500+ miles, 36 hours awake, a # of checkpoints, 4 luchador masks, dozens of eggs, 2 cans of shaving cream, a couple of laps at Irwindale Speedway, silly string, a bandolier filled with shots and 5 hours, a supersoaker, a healthy dose of sabotage, 1 blizzard, some fish rocks, 1 set of tire chains, Death Valley, 1 joust and 1 speeding ticket = $500 in quarters and 1 Golden Gas Pump.
The Rental Car Rally is sort of like Halloween and Canonball Run had a love child. Its basically a photo scavenger hunt where teams compete for the best odometer reading from checkpoint to checkpoint with the best style and yes, I’ll say it, zazz, snapping photos along the way for proof and sabotaging each others vehicles with shaving cream, grenadine, silly string, maple syrup and about a farm’s worth of eggs freezing to windshields 4X4-ing in the dark and snow.
In the end, we sat, fat with buffett food overlooking the immaculate Lake Tahoe Sunday morning trying to figure out how we possibly came in first over the amazing stylings of the Tiki Bar Car or The Bruces (Springsteen, Campbell, Lee & Willis [who was actually in the snow barefoot a la John Mclain]) or Shawskank Redemption, a van full of prisoners and cops. It seemed like maybe all computer hell broke loose at the last minute and it all came down to who hit all checkpoints and had the lowest mileage. It might be hard to tell based on the photo above but, if style was a factor, we lost, big time.
I suppose this subject deserves a long, descriptive narrative about each and every minute of our trials along our crazy journey; instead, I’ll be brief.
1. We all had heaps of fun.
2. We were very cold and tired and broke.
3. We won.
4. We still can’t figure out why.
5. We think you should try the Rental Car Rally, too.
Our hats off to Pants, Supreme & Mustache for putting on such a cool event.
Tom Varden 