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As most of you know, on the 17th of october the stance crew congregated in a parking lot outside dallas which shall undoubtably mark the beginning of the stance movement. This is the story of rusty's journey from my point of veiw. *Pics may follow
Enjoy
As we sat in mikes driveway in Franklin TN with darkness upon us and Rusty a full inch lower to the earth I have to admit I was quickly growing skeptical of mikes judgement. Yes the one of a kind Five had made it to california but that was when it was an inch higher. Now ruts and ridges in the texas pavement which were manageable before would now surely be deadly to rusty's vulnerable oil pan. I continued my worry verbally to mike by mentioning how bad it would suck to be stranded on the side of I40 repairing that oil pan but he coninued to reasure me, up until the moment I sheepishly decided to begin the trek in the volvo support vehicle, by saying "sucks to roll hard". So we departed, toward the airport following rusty in the volvo (which we later decided was a bad idea as the point of "rusty's support vehicle" should be to spot bumps). Anyways as he slowly made his way to the airport to retreive our fourth passenger Mike Marzano, from fluid motor union, Rusty threw sparks from spots in the road that he would have previously scoffed at.
The airport is another story entirely, filled with pictures of old men's faces as rusty slowly crept over the speed "humps" and almost got high centered every time. We left nashville at nine o clock central time from waffle house ( a trip with Mike B. isnt a trip without the WH) and me and Mike Marz took to bump watch in the volvo. The roads werent bad at all til' memphis... ridges, potholes, and bike jumps OH MY. Once me and Mike Marz swapped vehicles and were in rusty Mike hit one bump that literally caused us to become airborn, according to him ( i was asleep). The rest of the trip to texas was pretty uneventful just shy of tom tom (sue sue *see original tom tom ad) taking us to the ULTRA ghetto of dallas, where apparently the state of texas has seen fit to completly disreguard the state of the roads since 1957.
The real story comes on the trip back, where I took it upon myself to MAN UP and drive rusty...the entire way...alone..
I was permited a drive in rusty from the final photoshoot where I was immediatly reasured by that machine that the journey home would be a blast, and easy no less because yes, he was low but rode firm enough to deal with the roads. Now, upon this small voyage I heard a noise, I do this in every car I drive Ive actually become somewhat of a self proclaimed auto noise technician. But I digress, this noise was a type of jingle bell noise coming from the drivers rear wheel but was dismissed as the noise wasnt too bad.
The next morning after I took Mikey Marz to the airport, which is an entirely other short story which will be told upon request,...I "mounted my rusty steed" to begin my epic journey back to Tennessee. The trip began as one could hope for. We put the muffler back on and set out...after we met the OWNER of Vorshlag Motorsports at Waffle House. We made it about 30 miles when I got worried about the "jingle bells" and asked to pull over for an examination where we found that the drivers side half shaft was begining to come apart ( bearings were already missing from the outer cv at this point). We started again and made it a few miles when the words came out of my mouth into the walkie talkies we had for the trip "turn around I broke it". In sonic's parking lot I was relieved to find that instead of breaking this valuable halfshaft the muffler had merely dislodged itself from the down pipe. Once it was found we decided it was too bent to try to get it back on so I decided that straigt pipes were the only way to make this voyage purely badass. I did have an I pod and awesome headfones for ear protection but at first they only refused my ears' right to take in the howl of those six german fuel burnin' ear pornagraphers. A few miles down the road I realised the need for such protection, and therefore discovered the extreme use of such an overlooked tool. With the earphones out the howl of the two foot exhaust pipe was almost too much to handle at speed, peircing the eardrum one wonders how Mike B and Andrew made it from cali without aquiring a certain deafness from the drone. With the earphones in however I was able to "meet" the car more intimatly, to listen more intently to the sounds the engine was making and feel more exactly what the chassis was telling me. Now I must say that I've never driven a five series before but the balance with held in this bavarian chassis makes me hard in the pants...
At seventy (so the support vehicle told me, there are no guages in rusty save for the gas light apparently) the five felt rather sluggish and tied down to say the least, but creep up in the rev range and the schrick cams come to life. The engine begins to quiet down and settle in and the chassis smooths out and absorbs small bumps as if they arent even there giving me an ego big enough to allow me to pass the support vehicle and lead them. In short Rusty likes to be pushed, hard, according to this driver.
As I became used to the awesomness that comes with driving such a commanding machine I realized that traffic was going slower. I checked the radar...nothing, I looked at the signs...no construction and the speed limit was seventy. I texted back to the volvo as walkie talkies are useless with a mighty wind blowing and the howl of that straight piped M30 making hearing next to impossible. They texted me back with a surprizing statement, "they're not going slower, you're going faster" how fast you wonder? 95 to 100...in a car "fit for the scrapyard". I embraced this fact and proceeded to flashing the lower, brighter, lights that were added to rusty for the journey to spot bumps in the road now being used to "push" slower vehicles out of the way. Only one time on the way back after dark did one driver not get the hint and proceeded to get the full rusty blinding and accompaning deafining fly-by. Now, about texarkana the noise which I had completly forgotten about manifested itself in the form of a loss of power, and a forced pull over. The support vehicle was in front searching for bumps as texarkana was undergoing a major reconstruction of it's onramp systems so again I was forced to radio ahead and make the announcment. Once we pulled the car from the interstate into the rough ass parking lot of TSC Texarcana we discovered that the inevitable had happened, the inner cv of the halfshaft had exploded. The outer had even puked out all the ball bearings that had originally been designed to help the car roll smoothly (hence the jingle bells). After a night of meeting the hottest hooters girl in texas and a morning of searching for another halfshaft which was found in a most unlikly junkyard where a dead e28 M5 and e24 M6 lay we were back on the road. The rest of the journey was thankfully uneventful short of mikes speeding ticket in memphis and a slew of EPIC passes due to drivers refusing the move over rule of the interstate. But as we climbed the final hill on I40 to the Franklin / Fairveiw exit the car developed a sputter...
We travelled a little more hoping the sputter would be nothing as we were only 10 miles from Rusty's home. It didnt. I pulled over and with Mikes help discovered that the only guage that in fact worked for sure was the *gas light... Once mike returned with the gas cans from hell rusty was refueled and descended on The town of Franklin popping and whining it's way back to Mike's humble abode. And as I drove up the steep mountain of a driveway that Rusty is used to the gas light came on making me BIBLICALLY thankful that this was the end of the trip.
As Mike's mother welcomed us all back with open arms I found myself contemplating the ease of which I could pour the dash of fuel that was left in the can in the bed of my truck into rusty and continue on...to the east coast, hell maybe even canada. But alas my logical mind got the better of my adventurous half and pushed me into my truck to carry me home to see my family and get some well deserved rest.
Thanks for reading and hope this provided an in depth look into driving a vehicle many love but few realy experience. I know after this trip I've put myself on the top of the list for if rusty ever goes up on the auction block
-Webb
Enjoy
As we sat in mikes driveway in Franklin TN with darkness upon us and Rusty a full inch lower to the earth I have to admit I was quickly growing skeptical of mikes judgement. Yes the one of a kind Five had made it to california but that was when it was an inch higher. Now ruts and ridges in the texas pavement which were manageable before would now surely be deadly to rusty's vulnerable oil pan. I continued my worry verbally to mike by mentioning how bad it would suck to be stranded on the side of I40 repairing that oil pan but he coninued to reasure me, up until the moment I sheepishly decided to begin the trek in the volvo support vehicle, by saying "sucks to roll hard". So we departed, toward the airport following rusty in the volvo (which we later decided was a bad idea as the point of "rusty's support vehicle" should be to spot bumps). Anyways as he slowly made his way to the airport to retreive our fourth passenger Mike Marzano, from fluid motor union, Rusty threw sparks from spots in the road that he would have previously scoffed at.
The airport is another story entirely, filled with pictures of old men's faces as rusty slowly crept over the speed "humps" and almost got high centered every time. We left nashville at nine o clock central time from waffle house ( a trip with Mike B. isnt a trip without the WH) and me and Mike Marz took to bump watch in the volvo. The roads werent bad at all til' memphis... ridges, potholes, and bike jumps OH MY. Once me and Mike Marz swapped vehicles and were in rusty Mike hit one bump that literally caused us to become airborn, according to him ( i was asleep). The rest of the trip to texas was pretty uneventful just shy of tom tom (sue sue *see original tom tom ad) taking us to the ULTRA ghetto of dallas, where apparently the state of texas has seen fit to completly disreguard the state of the roads since 1957.
The real story comes on the trip back, where I took it upon myself to MAN UP and drive rusty...the entire way...alone..
I was permited a drive in rusty from the final photoshoot where I was immediatly reasured by that machine that the journey home would be a blast, and easy no less because yes, he was low but rode firm enough to deal with the roads. Now, upon this small voyage I heard a noise, I do this in every car I drive Ive actually become somewhat of a self proclaimed auto noise technician. But I digress, this noise was a type of jingle bell noise coming from the drivers rear wheel but was dismissed as the noise wasnt too bad.
The next morning after I took Mikey Marz to the airport, which is an entirely other short story which will be told upon request,...I "mounted my rusty steed" to begin my epic journey back to Tennessee. The trip began as one could hope for. We put the muffler back on and set out...after we met the OWNER of Vorshlag Motorsports at Waffle House. We made it about 30 miles when I got worried about the "jingle bells" and asked to pull over for an examination where we found that the drivers side half shaft was begining to come apart ( bearings were already missing from the outer cv at this point). We started again and made it a few miles when the words came out of my mouth into the walkie talkies we had for the trip "turn around I broke it". In sonic's parking lot I was relieved to find that instead of breaking this valuable halfshaft the muffler had merely dislodged itself from the down pipe. Once it was found we decided it was too bent to try to get it back on so I decided that straigt pipes were the only way to make this voyage purely badass. I did have an I pod and awesome headfones for ear protection but at first they only refused my ears' right to take in the howl of those six german fuel burnin' ear pornagraphers. A few miles down the road I realised the need for such protection, and therefore discovered the extreme use of such an overlooked tool. With the earphones out the howl of the two foot exhaust pipe was almost too much to handle at speed, peircing the eardrum one wonders how Mike B and Andrew made it from cali without aquiring a certain deafness from the drone. With the earphones in however I was able to "meet" the car more intimatly, to listen more intently to the sounds the engine was making and feel more exactly what the chassis was telling me. Now I must say that I've never driven a five series before but the balance with held in this bavarian chassis makes me hard in the pants...
At seventy (so the support vehicle told me, there are no guages in rusty save for the gas light apparently) the five felt rather sluggish and tied down to say the least, but creep up in the rev range and the schrick cams come to life. The engine begins to quiet down and settle in and the chassis smooths out and absorbs small bumps as if they arent even there giving me an ego big enough to allow me to pass the support vehicle and lead them. In short Rusty likes to be pushed, hard, according to this driver.
As I became used to the awesomness that comes with driving such a commanding machine I realized that traffic was going slower. I checked the radar...nothing, I looked at the signs...no construction and the speed limit was seventy. I texted back to the volvo as walkie talkies are useless with a mighty wind blowing and the howl of that straight piped M30 making hearing next to impossible. They texted me back with a surprizing statement, "they're not going slower, you're going faster" how fast you wonder? 95 to 100...in a car "fit for the scrapyard". I embraced this fact and proceeded to flashing the lower, brighter, lights that were added to rusty for the journey to spot bumps in the road now being used to "push" slower vehicles out of the way. Only one time on the way back after dark did one driver not get the hint and proceeded to get the full rusty blinding and accompaning deafining fly-by. Now, about texarkana the noise which I had completly forgotten about manifested itself in the form of a loss of power, and a forced pull over. The support vehicle was in front searching for bumps as texarkana was undergoing a major reconstruction of it's onramp systems so again I was forced to radio ahead and make the announcment. Once we pulled the car from the interstate into the rough ass parking lot of TSC Texarcana we discovered that the inevitable had happened, the inner cv of the halfshaft had exploded. The outer had even puked out all the ball bearings that had originally been designed to help the car roll smoothly (hence the jingle bells). After a night of meeting the hottest hooters girl in texas and a morning of searching for another halfshaft which was found in a most unlikly junkyard where a dead e28 M5 and e24 M6 lay we were back on the road. The rest of the journey was thankfully uneventful short of mikes speeding ticket in memphis and a slew of EPIC passes due to drivers refusing the move over rule of the interstate. But as we climbed the final hill on I40 to the Franklin / Fairveiw exit the car developed a sputter...
We travelled a little more hoping the sputter would be nothing as we were only 10 miles from Rusty's home. It didnt. I pulled over and with Mikes help discovered that the only guage that in fact worked for sure was the *gas light... Once mike returned with the gas cans from hell rusty was refueled and descended on The town of Franklin popping and whining it's way back to Mike's humble abode. And as I drove up the steep mountain of a driveway that Rusty is used to the gas light came on making me BIBLICALLY thankful that this was the end of the trip.
As Mike's mother welcomed us all back with open arms I found myself contemplating the ease of which I could pour the dash of fuel that was left in the can in the bed of my truck into rusty and continue on...to the east coast, hell maybe even canada. But alas my logical mind got the better of my adventurous half and pushed me into my truck to carry me home to see my family and get some well deserved rest.
Thanks for reading and hope this provided an in depth look into driving a vehicle many love but few realy experience. I know after this trip I've put myself on the top of the list for if rusty ever goes up on the auction block
-Webb
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