Skip to main content

Roadtrip Alert- We’re Driving to SEMA

Like so many brilliant ideas before it, it all started over a beer.  “I haven’t done anything stupid in a really long time”, I told John Acton, our Head of Sales.  Sure, we are both fortunate enough to travel for work quite often, but the resulting inconsistency in personal schedules doesn’t leave much chance for spontaneity.  Yes, it’s a first world problem.  No, I’m not ashamed to admit it.  And luckily, John felt the same.

roadtrip-map
So a plan was hatched, and now we’re staring down the barrel of one of the most ambitious road trips we’ve ever attempted.  This Sunday morning, I’ll make the nearly two-hour trek from our Central Pennsylvania office to Philadelphia’s International Airport in order to catch a plane destined for Chicago O’Hare.  Once safely on the ground, John will pick me up in a Mk7 GTI, and we’ll depart for Las Vegas- a roughly 25 hour journey, which we’ll be tackling in one shot.  This means that at some point on Monday afternoon, we’ll roll into Sin City tired, sweaty, and craving In ‘N Out.

DSC05316
In preparation for the journey, John has removed the Work Emotion CR 2-piece wheels and sticky rubber in favor of the stock setup wrapped in all-season tires, but that’s really it.  The previously installed H&R coil overs, spacers and sway bars, a Unitronic Stage 1 flash and Remus exhaust are all still fitted to the car, ensuring that our journey will be about as fun as the road conditions allow.  He’s also filled his iPad with Silicon Valley and Eastbound and Down episodes to keep us entertained.  Clearly, this guy f*cks.

Once SEMA has closed its doors, we’ll be making our return trip- forgoing yet another Cannonball-style run for a slow ride back on Route 66, taking us through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri on our way to Chicago.  Throughout the journey, we’ll be posting frequent updates and any roadside oddities we come across to our Instagram and Twitter pages.  Feel free to follow along, and throw out suggestions for places to eat!

The post Roadtrip Alert- We’re Driving to SEMA appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/1NF4nZp
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2018 Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster Review

“Supercars just don’t excite me anymore.” These words, spoken to me over a month ago by another journalist, friend, and (so-called) enthusiast were echoing in my head for far too long, but they’ve finally been drowned out. Drowned out by the wail of a naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 engine mounted in the middle of the new Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster. My friend’s point is that back in the good old days, there was a crop of supercars that captured the imagination with amazing style, sounds, performance, and more. Today, it seems like everything is capable of supercar performance, with large luxury sedans outdoing some of the best and most dedicated teams of car nuts, while former pillars of automotive excellence are suddenly pumping out family-friendly SUVs. Beyond that, another league of supercars, dubbed hypercars have cropped up with hybrid gas-electric powertrains that make magical things happen quickly, but at the cost of the acoustic drama, visual flair, and engag...

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers.  The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience.  So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf.  In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...