Stuff

Hey Everyone!

So first off, I want to thank everyone who helped out with the rally car. We definitely wouldn't have gotten it done without you. Secondly, the one question that I've gotten more than any other is "What's the deal with the bacon?" so I thought I'd clarify. No, the prize is not a lifetime's supply of bacon. Yes, we will consume as much bacon as possible on the trip (if we can't find bacon, we will put bacon salt on whatever we eat). Third, yes this is the coolest thing anyone has ever done in the history of the world (except for the yogurt that makes you poop. that stuff is AMAZING). Anyway, Falcon and The Flying Dutchman are about 8 hours away from NYC and Arrogant Bastard and I will be joining them early Wednesday morning. I have the day to putz around NYC, does anyone have any suggestions? I need to get a dirty water hot dog (with bacon) and do a walking tour of all the sites from Gossip Girl, but other than that I'm all free......

PS. Team member bios will be posted soon.....

Almost to Cleveland

We got to Chicago about 9-ish and decided to go a little further to shorten tomorrow's journey, and it is now 3am and we are approaching cleveland. Kyle stepped up big on this shift. We should have an easy day tomorrow.

Rally car is also stepping up big. We're burning a little oil but it's manageable. We're averaging a little shy of 40mpg for the trip. Of course, there are times when the max speed of 65 is annoying, but all in all she is getting us there.

Not to say I won't be glad to not be spending 23 out of every 24 hours in it. (Wait, was that a triple negative?)

Pit stop. Update over. Thanks to everyone for the calls, texts, and emails! You guys rock.

Suggestions

Hello people! Please help us fight off the boredom of driving with one crappy speaker and spotty phone coverage. What we need from you is simple - find us cool stuff to do between Minnesota and Chicago. Know of a great bar or a can't miss roadside attraction? Email us! We have gotten a couple great ideas already, but we thirst for more. MORE!!!

Nothingness

Hey, you know how in the movie The Neverending Story (don't lie; yes you do) how everything is going to be destroyed by nothingness or something? I think that's what's happening in the upper left of this picture.

Oh wait, no, I guess that's my finger. I can't even be trusted with my own phone. So don't worry- kyle won't be eaten by darkness...YET.

Speaking of nothingness, memo to south Dakota: you should fill yourself in a little bit. With something other than deer and very large cows. Kyle and I decided on giant flaming robots fighting each other near the freeway. If they're on fire, you can enjoy them in the evening too.

We had a little hangover from being drunk off of our to-date success so we slept in a bit this morning, but should end up a little past Chicago this evening.

PROGRESS UPDATE

All is well as we near the end of day 2. It looks like we will be bedding down for the night in the vicinity of Sioux falls.
No major events today (not a bad thing) except when we drove a couple blocks with my phone on the roof of the car. Whoops. Thankfully I realized it was up there seconds before we merged onto the highway.
Anyhoo, stay tuned for further tranissioms.

Dear Montana

Dear Montana,
You are really long. Also, we dont have much to talk about. And what's up with stealing names from other cities? Amsterdam? Belgrade? Manhattan? You are not fooling anyone. Goodbye. We met someone new. Their name is Wyoming. So far Wyoming is treating us pretty well, although I dont expect we'll hang around too long, being a rebound state and all.

We'll always have some memories, like getting 42 mpg last tank, and that one truck that had a dog in the back but didn't have a tailgate, and Grant flipping a u-turn on I-90 because he missed the exit. But then there were all the hills and boredom; I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

Goodbye, Montana.

-there will be bacon

Ps: please get some more cell towers.

PROGRESS UPDATE

All is well as we cruise across Montana. Tunes are now operational,
and the new sun kil moon record, April, seems to be the perfect
soundtrack for the scenery. It also sounds awesome playing through one
crappy speaker with the windows down.

Montana

The shop guys at my work started a pool for how far we'd make it. Only
one person guessed past Idaho. Guess what, guys- MONTANA!

Only the AM band on the $8 stereo is working, so we are switching
between Denver news radio and salsa music depending on what side of
the hills we are on.

Crap, I just realized I dont have service here, so this will be old
news by the time it posts...

Moses Lake

We just made a pit stop in Moses Lake. As we were pulling out of a
parking lot, a truckload of dudes yelled "BACON!" at us. It is a
beautiful evening. We are getting schooled by semis and motorhomes.

Celebration fail

The bacon-chocolate-bar-of-victory has tragically become the bacon-
chocolate-puddle-of-fail. This is tragic.

PROGRESS UPDATE

I have seen the top of the mountain and it is good. Take that cascades.

On the road

And so it begins. Grant and I have released ourselves onto the wild.
 To be honest, I haven't though much beyond these first few hours of
the trip. All my attention is focused on quite possibly the most
challenging part of the drive... The mountains. I'll feel a whole
lot better once we crest the pass and start our out of control coast
down the other side. I hear it's downhill the rest of the way...

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Kyle just informed me that he picked us up a bacon candy bar for the road. WILL THESE TWO REMAINING HOURS AT WORK NEVER END?!

Ask a Rally Driver

Beginning today, I am starting a new feature in this publication. This feature is called "Ask a Rally Driver". As the name implies, this will allow the adoring public to ask any question they want to be answered, by real, honest-to-goodness rally drivers. Our rally drivers, each certified at the Northwestern America Institute of Rally Drivering (NAIRD) will be happy to answer questions on any subject. Have you ever wanted to know what is most analogous to driving 85 mph on a winding dirt road, in a snow storm over the Ozarks? Then Ask a Rally Driver! Have you ever wanted to how many pairs of socks Grant "Dangerman" Laine is bringing with him on his travels to and from rallys? Will then Ask a Rally Driver! And we all know the public is anxious to know what The Vaults most memorable moment in rallying history is!

To kick off this segment lets start with the first set of questions.

Steven M. (Pocatello, ID): Who would win in a 3-way fight between a Rhino, Hippopotamus, and a 1983 Cadillac Eldorado?
Kyle: Hippo every time

Xavier (Taipei): My question is for Jason: What would you say is your greatest asset in a rally?
Jason: Well that a difficult question, Xavier! On the top of my head I would say it’s a tie between my ability to bewilder my opponents with my nonsensical statements, and my quite acute sense of feeling in my feet. When you can feel every little ridge in a pedal, there is nothing you can't solve. Also, I'm sure my rugged good looks help me in some way as well.

Do you have a question? Post your questions in the comments, and one of our rally drivers will answer in the next installment!

A History in Pictures

Success suc·cess [suhk-ses]
-noun
1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
3. a successful performance or achievement: The play was an instant success.
4. a person or thing that is successful: She was a great success on the talk show.
5. team There Will Be Bacon's 2008 BABE Rally car paint job.


Things were not looking so good for team There Will Be Bacon when our original target painting dates were rained-out (or hangovered-out). But with two evenings left before the car's departure on its fateful mission to the East, never to return, a dedicated team of extremely hard-working and attractive volunteers came together to attempt the impossible; the sweetest $25 paint job of all time in only 48 hours.

The result? History. But don't let the history books tell you what to think- see for yourself in our collected photographic history of the baconmobile.

Team There Will Be Bacon would like to thank the following Titans of Paintliness, who selflessly offered their immense talent and infinitely refined skill to the alter of the rally car, and are now rewarded with immortality:

Brian G (MVP of detailing)
Kyle S (MVP of the bacon stripe)
Courtney (MVP of lettering)
Tricia (MVP of being adorable [awwwwww])
Mike B (MVP of the beer-run)

Remember these names, for as Honorary There Will Be Bacon team members, their powerful influence will direct the course of history.

Stylistic advice

Hey, I changed the Link List icons from boring diamond things to bad-ass skulls. Yes or no?

Fan switch!

The thermosensor is broken on the rally car, so I rigged up a toggle switch to manually activate the cooling fan. Check out this sweet-ass illuminated switch I popped into the dashboard:



At first, I tried to put a switch here (and here and here):



But the switch body didn't fit in the molded plastic (oops), so now we have some speed holes. Or maybe pencil holes (FINALLY, my dashboard pencil hole dreams have come true!)

Speaking of which, there's going to be a giant speed hole in the dashboard unless I can find a car stereo at a junkyard tomorrow. There were a bunch of boom-boxes at Goodwill that operate on 12v, so I guess we could duct tape one to the dashboard and splice the wires off of the cigarette lighter. I think one even had a sticker of a unicorn on it.

33 MPG!

Hey! Although I forgot to reset the trip meter, I re-created the Leavenworth test drive and the other random trips I took the car on last week (including the trail-of-tears ice cream adventure!) and determined that we got 33.2 MPG out of the poor beast. Hellz yeah!

Timeline of our rally team

To get people up to speed on our team and mission, here is a brief history of our rally team:

September 9, 2007: Whilst fighting a hangover with greasy breakfast food at Kona Kitchen, Jason delights the gang with a riveting legend of a crazy car race in Europe where you have to drive, like, a BILLION miles in a car that costs less than, like, a gyro or something. I'm pretty sure none of us actually believe him.

September 11, 2007: Grant has to inform the gang that for once Jason's crazy tale actually exists and begins Googling state-side versions. First hit is the 24 Hours of LeMons race, which Grant is generally unimpressed with except for the $1000 grand prize paid out in nickels. Next hit is the BABE Rally.

December 19, 2007: Grant and Kyle confirmed for BABE Rally and begin scouring craigslist for the most hilarious vehicles under $200.

January, 2008: Vikram and Jason confirmed for BABE Rally. After spreading the word that we are in the market for a beater car, Brian and Meghan of Live Girls! Theater offer their non-operational 1987 Civic that has been sitting in their parking spot for 2 years.

February 11, 2008: Team is officially registered as "I Must Be Naked" (our temporary name)

April 2, 2008: We steal the rally car in a daring mid-day heist and somehow manage to push it to Grant's place with flat tires, fused brake pads, and no power anything.

April 10, 2008: After realizing that we are the worst team-name creators of ALL TIME, we decide to ask for team name suggestions from our friends.

April 12, 2008: After a week of work, Grant and Jason manage to get the car "running" by using a combination of quick-witted strategy, keen problem solving ability, and highly questionable technique.

April 18, 2008: We begin a single elimination team-naming tournament, ultimately resulting in a controversial and extremely exciting championship round which produces our awesome team name, There Will Be Bacon.

May 3, 2008: Further refinements to the operational ability of the car inspire us to test it out on the open road. Using BRG as a stunt-double stand-in for Jason (who couldn't make it), we stretched the rally car out on 250-mile day trip to the creepy Bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth. Important discoveries include:

• Fully-loaded baconmobile maxes out at about 50mph uphill.
• Not having a radio really sucks.
• Vikram can sleep in any position
• Drinking and playing baseball in the mountains is really fun.

The take-away message for the trip, considering the success of the car not vaporizing in a cataclysmic fountain of blood, oil, and Extreme Blazin' Buffalo Wing Pringles, is "WE DIDN'T DIE AND HELL YEAH WE ARE GOING TO MAKE IT WOOO!"

I'm sure my teammates will flesh this out a little more, but hopefully this timeline will help give this blog a context!