I’ve left New York. What started as a ten-day trip to hammer out some business with Alex turned into five weeks of sleeping on his blue velour sectional, plenty of brainstorming, a ton of new friends and adventures the wooly world of startups that I couldn’t conceive of when I boarded that eastbound redeye in Sacramento over 4th of July weekend. But come to an end it has. We’re off to Monterey in 144B. We’ve enlisted the talents of Autoblog’s resident Northern California boy, Damon Lavrinc, to handle additional driving duties. We’re also attempting to warp the poor man’s brain. We’ve never attempted a driveplan that involved meeting an airline flight before, but that’s exactly what we’ll be attempting this time when we pick up Liz Moses.
She claims that she’ll bring some much-needed sense to the proceedings, but we’re a bit curious as to how much sense anyone who hitches a ride in a fake German police car crewed by a bald man, a bearded man and a blogging man could possibly have. Nevertheless, we intend to make our trek a memorable one. We’ll be broadcasting live video from Seero, as well as putting together one of our signature maps. We’ll be ruminating on the nature of driving in today’s America, passing through hamlets large and small as we travel the entire length of Interstate 80 — from the George Washington Bridge in New York to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, then tooling down 101 through Silicon Valley and south to Steinbeck Country — where we’ll take in the goings on during what’s internationally recognized as the most fantastic collection of automotive events in one weekend. If you call yourself a car guy and haven’t made it to Monterey, mark your calendars. And once you experience it, you’ll want to come back every year.
Team Polizei Master Pilot Michael Ross led Polizia Maritimo Veloce(!) to a watery but stylish finish on last week’s Blade Run, and rumor has it some very interesting pictures will be coming our way in the next 24 hours.
A baby monitoring device was found under the couch of Porsche boss, Wendelin Wiedeking’s, hotel room. It’s believed that the spies, believed to be either VW or the State of Lower Saxony, the two largest shareholders of VW, were trying to get info on Porsche’s plans regarding their pending controling acquisition of VW. The hotel records rule out the possibility that a family had stayed in the room prior to Wiedeking’s stay. Porsche also said that other company officials have been spied upon, including works council head, Uwe Hueck.
Looks like my Facebook profile is back up, 28 hours after the as-yet unexplained decision was made to pull it. Whatever the reason, I owe big thanks to New York Motor Club member Andre Betz and Fast Lane Daily/Garage 419 honcho Emil Rensing, who moved heaven and earth to gather support for its reinstatement. To wit…the rapidly-formed "Bring Alex Roy Back To Facebook" Group, which had people joining up even after my profile went back up. Thanks for that one, Andre…
Team Vice-President Lelaine Lau works hard, very hard, and almost all of her extraordinary work remains invisible both to fans and law enforcement. Her CoEfficient of Cool (CEoC) is through the roof. She likes to remain discreet, which is why - although present at almost every Team Polizei start and finish line for several years - few have ever actually seen her in action. Unless you’ve read "The Driver", you’d never know that Lelaine was responsible for flying (and guarding with her life!) the master time clock we punched on each coast.
More importantly, it’s her birthday, and I know that I, everyone here at HQ, and anyone who knows what a wonderful friend and teammate she is wishes her another healthy and happy year. She deserves it.
Happy Birthday, Lelaine!
(And if you want to see a rare picture of her beside Polizei 144A at AI…it’s after the jump!)
