Sunday May 7, 2006
Gumball Rally: Day 7 & 8
Home, Long Beach, CA
6:26 PM
I’m home. Tony and Rooftop dropped me off about an hour ago. It feels good to be home and with the family so I’m gonna’ keep the recap of these last two days pretty short.
We left Salt Lake City Saturday morning and no longer felt like we were on the rally… It more so just felt like we were driving home with Vegas as a stopover. Tony’s wife Lhotse joined us in the Jeep for the last two drives in which we pretty much just did the speed limit. We knew we could buy our way out of trouble in Europe and in Thailand we never saw a cop but here in the States if you drive at the speeds we were hitting in Europe and Thailand you go to jail and apparently many Gumballers did just that over the last two days.
I handled the entire Salt Lake City to Vegas drive; I love doing the miles and would have done them all if the boys let me. We got in around 3:00 PM and checked into the Red Rock Hotel Casino Resort where we were given the full VIP treatment. From there we made our way over to the Hard Rock Hotel And Casino where Tony did a vert demo with guests Bob Burnquist, Mat Hoffman, Jesse Fritsch and Kevin Stabb.
After the demo we went back to the Red Rock for an amazing dinner at an Italian restaurant inside the hotel. Later that night, Rooftop and I made our way back over to the Hardrock to hang out. We spent the later hours of the night once again laughing our asses off with Ryan Dunn.
This morning we split out of Vegas around 10:00 AM and drove to Beverly Hills with Bam and Dunn in tow. Bam’s Lamborghini has been giving him problems since Bangkok but he was still able to finish the rally. We rolled into Beverly Hills a few hours ago, crossed the finish line, did some interviews and then got back in the Jeep and split for home. There is a party tonight at the Playboy Mansion for all of the Gumballers but we all decided to skip out on that and call it a trip.
And what an intense, fun trip it was. It was great hanging with The Birdman, Rooftop, Dunn and Bam… We traveled around the world together in 8 days. From England through France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Thailand and the western United States. I had a great time out there on the Gumball Rally and I would do it again in a second.
Thanks to Maximillion and Julie and everyone with the Gumball Rally. Thanks to Jeep for the sweet wheels and especially thanks to Tony Hawk for inviting me along for the ride.
—Mike V.
