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As I sit here in the garage at some un-godly hour of the morning smoking the last cigarette of the night and staring at the project car that’s in an un countable number of pieces I wonder to myself “Why do we do it…?” and by we, I mean everyone who is into working on their cars. I am not talking the average Joe who does the household oil changes and basic repair work to keep his car on the road; I am talking about the gear head that spends almost every hour of the day dealing with an obsession. The vehicles are as varied as the people who work on them but the passion, the drive, the incessant need is always the same, MORE, more lift, more lowering, more power, more steering angle, more races, more fun. We break our bodies, spend long weekends when everyone is out camping or partying laying on cold oily floors usually working on cars that 99 percent of the world wouldn’t look twice at, cars that are older than the people working on them, we save penny by penny to pay for the new parts that we want, that we need, parts from other projects long sold or put the wayside are modified and used on new projects, tools are cut, sanded, and generally hacked to make what they do what we need them to do. We spend hour upon hour scouring every internet site and old magazine we can get our hands on to find that one gem of information that eludes us. Long lasting friendships are made and life-long enemies are found, dreams are made and broken in a single night.
We live in one of the few black and white worlds that is left, things in the garage are either right or wrong, and from the low of a rod being shot through the side of an engine block to highs that a day well spent at the track or trail with good friends, and a vehicle that’s running perfect brings, days like that make all the blood and sweat, the endless nights, the headaches, the family vacations that never happen, the hours spent doing things that most people just can’t understand, they all become worth it. We risk tickets and worse for driving our self-made monsters on the street, and no matter how hard we try there is the un-dying need for more. Yet for some unknown reason these are the things that make us happy, we wear the burns, scars and bruises with pride, like an aging Army general with his chest covered in medals from long forgotten battles, every one of our scar tells a story, the first fire up on a new engine leaves us with a header shaped forearm burn, the high steering angle front end takes 3 knuckles worth of skin, this is simply the cost of more. We slave to finish the motor swap that we have worked on for the last 6 months. And with us size is everything, turbo size, engine size, tire size, wheel size, these seem like such inconsequential things to anyone outside of our lifestyle but to us they can make all the difference in the world.
would love to get some constructive criticism on this, its something that has been floating around in the mostly empty space between my ears for a while now.
We live in one of the few black and white worlds that is left, things in the garage are either right or wrong, and from the low of a rod being shot through the side of an engine block to highs that a day well spent at the track or trail with good friends, and a vehicle that’s running perfect brings, days like that make all the blood and sweat, the endless nights, the headaches, the family vacations that never happen, the hours spent doing things that most people just can’t understand, they all become worth it. We risk tickets and worse for driving our self-made monsters on the street, and no matter how hard we try there is the un-dying need for more. Yet for some unknown reason these are the things that make us happy, we wear the burns, scars and bruises with pride, like an aging Army general with his chest covered in medals from long forgotten battles, every one of our scar tells a story, the first fire up on a new engine leaves us with a header shaped forearm burn, the high steering angle front end takes 3 knuckles worth of skin, this is simply the cost of more. We slave to finish the motor swap that we have worked on for the last 6 months. And with us size is everything, turbo size, engine size, tire size, wheel size, these seem like such inconsequential things to anyone outside of our lifestyle but to us they can make all the difference in the world.
would love to get some constructive criticism on this, its something that has been floating around in the mostly empty space between my ears for a while now.
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