I've never been to Wisconsin before this trip and to be honest I had no idea what to expect. Landscape-wise, its nothing to write home about. The few towns we stopped at for gas, piss breaks, and Dunkin' coffee were just like the smaller surrounding ones back home. After a few hours we arrived at the hotel, checked in, unpacked our shit, and met up with all the other spectators and drivers at the local watering hole, The Longhorn Saloon. After a pretty wild night of fireworks, catching up with some friends who made the trip out, and donkeys headbutting punching machines, we headed back to the hotel to try and get some sleep.
Arriving later than planned, we waited an hour or so in what seemed like a never ending line. I welcomed the peace and quite though because I was still hungover from the night before. Upon walking into the facilities the atmosphere completely changed. There was a flood of sounds, colors, and energy. Walking past what basically seemed like every rad street-style drift car on the internet, we dropped our stuff off with our friend Rolando at his pit area and headed to the track. Out of the 4 of us; 3 are involved in out local drift scenes enough to attend events, go streeting, and perpetually work on each others cars. I can't speak for Alec and Beau, but I had never seen such a wild track or that level of driving in person. Throughout the entire day there wasn't any time where we weren't watching or admiring cars. I'm not sure if I ate anything all day or night to be honest.
We left the track sometime around 10pm and were on the hunt for beer, but that turned out to be a mission from hell. The two local bars were closed (who the fuck knows why) so we went to Walmart to load up on snacks, beer, and sunscreen. Beau had already began the transformation from human to lobster, but we figured some SPF 5,000 wouldn't hurt. While checking out, The Wicked Witch of Shawano snagged the beer from out cart and said we were too late by something like 15 minutes. We all stared with our mouth's to the floor in shock. That was the final nail in the coffin. We drove back to the hotel dissapointed, confused, and tired.
Waking up bright and early the next day was easy. Every bit of alcohol in our system had been sweated out the day before and we weren't trying to stand in line for another hour. The second day was ran counter-clockwise and made for some really good drifting. Rolando was generous enough to give us all rides in his LS swapped 350z which alone made the trip worth it. I snapped a few photos in-car (shown below), but after the first lap I put the camera down and just enjoyed it. Leading a tandem of seriously like 12 others was one of the wildest things I've ever experienced in a car. This was also my first time seeing Rolando drift in person and all I can say is; That mother-fucker can drive.
The second day ended a lot sooner so we had plenty of time to hit up a sit-down restaurant (I couldn't tell ya the name if my life depended on it, but it was damn good), fill up the car for the trip back to Chicago the next morning, and finally; go get our cases of beer that The Witch snagged the night before. After a few drinks in the room we called it a night and passed out.
It's a 4 hour drive back to O'hare, so we left pretty early to give ourselves a few hours to go through security and what not. We were all pretty beat from the sun and all the gas station food, so the ride back was pretty quiet. An hour or so into sitting in the airport we got our flights delayed, re-routed, and delayed again. Alec, Loc, and I's late connecting flight magically got bumped up a few hours so we wound up having to rush our goodbyes with Beau and leave before our beers arrived; running across the entire airport in a panic. We arrived in Denver as our connecting flight back home was taking off. Just our luck. We were stranded in Denver until the next evening. Luckily Loc has some family there that were generous to let us shower, sleep, and drink some of their booze. We spent the day meeting up with another hometown friend that had moved out there, eating Torchy's Tacos (I fucking love that place), and going on a hike. After all that we thanked Loc's family for their hospitality, dropped off the rental, and headed to the airport.
Work the next day was a bummer. I was still buzzin' from the event and probably spent 50% of the day looking up parts and planning my cars build. You just can't beat hanging out with good friends, exploring new places, gettin' loose on local beers, and doing rad shit in cars that motivates you.
-Josh
Below are some 35mm photos I took from that weekend.
