents, you know, a reason to, to go to, to the, the casinos in right in Reno do a pretty good job at doing other kinds of events. So, you know, I found myself going there. You know, when I was looking at the neon lights at the, the drag racing that we went to, I’ll talk about it in a minute, I’m looking at the neon lights there, um, you know, I, uh, there’s a Wasp show, there’s like Testament and Death Angel coming up, you know, there’s, there’s like, You know, as well as obviously, like, country people and R& B people, who I’d never heard of, but, you know.

There’s like a full fist of shows coming [00:12:00] up, and I mentioned Wasp and Testament, to illustrate that, you know, you too would, you know, stay at the casino, see Wasp, get plastered because you were staying at the casino, make a weekend out of it. eat in the casino, you know, and generally have a Vegas like casino kind of, kind of experience.

So look, right, Hot August Nights is hosted in the car parks of most of, of a couple of the main casinos. So the event that we went to was, uh, the Grand Sierra Resort, I think it’s called. There’s another one at, like, Pepper Mill. That’s another, uh, like, big, big casino there. If you’ve been to Vegas, you know the setup a little bit.

Although, uh, it is a little bit like, um, Yeah, if you’re trying to go anywhere or do anything in L. A., You always need a car because like one place is always 10 or 15 [00:13:00] miles from another place and even if it’s only five miles away, there’s like a freeway bisecting it. That means that, you know, you can’t walk.

There’s no sidewalks for you to be able to, to, to walk. So it’s one of those, um, kind of, of, of communities. So, and by the time that we were booking, we couldn’t stay in, in the old, uh, Couldn’t stay in the casinos. It was there were like four hundred, five hundred dollars a night for the room. So we were like, yeah, not doing that.

So we ended up booking an Airbnb. I mean fine, right? But, but, you know, quite often with these things there can be a slip, twixt, cup and lip. And in this case we, uh, we didn’t have the door code, so we could get in the room okay. Like from a corridor, but actually getting into the building, which was secured against Reno’s like, you know, homeless meth head population of which [00:14:00] is fucking vast, let’s call a spade a spade.

Um, you know, one of a particular class of blasted by the desert sun kind of meth head, if you, uh, get the picture. Um, Yeah, so I guess the trip was, was rendered a little bit more adventurous by virtue of the fact that at no point were we able to get into the building without assistance. So when we’re coming back to, to the room, we’re like hanging around outside waiting for somebody to come out and like, Asking them, catching the door or, or asking them to let us in or, or, or all that kind of thing.

So, you know, that was not ideal, but you know, I guess not the end of the world.

And [00:15:00] then the restaurant that we ate at was two or three blocks away. It was like a walk. And, uh, yeah, the, the, as I mentioned previously, we, we missed like the parade, but there was so many. Cars about that. It represented like a mobile car show and and I wasn’t alone in being really impressed by that We were all really impressed and really excited by that, um, I I’ll be able to include pictures of of the bits and pieces and and this really, you know I’ll be able to include pictures of what we saw.

Um, Initially, it seemed to be an awful lot of Impalas, but as the weekend wore on, oh my word, it was Camaro. And through towards the end of the weekend, I, I began to, to realize that, that what you, what you end up looking at is not, [00:16:00] oh, another F Body Camaro. Now you’re like, well, does it have the LED lights?

Well, how’s the stance on it? Well, does it look better with the full width bumper, or does it look better with the quartered bumpers? You know, and that Z 28 pointy bit. I’m talking about the second generation Camaro, the Dave Hull’s Camaro, which is a good looking, really good looking car when, when done right, you know, and I’m, uh, I was struck by that.

And, of course, uh, I’ll say, of course, the day after we got back, Ollie was on at me to, you know, Get our Camaro, like, in a state where it can be usable and drivable and, and get it like that, and I was, I was secretly hoping that Hot August Ice would fire his enthusiasm for, uh, for our muscle cars, uh, more, and, uh, it’s definitely happening for the Camaro, so there, I have, uh, the gauntlet thrown down for me to, uh, get my car [00:17:00] built before he is, uh, before he’s 60.

So the music this time, uh, so for a lot of the events, we just, the car parking was a bit of an asshole around where we were and it was like towing and all of that. So we ended up leaving, um, Lez’s Gen 3 Prius and, uh, the E55. We left them on the street and we all rode in the Challenger, which I mean, it’s just like, I mean, the car’s orange, right?

So you feel faintly. Dukes of Hazzard and, and, uh, [00:18:00] you know, it’s, it’s just funny being in, in the backseat of a muscle car with, uh, with the window down and, you know, not legal speeds on the, the speedo and, and the hemi roaring, you know, it, it, it’s just makes you feel like Dukes of Hazzard and, and, and that’s, uh, really fun.

And, uh, as I say that I’d forgotten how much these kind of motoring events engender a sense of camaraderie and, you know, you, uh, you have adventure and you become friends with the people that you have adventure with. And this was, uh, and this was, was the case here, but, uh, uh, the soundtrack for, for this episode is, uh, is Sackwell Black Label Society.

Um, I was not into them in period, but I’ve really enjoyed them more, more recently. Um, Challenger guy had a volume humping [00:19:00] on, uh, the, uh, the Black Label Society, hence me, uh, be doing that. So that was kind of the soundtrack of the weekend, so I feel like that should be the soundtrack of, uh, of this episode.

So the E55, I mean, it sat for a year. I just like pulled it out. I mean, I’ll show the picture. It’s like a bloody barn fire. Bird poo all over one corner of it, because I guess a nest had been directly above it. So, you know, all of the poo from like, you know, mom, dad, and all the babies was down the side of it, and all the mess of the Anyway, so I hosed that off, but like the cast looks bloody terrible.

Now it really [00:20:00] looks like, with nail and eye, tired. On this trip when we were in Reno, I, uh, I don’t know why my hand was on it, but I touched the roof in the hole. Section of, of paint, like two or three inches square came off my hand around the sunroof because it’s just, uh, you know, but it fired up fine when I took it out of, of storage and it came back over to the city fine and I, I, you know, didn’t want to use something with a stick for, uh, uh, August night for, for August nights in Pebble Lake, I never like a stick for Pebble because there’s so much sitting in traffic.

Okay. Um, and you’re driving a lot, so it’s, it’s tiring and, and, and the Mercedes is just great at these kind of, of trips, so. Yeah, so I put 700 miles on it since I took it out of storage. It sat for a year. I just took it out of storage, warmed it up [00:21:00] gently, and then, you know, fucking leaned on it like I normally do.

You know, check the tire pressure, check the oil, and they’re just like, you know, brake fluid, water, you know, and all of that. Looked tickety boo, and you know, it fired up. Fired up, not quite first turn of the key, but you know. Still only took about, I would say, under a minute before it went into closed cycle.

Bye Was running pretty smoothly when it was an open cycle. Um, yeah, so, uh, I guess, I mean, it has a little flat spot on the tires, but it, I mean, by the time I’d run around from the storage unit into the edge of Lodi and, uh, you know, I gassed it up, it’s rolled, it rolled that out and, uh, you know, it’s, yeah, so anyway, so, well, yeah, 700 miles.

Since it came out of, of storage now, we did, uh, August nights and, uh, and, [00:22:00] and back. Um, only thing is there is a sort of spatter of what looks like oil, but from the feel, I think it’s grease coming out from behind the three pointed star center on the front right wheel. So I have a feeling that that is grease from a wheel bearing, which is giving up.

But I did. Cranked the thing up this morning, and I rolled the wheel, you know, got the wheel off the ground and rolled it, and you know, is it the most silent turning wheel you’ve ever seen? No. Is it the grunchiest, fadingest wheelbarrow you’ve ever seen or heard? No, it is not. So, um, I’m gonna chance it for Pebble.

That’s why I’m recording this, like, right now, because, uh, when I don’t really feel ready for it, you know, because, uh, I’m not doing a conversation with Gammy or [00:23:00] anything like that, I’m recording it now because it’s Pebble tomorrow, so I wanted to, like, actually, like, formate my thoughts on this event, uh, before they get kind of overwritten by, uh, But by another event, because it’s as simple as there is a correct when you restore a Jaguar E Type Unstable Internet is saying that look when you restore a Jaguar E Type There is a correct way to do it and an incorrect way to do it and you’re just not I mean some people do but You’re not going to do slot max, hugger orange, and, you know, silver flame.

You’re just not going to do that because it’s just outside of the culture. So you might, you know, if you were, you might. Do different wheels or, or something, you know, or something like that. So I think with the , you, you tend not to see people doing that. But you know what you might do, you with [00:24:00] an MGB is fair, five speed transmission from a master, my arch or something like that, just to make it more drivable in modern conditions on, you know, on highways.

’cause this car that was designed before, there were motorways and, and highways everywhere. Fundamentally what I’m saying is, is that. European culture is not, uh, modify, uh, beyond maybe, uh, a mild personalization towards your own, uh, uh, preference, whereas, Uh, the American scene is far more about, uh, modifying your own cars and, and in that respect it’s far more like the sort of classic Ford scene is, is in Britain where it’s not about the car, whether or not you’ve got an Escort or a Fiesta, it’s how, [00:25:00] what kind of condition it’s in and how that car reflects your own.

You know, ideas about what’s cool, and in many cases, your own personal craftsmanship in making it that way. Um, so, you know, I, I, uh, well, as I say, this is the comment I made about the Kamaras earlier, that when you see loads and loads of them together, you find yourself comparing them together. And of course, that’s what people in the scene are doing, and then it’s about what represents good taste, what represents bad taste, what represents Something different from what, um, other people have been doing.

So one thing that, that we talked about, um, that Oli and I talked about that I didn’t think he’d noticed was, uh, but I did notice, was, uh, Forgiato wheels. Um, they weren’t to his taste. He didn’t like the way they make the car look. He didn’t like the design of the wheel. He particularly didn’t like the steering wheel [00:26:00] design.

And You know, this is the nature of an event like that is that you’re going to have some cars that you look at that you’re in love with and others that you’re not. But what was interesting to me was it took, um, I would say most of, so the first day we went to that, you know, we, we, we ate at meal and watched the cars drive past.

The second day we went to the Grand Sierra and looked at cars. I would say we looked at probably a hundred or 150 cars. Um, that were in the parking lot, basically, in the bloody roasting sun. I mean, let’s make no fucking mistake, it was balls, balls hot, right? When I realized how many cars there were, I went like that, we arrive in the corner of the car park, and you can see like, acres of bloody Camaros, basically.

And you’re like, and when I’d realized that, [00:27:00] The guys that we were with are, maybe move faster than my dad, but they certainly move at a pace which is much more like the pace I like to move at, rather than the pace that, you know, my wife and her family like to move at. Um, I realized we were going to be going slowly and we were going to be not looking properly at every car, but certainly every third or fourth car was going to warrant a proper walk around and, uh, you know, sprint through the window and, uh, stand back and maybe take a photo and the, the, well, when I realized that, I mean, that, and then plus the heat, I was like, Jesus, at first I had a, I had a moment where I thought, is this going to be, If this is, I was thinking is this is feeling like too much for me.

How is, I was used to feel when I was a tour leader. If it’s feeling too much for you, the packs, they’re definitely struggling. And, and I always feel like [00:28:00] that’s a good thing to apply for, for Ollie is, is, you know, if I’m feeling, Christ, this is a bit hot. I’m a bloody hungry. I could do with a sit down. Is he not feeling like that too?

But you know what happened was after a bit, the sun went in. And that moment where the sun was just behind clouds, suddenly it was actually pretty pleasant. But then when the sun came out again, you were just like, Jesus, I feel like. I’m like, you know, an, uh, an egg roasting in a, in a pan. But anyway, whilst I, instead of moaning about that, why don’t I talk about the, the cars that, that we actually saw in, in that parking lot.

You really get a mixed bag, you know, when, when you go to Pebble Beach, they say, Oh, it’s so eclectic. Now, it is, right? You know, there’s going to be like a McLaren F1 next to a, you know. Packard owned by [00:29:00] president kind of thing, um, on the field this year. And they do all of that with a hundred cuts. So there is diversity there, but.

The diversity at this event, although it’s all domestic stuff, little bit of Japanese stuff, few Corollas, that kind of stuff. No European stuff whatsoever. Zilch. Um, few hot rods, few, you know, but mostly You know, what am I thinking of? I’m thinking of a one owner Well, all one family owned Mustang that had this like rare competition, uh, option pack that made it faster than the GT 350 of the, of the era.

Well, if she was like early, it was a, well, it was a 68. Yeah. Cause the lad that we were with loves the 68. And, uh, Uh, we were [00:30:00] talking about the Fayette Faux air intake that was a 68 only thing for the Mustang. The faux brake ducts in front of the rear wheel, which of course I’m familiar with because they made it onto the side of the Mark 1 Ford Capri and were always a feature that I thought was, uh, was cool as a boy.

Um, you know, and that’s the eye that you’re looking at these, uh, these things with. I can’t get out of my mind. Um, this Buick that we were, that I was looking at, which was black. It had the Kelsey Hayes wheels on it. It stands just right. Radial wheels on it. Uh, radial tires on it. Um, I’m not a fan of the Kelsey Hayes wheels.

I’d have done black steelies on it. But, you know, this is the thing with it. down to, to your own personal taste and, and I was ashamed to say I missed the car on the first pass and then on the second pass I was looking at the hood because it has this one of these cool side hinge hoods and you know they’ve done the old toothy grille just right and got the stance of the car [00:31:00] just right so that toothy grille really looked like it was gonna bloody eat you.

Now I looked under the hood and it had a 65 401 nail head in it and I was like oh wow what a cool Period modification car was black interior oxblood. Um, yeah, cool car. Next one that’s springing to mind for me is, uh, uh, a 66 Fairlane stack headlights. I’m a sucker for the stack headlight, aren’t I? Not just the stack headlight, the stack headlight with the lean.

You got to have the lean forward, which, uh, which that Fairlane has, um, uh, in green little slot mags on there. Um, and a coyote under the hood and a stick, I mean, just nicely done. Just, yeah, [00:32:00] just really, uh, really a nice, simple, good, just, yeah, just something which you found yourself thinking, you know, the craftsmanship here, you just want to buy it rather than, you know, you could spend a and never create something that was as, uh, just as right as, uh, And some of those cars looked, and that one in, in particular.

Um, whilst I’m thinking about individual cars, Um, I think my favorite car of the whole weekend was, uh, a very original looking, um, 69, Cleveland 351, Mustang with a four speed, white, black hood, big Cooper Cobra radials on it, stamps just right, bit of rust in the bottom of the door, You know, just, [00:33:00] just looked bang on from a, from a standards perspective.

Ollie, love that one as well. Um, really the kind of car that made you think, how the hell should I scrape together some, you know, get liquid with some of the stuff I’ve got and, and try and get hold of something. Like that, really, really nice like that, rather than, you know, shattered like my Camaro is, or, you know, not really true, you know, not late era muscle like my, you know, 63 Pontiac Grand Prix is.

Um, and also, you know, neither of those cars were, are cars that I, um, felt comfortable driving to, to bloody hot August nights. Yeah, this is obviously what this Mustang had, had done. Well, who knows, maybe it had been trailered, but, uh, but yeah, I love that Mustang.[00:34:00]

Also, on the, on the last day, we took a cruise through, uh, through the pepper mill and, uh, looked at, uh, uh, looked at, uh, just, you know, what they had in the car park. I guess we expected. That there would be a show there on Sunday, but actually it finishes on the Saturday night. First thing on a Sunday morning, there’s like a closing ceremony or something, which, uh, we, which, you know, we, we weren’t aware of until we missed it.

So, but we went to the Peppermill, we walked around, and in the car park there, there was a really, really lovely, Uh, four speed, um, 69, Judge, GTO, orange, faded, hideaway headlights, you know, the, uh, [00:35:00] spoiler was faded a different color from the, uh, from the trunk, uh, a different orange. Um, yeah, I’m just a sucker for when the car looks really, um, original.

That Fairlane was an exception. Um, uh, there were a number of, uh, second generation, well, there were a number of really nice first generation Camaros, but there are a number of really nice, um, second generation, um, Camaros. Um, you know, done right, those cars really do look so good. I really do need to, um, build my own.

Um, also would want to mention on that, that day at the Grand Sierra, there was a green, Sort of Yenko clone, um, RSSS69 Camaro, um, side pipes, torque thrusts, kind of a bit much but [00:36:00] kind of just right as, as well, uh, Oli, Oli also loved that car, I liked that car and he really highlighted to me what a great, what a great car it was.

So I guess the climax of the event for us was, uh, Uh, we went to the Nugget, um, on a Saturday night because, uh, we’d read in the agenda thing that if you Google it up, events are August 9th and they, there’s like a list of stuff that’s published. So although the events are distributed over a number of casinos, you know, they were like coordinated, like producing a part of it, I guess, I guess there’s a chamber of commerce involved in [00:37:00] all of that, all of that good stuff, but, but look, right, this is neither here nor there.

Uh, we went to see this drag racing. I guess it’s in a car park. I guess there was no center divider. So, um, there was like, we were in these bleachers. And I would have said when you walked around the front of the bleachers, you were probably, I don’t know, 20 feet from the car. There’s this concrete barrier in the way.

And, and I guess we were there right at the beginning and they’re like emergency services were like racing their different vehicles against each other and, uh, you know, people were doing, you know, practices and that kind of stuff. And, you know, it’s one bloke at a common gear about the only victor, um, their only European car I saw the whole time.

So in other words, you know, there was general, like, not exciting stuff. But this bloke took this Pro Street Vega up the [00:38:00] track, and I kid you not, he had the back so far out of line, that if he’d done it the other way, he’d have tagged the concrete wall and the Citroen afterwards. Like, do you think that concrete barrier would have held that car back if it had gone the other way?

And he went, no. And I’m like, yeah, if a bloody nine year old can spot that this is, a little bit more of a loosey goosey form of motorsport than you might see in California. Yeah, so, uh, So yeah, we were high up in the bleachers. We went down at the front and uh, at the place where it said no standing behind the catch fencing.

We did not stand there or dither in, in that place. And uh, yeah, and, and um, that was a really fun, fun time. Event to go to. We, uh, we struggled to park and sat in traffic and that was a bit irritating. But, you know, it’s part and [00:39:00] parcel. When you’ve not been to this kind of car event before, you know, now we know that you bloody just street park and walk.

You know, now we know.

I guess, uh, uh, yeah, it warmed up slowly. Um, started at six, went on till midnight. Um, so we like, watched for a bit, went in, had some food. Um, a bit of a funny turn in the restaurant actually. Like, had a, like, bloody weirdness. Like, just as a result of the general, like, excessiveness of, uh, you know, like, hot and dragsters and shitty food and, and all of that.

But, uh, yeah, um, [00:40:00] uh, and I had a little nap after the meal. But then, uh, we went out and caught the end of the drags, and that really was the, the, a really good way to, uh, you know, to, to end the trip, because, uh, or end the activity in Reno. Then, of course, we, like, slept in late, and then, uh, did the drive home, and the drive home we did Sonora Pass, that, uh, on the way back, as I, uh, as I mentioned, and, uh, enjoyed the drive.

So I’m looking at my, uh, list here to see if there’s anything that I might have, uh, I might have missed. ’cause I haven’t consulted it all of the year, all of the way through.

Yeah. [00:41:00] I guess at Pebble they like curate it for you, so it’s all great cars. Um, and one of the things you, you may have found yourself feeling disillusioned with local cars and coffee ’cause you see the same cars over and over or. Maybe what you look at, it’s like a lot of modifications become really cliche, don’t they?

So you can be like, Jesus, you know, I remember, um, a guy in a, you know, a really well known Porsche collector saying to me one time, Um, you know, if I have to look at another fiberglass bodied Model A hot rod replica, With a Chevy small block and an automatic transmission, I’m going to gouge my eyes out and, and I do know how, how that feels.

And I suppose I’ve been feeling a little bit like that about the, I was worried I’d feel like that about the whole event, but I realized in the first car park I [00:42:00] looked at when there were three. Camaros that were either 70, 71, 72, or 73s, and each of them being done in a different way, and sat in a different, and sat on the road in a different way, and one of them I wouldn’t have wanted, but two of them, I don’t, yeah, that is the moment where you realize that this is about riffing on a classic, rather than, you know, The recipe of trying to do it just right.

This is like, how do you garnish your burger rather than the Michelin star? You know, like a pebble beach where, you know, you restore the car, right. You know, you get, you win. Whereas if you, you know, don’t restore the car using exactly the right fit and finish, you know, you don’t even get invited to the event.

Um, so yeah, I guess you need to, it’s more of a. You know, you can look at anything at Pebble and it’s awesome, not at the show [00:43:00] Pebble itself, but also at many of the, you know, accompanying shows, like if you go to a show like, I don’t know so much about Concorso now, I understand that’s maybe going off the boil a little bit, but if you go to, um, you know, an event like Legends of the Autobahn, traditionally Legends of the Autobahn was always a really exciting way to see some really high caliber late model German cars.

Um, Yeah, I was sub 50 grand collectibles. It was sub 50 grand German drivable collectibles. It was, you know, an awesome, awesome place to, to, to go see these events in Reno. Um, you always need to sift more to see the really good stuff because there’s going to be some builds that you look at and you’re just like, oh, wow, that’s, that’s not for, that’s not for me.

Um, because, you know, not everybody’s taste is, is, is the same, is it? And then there are the original cars that I mentioned that Mustang with the [00:44:00] competition pack on it or wherever it was, but, you know, um, Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s enjoyable, I guess, because you do see cars like the Fairlane, um, where you can just really appreciate what people are, uh, uh, getting out.

I should mention, um, this Duster that I, I spotted that was just such a, a simple, clean build. It was obviously built to be a great to drive muscle car. Um, and it just, it had all of the bits that were good for driving and absolutely nothing else, including decent paint. It had terrible paint and a blue door on one side and I bloody loved it.

So I guess what I’m really struck by, and this is what [00:45:00] I’m gonna wrap up with, is, is that you come back from a pilgrimage like that, you know, with your fur fur fur the A religion you’ve worshipped at the, uh, the pilgrim shrine or, or, or whatever, uh, you, you, you’ve been amongst your people. And it’s a terribly affirming experience.

This is Editor John, by the way, and I don’t know why I was struggling to get the point out But that’s really what I was saying is that the it was awesome looking at the cars It was awesome getting to be closer with the people that I went with and and it was awesome. Um, being part of something that’s a little bit bigger than yourself and that was perhaps a little bit more of a Deeper profound point than I was really You know, expected to make it, but yeah, really fun event.

And if you get the chance to go, if you like cars, [00:46:00] go, if you like muscle cars, really, at some point in your life, you must go to hot August nights. Thanks for listening.

This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part of our motoring podcast network. For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like the Exotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, BrakeFix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring Podcast [00:47:00] Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.

patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. Please note that the content, opinions, and materials presented and expressed in this episode are those of its creator. And this episode has been published with their consent. If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators of this episode via email or social media, as mentioned in the episode.