ROAR Nationals – Practice & Travel Day

Time to head off once again, I’m on the road again (in the air actually) to
the ROAR Electric nationals. I’m really looking forward to being at the
ROAR Nationals this year because I’ve missed it the past few years. We have
had representatives at the past 4 and now I’m back for 2010.

In the airport we had a meltdown by a 14 year old because she didn’t get
what she wanted at McDonalds. It didn’t appear she was struggling for food
so I don’t know the problem, but it was a scene.

Had a mother on the airplane cause a small scene because she couldn’t sit
with her kids. I completely understand but she is traveling South West and
was in boarding group C. Now she wants special treatment from us to
accommodate her? Sure, take my seat.

Oh no, we have a super cryer on this flight….eek!

My lovely wife, Allison, again dropped me off at the airport with my 2 check
bags and 2 carry-ons. Well back-pack and lap-top. Hopefully I can get some
work done. 🙂

We are racing at the same track as the ROAR fuels nationals from last year
so hopefully that can bring us some luck. Leisure Hours has elected to use
our tires in the 2wd Stock and SCT stock classes this year. Really excited
to see how things go and be apart of the race in those classes.

In the modified class we are using the Manufacturer agreement in the 3 mod
classes. Mod truck will be using JConcepts Bar Codes, 2wd mod will be
using Losi ribbed fronts and X-2000 rears and 4wd mod will be using the PL
Holeshot.

Overall this has worked well for the past 5 years and I expect it to
continue. This allows the drivers to concentrate on their vehicles and the
team managers don’t need an entire hotel room for different tire options.
The agreement takes us out of competition in 2 classes but I agree on the
simplistic method.

I’ve heard they reduced the size of the track from the Fuel Nats, but I’m
still envisioning a large track, should be nice and fast.

We have a few new items to show this weekend so as soon as I’m setup at the
track I’ll snap some photos.

To go into a sidebar conversation the sports world is crazy right now.
Tiger is a mess, LeBron’s “decision” has everybody up in arms, Shaq vs.
retirement doesn’t seem to end. Celtics? Brett Favre coming back….again.
I’m looking for more sports daggers as the weeks unfold.

Can’t wait for the NBA season to start. Picking the Lakers in the finals has
me on a high. I’m embracing the bandwagon now. I can’t go wrong with my 4
favorite teams right? With the Lakers, Celtics, Heat and Magic, I have to
be safe. Magic need a trade for Carmello Anthony or Chris Paul to really
make waves.

NBA finals, poor Kobe shooting joke –

A group of friends of mine bet me I couldn’t do 24 shots in one night on my
21st Birthday. They were right, I vomited after 6 shots. Good thing they
were all Lakers fans and still named me MVP of my birthday.

Snack time on the airplane. Oh no, McDonalds girl is going to be upset
about 100cal Nabisco cheese nips. Meltdown time, Peanuts served of course.

So now thanks to my last trip I’m addicted to American Pickers and Pawn
Stars on the history channel. I can’t get enough of these shows now…this
is tough to schedule in with 200 work hours per week plus Entourage and Hung
on HBO. 100cal cheese nips suck. Don’t get these. Meltdown!!

Is it just me or are all the HBO and Showtime shows super cliff hangers?
Vince is now on Coke, studio is unsure…etc…etc. Oh well I’ll be
watching.. I watch just for Ari, that guy is an actor!! Show = junk
without him.

Bumped into an HBO show called the Neistat Brothers which is basically about
2 guys that got HBO to buy into them filming their lives and turning it into
short movies. One episode was especially interesting where one of the
brothers challenged his mentor to a model boat building contest where they
had a course to navigate with their home-made R/C boats. This was
interesting to me because they were so into the challenge and they had
limited resources and time.

It made me think of guys like Matt M, Tim D…etc who would really get into
this type of thing. Of course Matt would bet $1000 he would win before he
even knew the challenge. Tim would undoubtably sell us on his design being
the best very early on.

I could see Matt spending 2-3 weeks on the internet getting ideas and
issuing challenges and taking a week to build. Tim would build his in a
week and use 2-3 weeks selling us on the design.

Forget about me, Paul or Brad competing. I don’t think we would finish ours
in time. I know mine would take 3 weeks + design time and 4-5 weeks build
time. It sucks being really picky and to quote someone else, sometimes you
just have to shoot the designer to finish.

Guys say to me all the time, just finish, build or get ready really quick
and come have fun. They don’t understand I’m already doing it really quick,
for me, and it’s never just for fun. :). Ok, maybe Short Course is for fun.
Yeah, right! It still has a personal transponder in it.

Another thing they have on the Neistat Brothers show is a segment called, “A
Cool Thing”. I’m going to try and incorporate that into my blogs.

Bro! Who put all the whoops in the sky on the way to Illinois? This is like
Boggy Creek meets Nitro Challenge. It’s not the Southwest easy!

Sick dude sitting next to me. I’m about to have a meltdown over here.
Where is my germ fighting hand cleaner? I’m going to need a germ fighting
suit to make it through this. Should I ask him to play his game boy?