Say What?
The staff speaks and you listen. It's that simple. This month's question is:
What's The Worst Truck Show Experience You've Ever Had?
Kevin: Weather is always an issue at shows. I've been at shows with everything from thunderstorms to awfully humid heat waves. The worst time I had to deal with weather was at one of the Resolutions that was held halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It was all desert, and I camped there for the true experience. I came prepared with a tent and a sleeping bag, but little did I know that it would become freezing cold at night. The sleeping bag was not enough, and I swear I almost froze my feet off in the wee hours of the night. Of course, my S-10 is a standard cab with a tonneau cover on the bed, so I had nowhere else to sleep. I stuck it out but never did it again.
Calin: This is an easy one for me. It has to be when I drove my Toyota Tacoma into a ditch in Greenville, Mississippi. I was cruising up and down the strip looking for a place to park my truck so I could watch the cool stuff drive by. I pulled up to a couple of trucks parked on a gentle slope that went down into a large grass field. The area where the trucks were parked was an actual driveway leading down to the field, and where I pulled up was more of a drop-off. Because the Tacoma was lifted, I didn't think it would be an issue, but boy was I wrong. As I rolled down into the field, the truck went straight down into a ditch that was camouflaged by the tall grass. So there I was, stuck in a ditch in front of everyone. Luckily, Rich Dallas was nice enough to use his 4x4 and a towstrap to get me out. We had to stop the flow of customs on the road to get the Tacoma out, which drew a pretty big crowd and turned me eight shades of red. The Toyota came out unscathed, but my ego was pretty damaged.
Mike: On a road trip from New York to California, I hit three different truck shows. In addition to my tow vehicle breaking down numerous times, my Tacoma broke a ball joint while sitting on the car trailer in Tennessee during the Mini Nats, the alternator took a crap in Arkansas while I was out cruising, and then when I got to Texas for Texas Heat Wave someone broke into my truck in the hotel parking lot and stole the stereo. Beat that!
Andy: The last time I was at a show some dude bumped into me while walking the aisles and spilled my beer. I can imagine the tears welling up in your eyes as you read this because we all know that spilling a man's beer is equal to finding a nice big dent in your newly painted truck. It's OK dude, go ahead and cry. We've all been there before. To add insult to injury, this meathead didn't even apologize or offer to buy me another five-dollar cup of suds. Just plain rude. Now some of you guys would probably get into fight mode over this act of hostility, but I chose to just shrug it off and believe that karma would come around and this guy would get his payback in the end. Besides, I didn't want to be that guy who gets kicked out of the show anyways.
Sport Truck Slang Term O' The Month
#4,875:Double pumper (du?b'l pu?mpr) n. Refers to a Holley four-barrel carburetor equipped with an accelerator pump on both the primary and secondary float bowls. The accelerator pumps squirt fuel not through the boosters inside the venturis, but through discharge nozzles above the venturis. Try throwing this sentence down at the next domestic bench-racing session: "I just dumped the 35s for a set of 50 cc's in my double pumper and man o' man my Chevy's got a killer holeshot now."