While racing in the 2904, we expected to be constantly learning new things about ourselves, but were most pleasantly acquiesced at the moments when we forgot ourselves completely.
The appeal of the2904 is not limited to gear heads and tinkerers of rusty oily heaps, or to record breakers and speed demons, but to the inspired windswept hearts of american souls who yearn to taste as much free air as they can before cursed employment chokes off the freedom they posses inside.
In the 2904, America is a drive through window and the fries are supersized. Your mind races to the golden gate but your bones are stuck knee deep in empty redbulls at 83mph at 6am under a brisk nebraska sunrise. It is rally which is run from the redball garage on 32nd st in manhattan nyc to the creative film car garage in san fransiscos mission district, from the brooklyn bridge to the golden gate. To the adventurers soul, a rally of such magnitude is scarcely to be undertaken for the sake of simple sportsmanship. Why then? We hope herein that light will be shed on all possible motives for competing.
1) WAKING UP IN WYOMING:
When you wake up in wyoming after three hours of napping on the rumbling road, the sky will pour itself onto you and in one gaping breath you will see all the joy and folly of your life. The 2904 race is billed as an "endurance tournament." At first measure one might construe that the endurance is staying awake or having a jump on the cops, but the 2904 is just as much a pilgrimage, a holy trip of self appraisal. When city kids hit the open road in a car whose flimsiness reflects their lifes prospects, its hard to not notice the cows in their drowsiness about the land, its hard to not stare at the sunbaked mountaintops and wonder if our hearts were settled here long before our eyes discovered them. Who are we really? where are we going really? what have we seen and done really? The night lit road is but a dim reminder of this pressing question. The grumble of your oil starved V-8 is the meditative reminder of your insulation from the world you dream of conquering. From new jersey to nebraska we salivate for the mountain ranges, the snowy caps in whose winding crevices we might find clues to our nature or excitement in our peripheral lives.
but in wyoming something emerges...
...We begin to invest in the process, and not the outcome. We begin to fall victim of cabin fever, of sleep dep, and corny jokes become a whole lot funnier and gas breaks become a lot more sluggish, but our spirits become a lot more time tested. Ask any member of our Team Griswald, who upon completion of our 2904 mile journey, drove down to LA and then Vegas. by this point, 12 more hours in a car became walk in the park on a summer afternoon. And when it came to pry free the car in Oakland for a plane ride back to brooklyn, we trembled to leave it as would a baby graduating from breast to bottle.
But truly, the 2904 as a means to defrost your soul is too brief to be life changing, though to grandiose to be forgettable. Every time i stumbled out of the back of the wagon at some unknown hour of the night onto the stiff pavement of a lonely rest stop I grew less and less afraid of being in a world without importance. New York can fill a mind up with need and desire for relevance and immediate recognition. a Utah gas station is a wonderful place to face the fear of being truly nowhere.
a nevada mountain range is as good a place to scream your vocal chords raw as any ever built by the lord's dusty hand.
visitng the2904.com will provide all technical regulations of such an adventure. but is up to you, the charioteer, to extract its meaning. But now that we are aware of the rules, and are liberated by its limitations, we must consider our vehicle more a team-member than a means of transporation. somehow its stubbornness is a reflection of ours. somehow our faith is its willingness. somehow our lust is its fuel.
2) THE TEAM:
2010's "Team Griswald"
(l-r) tim deery, garrett shore, dave kwon, and the '87 custom cruiser
A good 2904 car should feature a big block, a big tank, and big comfort. A sore ass is just as much a factor in defeat as is having a flat tire. Grafitti is a must. its especially important when all participants are impoverished to raise money by selling tag space on your custom cruiser. if your friends a thome cannot be there with you physically, then other means can be arranged.
3) think of all the possibilities!!
By and large, the newfound tradition of the 2904 in the opinion of this willing participant, has yet to reach the zenith of its potential. sponsorships and advertisements have so far been roguish and underblown, there will one year be a time when a team races for a cause, where the sideliners are not friends responding to your tweets. i envison this race with more participants and achieved with even stricter regulation.
