Road trip! What truck do we use...

So as time is getting closer and closer to departure date, so must the time to decide on what we are going to use to tow our car from LA to Colorado, and back.

All the cars in these images range, pretty much, from $1999 US to $3000 US, except the Silver GMC Yukon, which, at 202,000 miles is $3,999, but the dealer says they are very negotiable.

We'll be shopping hard, and deciding shortly, but what ever we get will have to tow the evo from LA to colorado which is a 900+ miles trip one way, then we have to come back. Then what do we do with the truck? The idea is we sell it and blow it out the door. Believe us, we researched the cost of renting a truck, and the cost to do so, with mileage calculated, is a $2500 - $2900 rental for the two weeks, that's money thrown away, at least with buying something we have a few options, one is to sell it at a blow out sale and still save money over renting, the other is to buy a pre-1989 vehicle and ship it back to A: use here or B: sell once itgets back here and recover the funds... hopefully.

Time ticks away, decisions to be made and actioned. Just wished it wouldn't cost so much money!

Here's a teaser for you...

A while ago, like soooo 2009 ago, we built a evo coupe. Wait, what you say? They never made an evo coupe...! No, Mitsubishi didnt, but they should have. In fact they planned to, until the marketing department totally nixed the idea due to the market being bigger for a 4 door small sedan. So the little Coupe (Lancer in Australia, Mirage in the US, although the little three-door was called the Mirage here; oh forget it, Im not going to try and explain that, except the 4 door was also called the Mirage in the US... dont start on me, we continue). Anywho... MEEK automotive had built a few evo coupes by now, mostly for the show pony people, you know sweet and nice paint jobs, huge bazooka mufflers hanging out the back, 50kilogram speakers and subwoofers in the back, not us baby! We went for less weight, ugly looks and raw speed, and we found it. The car pictured here was built in 3 months by MEEK, with the help of Brett, his workshop assistant/manager/Evo gearbox and transfer case expert (in fact, he's called Mr Gears).

We started with a bare shell I scoured from the piles of a dismantler here in Sydney, and dragged over to MEEK's workshop. I should mention at this time that it was merely my idea, it was my friend Josh Robinson in Perth that funded the whole thing, he got me for free to get the project going and keep it on (almost) schedule. As I was saying, we had a shell, and got it to MEEK's where we then tore it apart, removed the rear floor, cut out the rear chassis rails for the suspension mounts, and then did the same to a donor evo 6 rear end MEEK salvaged.

In went the evo 9RS rear diff, evo 6 RS cradles, evo 6 RS rear floor, then the evo 7 GTA donor engine got bigger cams, titanium retainers, race springs, 20G turbo, MEEK piping, and evo 6 flashed ECU. Then a brand new evo 9 Rs gearbox went in, evo 6 front and rear axles, mated to brand new hub bearing carrier knuckles, and a stock evo 6 intercooler.

Then it went off to the shop for some body work mods to fit the rear flares, front evo 6 TME front bumper.

Then it went to SouthCoast suspension for the chassis and suspension balance with the fantastic KW coil overs off an evo 9.

Total weight: 1107 kilos. We never dyno'd it but we figure about 400hp at the flywheel. Whatever it was it projected the little coupe to 60mph from stop up a slight incline in just 3.0 sec flat!! Suck that Veyron!

Now, with time and more additions the car will be even more developed, when you consider we just finished it before we had to go to the start line of a big driving event, we did well, and still did a 1:44 at the huge Eastern Creek track, wouldve been faster if we A: had a front LSD in it as the front tyres were spinning in 3rd gear, and B: even knew which way the track went over the blind crest. You see I'd only ever done two laps of the place, and that was three years prior, and they were both real slow.

We are in the start of getting the pieces together to build another evo coupe, but this time we'll do it differently by having brand new rear frame rails and floor installed into the chassis by a body shop, then we just bolt all the evo bits on, you know, like 2.6 stroker, 20G turbo, oversized piping, and induction, blah, blah. Dreaming? Yes, sort of, for now.

And why am I telling you about this? Well, we really can't use this car in most (99%) of all events here in Australia, but we can run it at Pikes Peak in 2011. Monster Tajima's car has 950hp and weighs about 1300 kilos. We think we ca do 700hp and about 900kilos, but with a smaller volume (by area) of drag.

Sorry, dreaming again...

Beer!

There are many things I love about America, besides having a ton of long-time friends there it's the choices of beer. From Generic Beer (that I wouldnt touch, ie: Budweiser) to fantastic Micro breweries that dish out some of the nicest you'll ever try, like the Hops Chain of micro breweries, to just cheap German Beer. Well, cheap as in cheaper! ie: a 6 pack of Warsteiner or BitBuger Beer here in Australia is $19.00, but it is $8;00 for the same in the US. And, of course the wonderful taste of Sam Adams Beer from the Boston Brewing company. Hmmmmmm, nice, sweet beautiful full tasting beer!

And of course we can't wait to try some of the micro breweries situated in Colorado, with a healthy spout of meat to go with them.

With all the travelling we used to do to the Nurburgring - 2-4 times a year - the Bit burger Brewery was always right down the road from the track, ask me, one day, about the time I was dragged aside early one morning between huge trucks and Motorhomes at the Nurburgring event to have a celebratory beer with some race colleagues, right before I was due to go out for my stint. 'Keeps ya nice and loose' said the German. He was right!

Evos, evos, evos

Last weeks Targa Tasmania had one of the biggest fields in history. Besides Porsches being the main brand of driving enjoyment, evos were probably second, with a huge amount of entries, covering all evo chassis and years, except for evo 1 or 2, pics showing the evos though the years, all on the one event. From top to bottom: evo 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. Nice.

I'll, just... put this...

here for now...

Slowly we get there.

Well, we are now in the blackhole of waiting. Car has shipped out, entry is in, we now wait on our trip to sunny California, and then the long slog of a drive through the Nevada desert to get to Colorado, which can actually be a nice drive.

So lets look over the figures for now;
Entry fee $1700 USD ($2,000 AUD)
Ocean Freight of Evo $1440 USD, plus $500 in fees (so $2000AUD rounded).
Two airline tickets $2400 return
Hotel; $1000

Sundry items will be fuel, food, and of course the beer. So, so far the bill is about $7400. Or about the same it cost to do our last event, which was our test event, which was Mt Buller in the state of Victoria here in Australia.

Then we have to get a truck, rent a trailer and drive to colorado which is only a days drive. then we have to ship the evo back to Australia, but we'll be loading the container up with stuff we need back here.

We'll be buying the truck, and if it meets import guidelines, we'll bring it back with us, or we'll re-sell it before leaving the US.

We're still debating and trying to decipher what tyres we'll use, and the Silverstone tarmac look good, but at worst, we'll just go with the Kumho and cut them for corner sipes for the gravel sections.

Here's a bit of fun for you.

This is my friend Samantha Stevens, a local automotive journo, and rallyer. She's a load of fun and this is one of her videos made from an event she did recently, these gals are fun. Let it load & turn the speakers up.