Good Bye, Blue Dinosaur, And Godspeed.

Its time to mark a passing of a loved one, a transition, the end of an era. The old crusty van has been sold. Yes, a van. We had a van. A creaky old van. At first I didn't like the van that much. The first time I saw it I knew it would one day break our hearts. In the end, though, I came to really like that van. I guess spending hour after hour in it and driving thousands of miles to races all over the eastern United States will do that. It was bought for a few hundred bucks from a government liquidation auction back when I was recovering from a broken leg. I had other things on my mind, I thought it was gonna be a money pit. George and Max were really excited, they said I had a bad attitude. At first I never really drove it, not that I much could, the first couple trips I was still in a cast or boot. However, I'll never forget the first time I did drive it. The steering was....approximate. The suspension was more of a concept than a real thing. The tires were terrifying "used" jobbies. The brakes were infernal devices. When a truck would pass you it felt like the van was gonna get blown over. It also felt more like a steam powered device than a diesel, as if you had to throw on more coal if you wanted to accelerate. But it grew on me. I couldn't help it, the thing was just too damned jolly. As it kept going, trip after trip it's stock definitely began to rise in my eyes. I started spending money on it without grumbling. I made a bracket to mount the spare tire on the front grill all safari style because we thought that was just the coolest. But it was Max who really adopted it, aside from the fact that it was unceremoniously dumped at his house after each trip, he had an almost nurturing relationship with it. He trolled auto salvage yards for better seats and interior parts, sewed a cushion for the rear bench, laid carpet.

Its usually only in the background of pictures. I don't think we ever really specifically took pics of it until we needed some to sell it.

It really was a good van. It could haul four guys, their stuff, their bikes, a smoker, a grill....

It was a rolling hotel. Mobile workshop. Crap weather dining hall. It had a raised floor in the back so it had tons of space to store pretty much everything you could need for a weekend's racing. Its contents had been refined to a science, and you could get to a race and have camp set up in style in literally minutes. We recently did an event and took a different vehicle...I didn't have my stuff...I wasn't happy, I missed the van. It really only let us down once, on the way to the Carolina Boy's event its injection pump shit the bed which made it a fairly expensive weekend...had to haul it back home on a flatbed tow truck from Brunswick, Ga.

Other than that it did the things an old van should be expected to do. It leaked oil, leaked in the rain. But it began to get cutesy nicknames: the Blue Armadillo, the Big Blue Dinosaur, the Nambla Van. Real terms of endearment stuff.

In the end, sentiment only goes so far. Sitting in the pub one night Max an' I totaled up how much we'd spent on gas the past season. It only got 11ish MPG. It was a horrifying number. We realized the difference in mileage we could get with a newer vehicle would cover the cost of a new van. So we sold it off to finance a recently acquired newer, more expensive government liquidation auction van.

 Its just a new version of the old van, still a rumbly diesel, but all modern-y with lots of electrical mystery boxes. Its shiny, has real suspension, brakes etc. Hell! the radio even works! It runs great but is currently a bit of a problem child. The Air Force motorpool we got it from had been stealing parts off it for a while. But, this time around I don't mind it being a little troublesome, I guess that's just fitting...something of a family resemblance I suppose. Goodbye, old van. Thanks for all the miles.