OUSCI 2010. What a day!

[CarlC]

Sorry for the lack of pictures. My camera is on the fritz and it will not download. If anyone has some I would be very appreciative if you could please send them to me at [email protected]. Most of the following pics are from the camera phone.

The OUSCI was an outstanding event. The time, organization, thought, and effort put out by the organizers, volunteers, and participants is what makes this event special. Without everyone working together it could not happen, so first and foremost my thanks go out to Optima, FM3, the event sponsors, and especially the volunteers. Greg, Tito, Doug, etc., you guys rock.

I left home at 4:30am Monday to head to SEMA. I love to drive during sunrise in the Mojave Desert. It is one of the most beautiful scenes to behold and it's something that I don't like to pass up. Here's the sun just starting to show itself just outside of Barstow.



With some spirited driving and averaging something north of what I should have, the car made 23mpg overall on the road trip.

After meeting up with Todd (aka Iceman) at his place on Monday we headed toward the Optima Coral at SEMA. Luckily the do-dah-man on Todd's left did not feel the need to start our week of on the wrong foot.



The Coral was as far south as possible in the outdoor parking lots. We shared the same lot with the West Coast Customs truck/display and the DUB group. Since there were about 40 cars in the Coral, some of us started call it the South 40 due to it's remote location. Bill Howell had the best name though, "The DUBS and the Do'ers." The Do'ers did not have as many scantily clad girls as the DUB's did.

With us in the lot were a bunch of great cars and trucks, But even more impressive were the people. Tom Farmington brought his wife and kids with him to SEMA, and they are the nicest people you could ever meet. The other Tom, with the oh-so-cool 1934 Ford truck. What a guy, and what a truck! 196MPH in that thing has got to be a religious experience. Bill Howell, Telly, Chris and his wife Lynda, everyone, just great people. I'm glad to be able to say that I made a lot of new friends there.

Optima really treated us well. They had the awning out on the trailer so there was some shade, and a security guard was stationed right next to our group at night. We were also given embroidered jackets, duffel bags, and backpacks. Lots of t-shirts and other handouts were also included, including a very generous $250 Ridetech coupon to every competitor that had a Ridetech sticker on the side of their car.



Each of the competitors had to do a TV interview. Though I really wanted to, I resisted wearing the janitors flight suit until race day. I tried a couple of one-liners to hopefully increase my chances for four seconds of television glory. Yeah, right.

The start of the real events was the Road Rally. It started with a short drive to the Silverton Casino parking lot to take a group picture. While waiting for the photographers to finish each competitor was given an SD card for their camera. Each competitor had to take two pictures at two different Las Vegas landmarks and have the SD card turned in at the Best Western Pahrump by 10:00pm. James Shipka and I teamed up and hit a wedding chapel and the Mirage hotel. Neither of us wanted to brave the Friday night Las Vegas traffic. I was also lucky enough to have Lynda be my navigator during the photo portion of the Rally. She said something about Chris dumping her, but that's another story.

After dropping Lynda off at the Silverton, James and I headed to Pahrump. What a great drive. It took about an hour but the weather was perfect, the road great, and very little traffic. After arriving at the hotel we got out of our cars and James expressed the same thought I had, "I love this car."

I was lucky enough to share a room with David Pozzi. The Pozzi's, along with their friend Deanna, were nice enough to play musical rooms so that I had a bed to sleep in. I can only hope to be as generous and gracious as they are. I owe them a lot more than just the cost of the room. We hit the hay early knowing a long day awaited us.