After Payson, Arizona and just a little past Pine, Arizona there’s a steep grade that climbs up into the mountains. Hell, it’s all mountains out here in northern Arizona. Ahead of me was a older Chevy truck, one of those faded metallic burgundy ones that is only burgundy underneath. The topsides were more of a peeled silver with just a hint of grape jam. The truck was struggling on the grade; it sounded like three or more injectors had lost their tips and raw fuel was pouring into the cylinders. Thick, black smoke flowed out of the tail pipe and I could hear the engine stuttering from 150 feet back.
Brumby, my 2.5, 4-banger Jeep smelled blood. This had to be the first and best opportunity to pass a car on the entire 500-mile trip to Endurofest. A series of tight corners opened into a short straight. I shoved Brumby into 3rd gear and gunned the little 2.5, neatly slotting Brumby alongside the old Chevy. I could see the driver of the Chevy now. He was long-haired, thin, with no shirt. He resembled one of those backwoods reality TV stars and when he saw Brumby’s hood hove into sight his expression changed from complacent anger to rage. He gunned the Chevy and a noxious cloud of almost pure dinosaur squeezings engulfed the road behind us. Damn it! That Chevy was picking up speed! I dropped Brumby into second gear and mashed the throttle to the floor. My efforts were rewarded as the Chevy dropped back, still missing and smoking. All this was happening at about 15 miles an hour. It was slow motion road rage for sure but Brumby passed the test.
Me and Hunter arrived late to the party and as we pulled into Endurofest headquarters several cackling two-strokes were already on their way out to explore our new digs. Next door to the Flagstaff Motel 6 was a combination Subway sandwich franchise and massage parlor. I thought that was pretty cool. I considered going into the massage parlor after eating a foot-long veggie delight but I had pretty good cell reception so I just looked at them on the phone.
Tomorrow I’ll get Godzilla started and join the fun.