It has basically taken me an entire year to write out this blog. I could give a million excuses to why it got pushed back so far but at this point, I really don't have any. Life just got busy and I knew that it was a lot of content so I tried to work on shorter blogs to get caught up and we already know how that story goes lol.
I found out about the rally actually through my buddy Quan who has been a long time fan of Overcrest along with Kris and Jake's Podcast. Quan loves cars and loves the culture but being from Sacramento, sometimes he can feel a bit of FOMO with a majority of the car family being in Socal. By last minute luck, I reached out to Kris about the rally and the OC team lent me an invitation to come check it out and so I did.
Well that lead to all sorts of cramming for the 2200 mile round trip I was about to adventure on. First thing I did was drop off my car at SSA Haus to button up my 1992 Porsche 964 and that ended up turning into a lot of little things that kept taking more time and money. As the story goes, while you are in there moments press you for more of everything. Well as we got to the week of, the Oak was not going to be complete due to parts taking longer than expected.
I had to either forgo the entire rally, jump into someone else's car or a miraculous third option was my buddy Allan told me to take his 1971 Porsche 911T that had just gotten a bunch of work done to it. I was extremely hesitant but I didn't have much choice and ended up taking him up on his offer. So we started our journey to the state of Utah and the story went like this...
Our group was comprised of Quan, Mike, Ian and I and the focus was to get to St George Utah for an overnight stay. We could have stayed in Las Vegas but it is only 3.5 hours from Socal and I wanted to get in my drive time on the first leg up there. St George ended up being closer to 7 hours with pit stops. One of our first stops was at a deserted gas station that I have always wanted to shoot at. Along the 15 fwy, you can see a tall GAS sign with an abandoned structure that has graffiti all over it. Mid day, we pulled in and snapped some shots of the cars in our group.
The '71 911 really went well with the sign, don't you think? From the color of the sign to the long hood, it was like two best friends meeting up again after 50 years lol. One thing that I know about Allan who owns the long hood, is that he loves doing dirt donuts so I went out of my way to do a donut in his honor but of course no one was there to document it. So Quan followed suit and I got him doing some donuts but not soon before I could get my settings right and get his with more motion blur. Most of his shots just came out ho hum cause timing was bad. Such is life.
Outside of that, we just stayed on course and headed straight to St. George Utah to get to our Airbnb before it got too dark and guess what happened? We got there when it was too dark hahaha. I hope I got some of the footage of us pulling up to the house on the vlog because it got real interesting when we pulled up. Deciding between taking photos for a blog or taking video for a vlog... you think making content is all fun and games until you realize no matter how much you try to do, it is never enough.
Also since it seems like I didn't take much photos inside the Airbnb, just know that it was super creepy pulling up to a large house that was pitch black in an area we knew nothing about but what ended up being a complete oasis. The 4 of us stayed up til 4:30am talking about life and enjoying each others company. We woke up around 9am and then started our journey to the registration area which was in Mexican Hat, Utah (lower south eastern part of Utah).
If you have never been to Utah, you have to know that it is some amazing views of red rocks probably in the nation. The roads cut right through a lot of it in the lower south western part of Utah where Arizona come together. Lots of beautiful sights along the way from those coming from California. We had about a 5 hour journey to get to Mexican Hat.
So along the way, somewhere between the Utah and Arizona border, something awesome happened. Once again I have no photos of it and I think I am positive that I took video of it but somewhere along the line a 991.2 GT3 Touring pulled up behind me. I thought to myself, what are the odds that this GT3 is on the rally with us. I mean it is a modern 911 which I think OC Rally wasn't accepting but I could feel that it somehow was a part of the rally gang.
The GT3 followed behind me for 50 or so miles until it decided that it wanted to pull in front and take off from the rest of the group. So most of us kept pace but Mike decided that he was going to run with the GT3 and they took off at high speeds to the moon! Somehow, Quan in his Oslo and I got pulled over by a state trooper who was headed in the opposite direction as us. His truck was so sleek that I had no idea he was a cop. Once he past us, he flipped a bitch and caught up to us with lights pulling over the two of us. Ian in his e36 M3 also pulled over but the trooper told him to keep going unless he wanted a ticket also.
Story time.... so the officer came up to me and asked me why I passed up slower traffic and then merged into the lane too fast. I was confused what he was asking me but I guess you can't pass back into the lane until you are 5 cars ahead? I have no clue but he asked me for my paperwork. This is where things were getting scary. Remember this is not my car and I was digging for paperwork everywhere and there was none. Allan left me with no paperwork and there was zero reception in the area we got pulled over. I knew the whole "what had happened here... is that this is my buddy's car and he's not here and I don't have any paperwork" excuse probably wasn't gonna fly. So I started sweating bullets. As I later found out, the car wasn't even registered in his name yet... lol. Lesson to many of you, if you go on a rally with some one else's car, make sure the paperwork is in order GG.
I figured at this time, the car is gonna get towed and not sure how that is gonna play out when I tell Allan that he has to come pick up his car in the middle of nowhere lol. Blessings always come at the strangest times but somehow he felt that Quan was more of an issue than I, so he came back to me after he talked to Quan and told me to leave. I was so confused but I managed to grab a photo of him in the mirror as he gazed back at me.... the problem was, the car decided that it wanted to have starting issues. I could not get the car to start but after 3 excruciating minutes, the car started and I took off.
Quan ended up getting his first ticket ever but damn if you need to have a core memory for a first ticket, this would be the one. I mean look at how big his smile is lol. Well done young grasshopper, well done.
A notable stop we did was at the Glen Canyon Dam Overlook and as you can see, there is a lot to see overlooking this dam. You always get a sense of how small we are when you can appreciate the vastness of our planet and how tiny we are in relationship to the space. That is a long way down!
As we journeyed on, we came across this long straightaway where you could see tourists crossing the street in the distance. You really had no idea what they were looking at until I saw in the rear view mirror something that looked familiar. I just couldn't put my finger on it until....
...until we parked and turned around and I realized it was the scene in Forest Gump where Tom Hanks was running and he had a herd of people running after him. He had been running for years and the backdrop was the Utah silhouette. That was a pretty special moment to be able to experience that.
An hour before the sunset, we finally reached the registration point where the OC team was greeting the guests of the rally. It felt like a pretty long journey but after talking to people who came from Florida, we knew he had it easy. Quan got to meet Kris for the first time, saw Jesse with his RWB and got to see the Mexican Hat, which was a tiny rock in the middle of nowhere. Not sure about the history of this rock but it was definitely interesting.
After registration ended, a majority of the drivers headed to the local steak house to grab dinner but since we were out there, I had to get a group photo. We also met up with my dude Nick aka @weekndr.porsche and we got a shot in front of the Mexican Hat. It's so tiny and cute.
Once again, to pay homage to Allan who couldn't make it and lending me his 911, I did some donuts yet again where no one captured it and soon Quan and Jesse followed suit but this time as the sun was setting, it was fucking epic AF. Jesse's shot that I named Rough Roads captured the hearts of many RWB fans and that single shot almost made the whole trip worth it but there were so many amazing moments like that one.
I will leave you with all of the visual porn below me. Enjoy.
After all of that shenanigans, we lined it up and then headed to the restaurant to catch up with the rest of the group.
So remember that GT3 touring I talked about earlier? Well we caught up with him at dinner randomly. The restaurant was packed and basically no where to sit. After we ordered some food, I asked this coupe with an empty table by themselves if we could join them. They were the quietest table but you know after we joined in, we quickly became the loudest table.
Well after talk to Rhianna and Frank, Rhianna reminded me that they buy a bunch of Cooled Collective merch and the more I started thinking about it, I realized I knew the Frank they were referring to and then we realized that it was them in the GT3 Touring! I mean talk about small world and how quickly we became bonded in that evening hangs. Frank has become a true friend and brother to me over the last year and I am grateful for his support and friendship along with many others.
I know most of you probably won't even make it this far because no one even reads anymore. I probably won't even proof read this blog because there isn't any damn time. I still have to make the vlog with the help of my wifey so if you guys and gals are looking forward to more, you can see the vlog then.
Tomorrow is day 1 of the rally and I promise you that things get much more interesting. So stay tuned and get ready to check out the rest of it. I have to start prepping for next week's Overcrest Rally 2022, rally to Idaho. So much to do, so little time.
Talk soon,
Drew Manley
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