We’re all over due for a road trip. I’m looking forward to the time when I can finally say my wagon is finished, and then load it up with my wife and daughter and head out in search of adventure. We’re a bit off from that day arriving, but I do think about it and I do look forward to it.
How about you… where do you want to go? What do you want to drive?
Last Call indicates the end of Hooniverse’s broadcast day. It’s meant to be an open forum for anyone and anything. Thread jacking is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.
By Jeff Glucker
Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff
Found out at Petit LeMans that Graham Rahal, Bobby Rahal’s son, is married to Courtney Force, John Force’s daughter and also a NHRA racer. Any other racers on a professional level married to other racers?
Shirley Muldowney and Connie Kalitta never married each other, but were romantically involved for a number of years. Same for Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse (minus some championship-level track success, I suppose), Jesse James isn’t exactly a racer, but he is an automotive celebrity married to one, Alexis DeJoria.
Historically, there haven’t been that many women racers at the professional level, or for that matter, any openly gay ones, so most married racers are NOT going to be married to other racers. It’s probably a bit more common to find racers married to crew members.
I’d like to drive US Highway 62 from El Paso, Texas to Niagra Falls, New York in something big and comfortable.
Big and comfortable? How ’bout the Texas Eagle train from El Paso to Chicago?
https://www.amtrak.com/routes/texas-eagle-train.html
You can rent a Buick to get you to Niagara Falls, or cook up some ferry boat service to Sault Ste. Marie and wing it from there. You want to be on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, anyway.
Since everybody here likes to drive and surely has at least a handful of favourite roads, how about creating a Hooniverse Enjoyable Transit Index? We could describe good driving roads and dole out 1-5 stars for factors like surface quality, traffic density, scenery, de-tour-ability, slow-car-fast-ability – whatever. Ppl can send in their suggestions with photos and text. After a while, it could become a sort of driving mecca wiki/catalogue. Not sure if any website or blog has done this already, but I really like reading about good roads.
I’d like to nominate this as somewhere to start:
http://hooniverse.info/2016/01/07/take-me-to-your-special-place/
That’s it!
I love ideas like these, it’s just tough to sustain them. If anyone is interested in attempting to catalog such a thing though, we’re here and interested in putting it out there.
Hm, I’d have a handful ideas myself, and could catalogue them. But as I don’t see a crowd jumping up and down, shouting “take this submission”, that might be the challenge.
If you’re interested in towing the water to get a few submissions out there we could start with that… let me know. Je**@Ho********.com
I want to go into the woods and ride a motorcycle. Too bad a lot of the Mendocino National Forest burnt up recently. I’d better go ride what’s left before that frontier disappears.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18636c4119f60ac1ef3b1cdd4cb7ae2ab7943bb7e7c78d7901d6e23469697b39.jpg
Road trips I’ve had plenty of. Taking a train trip shows you all the beautiful bits of the world that aren’t next to the highway. Off-roading and high-adventure car camping are becoming a high-dollar market as today’s Yuppies test their mettle (and bank accounts) against the receding frontier “beyond the pale”. But you don’t need a winch-laden, oversized-tire money pit with a hi-lift jack welded to the snorkel to see the untrammeled wilderness. That crap is for breeders who need to keep the wife and kids air conditioned (apologies, Jeff!)
Now that the as-yet-un-knicknamed Econoline is running well, it’s time to
get the front end tightened up and the rust spots taken care ofput it to the use I bought it for. It’s a four wheeled tent that can carry a dirt bike.The GMC C-1500 used to carry the DRZ and TW down to Baja California, Mexico. Those were long trips fraught with Ex-HoneyBunny’s overpacking and a weakness in the rain and snow departments. They proved, though, that a 20 year old 2WD truck and a dirt bike or two can really get the job done.
We have a network of trails along the shore of Lake Huron . Built a dune buggy once and rode them all.
Louis S. Ross gained national fame in the early 1900s while an employee of Stanley Motor Carriage Company racing his own-design and own-built Stanley Steamer-powered “Wogglebug” race car at Ormond-Daytona Beach. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d933fe883e9c92b780a5f7990ab80e1fd953956830a3047e5d9064d629225ddd.png
How brave or stupid does one have to be to seat himself immediately in front of a high pressure steam boiler mounted in a vehicle on skinny tires and then drive across a beach at an average speed of 127.659 mph?
It seems to me it would require either an overwhelming faith in both the creator of the machine and the Creator of man, or copious amounts of ignorance submerged in high alcohol content liquids.
https://www.si.com/vault/1975/11/10/618944/did-the-crash-of-a-stanley-steamer-in-1907-influence-us-foreign-policy
Every time I post on the hooniverse I end up with a negative comment. I thought it was a ballsy car to build and race . Well this is my last post ever for the hooniverse . To hell with this shit.
The internet is a rough place for the thin-skinned, and you seem to be set off easily, judging from your comment history. Lokki’s comment questioned the sanity of the steam-powered racing pioneers, and didn’t appear to attack you in any way, shape, or form. https://media.giphy.com/media/LJsBNUhwbVTB6/giphy.gif
Drop and get me twenty !
I certainly didn’t mean to offend anyone. I simply meant to express my inability to even conceive the bravery and fatalism of earlier generations. In a time when cars have 8 airbags and bicycle helmets are de rigueur for a ride around the neighborhood it is hard to grasp how Charles Lindbergh was both willing and allowed to fly across the Atlantic strapped into a 2500 pound airplane carrying 2700 pounds of high-octane aviation fuel…the tank being so big that Lindbergh had to use a periscope to see out of the plane. He had to go 30 hours without sleep, and had just five sandwiches for food. Oh, and he left the radio out of the plane to save weight.
By modern standards, these men must be considered insane to do what they did without any apparent fear of death. I have to admire them.
Frankly, I certainly wasn’t thinking of Victor who is obviously not similar to them in any way.
However to avoid hurting the feelings of others, I’ll take a week or so break from posting while I consider my failings as a sensitive human being,
I like when you all police yourself… you all do a great job of it.
What was he burning to power the steamer?
Honest question? Coal?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea1d4482ea0fc9b2670c60828bdd519b90712b75eb29be3797382a5d43320de3.png
For the past month (basically, since living out of a Toyota HiAce for a week), I’ve been looking at old vans almost daily (which, out of all the half-baked plans illI never follow through on, my wife at least supports this one). So that’s my “what I’d drive” – I guess the where is just somewhere less flat than here that I could get there and back over a weekend. Although I wouldn’t turn down Alaska with more time.