Today’s Autoweek’s Vinsetta Garage on the Velocity Channel will have a segment on the Autoweek America Adventure.  Air time is 8:30 p.m. Eastern.  Maybe I’ll be in there somewhere.  Set your DVRs! (so I can watch it)

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• January 3, 2012 -- I Might Be on TV Tonight! #AWAdventure
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• October 31, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 4 Recap
• October 29, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 3 Recap

Tonight is the premiere of Autoweek’s Vinsetta Garage on the Velocity Channel (formerly Discovery HD Theater) at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.  The show will feature highlights from this year’s Autoweek America Adventure.  You might remember that I competed in the rally race at the end of October through beginning of November.  I don’t know whether I will be on the show but it could happen.  Check your listings for the proper channel.

Now I need to find a way to watch this since I don’t have that channel.

Update: The show with the America Adventure segment will air on January 24.

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• October 31, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 4 Recap
• October 29, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 3 Recap

On our last day of The America Adventure, we left Death Valley, California in a convoy headed for Las Vegas. We had to make it to the SEMA show by noon to complete our last mission.

From the site:

The SEMA Show is the premier automotive specialty products trade event in the world. It draws the industry’s brightest minds and hottest products to one place, the Las Vegas Convention Center.

SEMA is huge. It takes up the entire Las Vegas Convention Center which includes the North, Central and South Halls. The last mission was a scavenger hunt. We were to find Mopar products cards at booths all over the convention center. I ran (or rather power walked) all over that convention center. We figured that the cards were at booths belonging to America Adventure sponsors. By the time we reached them, however, all the cards were gone.

Team Plum Floored won the scavenger hunt and a second key. It was now time to give to Mopar 11 away. Several teams tried their keys but it was the Flying Baldini Brothers (and Kaylie) that won the car.

While we did not win the car, this was a remarkable experience. With the challenges, the trip itself and the people I met, I would consider this one of the best trips I’ve been on. I mean that sincerely. I would consider doing the Adventure again and am thankful that Autoweek chose us for this experience.

The Aftermath: Scrape Peel Scrape

So later that evening we ended up at Fry’s (it’s a geek thing) and decided to start peeling stickers off the car right there. My fingers still hurt. The night was finished with a quick bite at Wolfgang Puck right the MGM Grand where we were staying as I had to be up for an early flight.

I have a ton of photos and videos to post so stay tuned.

Possibly Related Posts:

• November 1, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 5 Recap
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• October 29, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 3 Recap
• October 28, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 2 Recap

Today was a day with 8 hours of driving.  In the spirit of Halloween, our theme today was ghosts.  We figured out our clues most expeditiously and headed from Reno to Virginia City, Nevada (Bonanza theme music playing in my head) to get a picture of the Suicide Table on display in the Delta Saloon.  Apparently three different guys played poker at this table, lost all their money and committed suicide.

From there it was off to Yerington, Nevada to do a Ghost Dance a monument dedicated to Wovoka, the Northern Paiute religious leader that founded the Ghost Dance movement.  Then we were off to Tonopah in search of the ghost of “The Lady in Red” in the Mizpah Hotel.  Our last stop on the way to Death Valley was the Bottle House in the ghost town of Rhyolite just before the California border.  GPS was absolutely no good at this point but we pulled it off.  We stopped at a gas station and my iPad miraculously knew where it was and I was able to find Rhyolite on the map.

Beautiful Nevada

We can see ourselves!

Our finish line was the Furnace Creek Ranch with has its own ghost stories.  On the way to Death Valley when getting onto US 190, the GPS told us to go right instead of left.  We were past Stovepipe Wells when we realized that something was amiss.  I’m not sure how much time was added because of this misstep but we did not make our time window. We missed it by 9 minutes.  We were good on most other points except that we still needed to upload another video to YouTube video.  Cell phone coverage was sketchy a good deal of the way to Death Valley so it was difficult to get another video up.  Most disappointing though is that our Bottle House bonus was revoked because some other teams had convinced a groundskeeper to let them inside the locked fence to pose for their photos on the porch of the Bottle House.  It was a good day overall but we were definitely disappointed.  There’s only one day left and we’re coming at it hard.

Possibly Related Posts:

• November 2, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 6 (Final) Recap
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• October 29, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 3 Recap
• October 28, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 2 Recap

Yesterday was our best day so far but we only have two days left for scoring. It was certainly our most adventurous day as well. We started out in Santa Rosa and headed to Sacramento for go-kart racing at RPM Indoor Kart Racing. I knew this was a serious event when they handed me a head sock. Next we had to suit up. The best times for the team were used for scoring. I’ll tell you, I’ve done well go-karting with coworkers but we have professional racers in this rally. From there we stopped at the Eagle Theater in Sacramento and a statue of former Vice President Schuyler Colfax in Colfax, California. Then we headed to Reno, Nevada for a quickie marriage and divorce or at least photographic evidence of the marriage and divorce. Don’t worry no vows were exchanged; I’m still on the market. After that we headed to the end of the USA Parkway in Clark, Nevada for Baja racing and Traxxas R/C racing. John did the Baja and I did the Traxxas. I can’t remember the last time I did R/C anything – maybe as a teenager with my little brother. I didn’t do that well but neither did a lot of folks. We ended up back in Reno at the El Dorado Hotel where John hung out in the casino while I passed out. I had every intention of writing a blog post last night but it didn’t happen. I barely made sure to charge all my devices. Today we’ll end up in Death Valley. You’ll hear from me again then.

Possibly Related Posts:

• October 29, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 3 Recap
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• November 1, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 5 Recap
• October 28, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 2 Recap

Photos:

Our next stop was Thunderhills Raceway Park in Willows, California. I don’t think you’re supposed to take rental cars onto racetracks but that’s what happened for a lot of teams (sidesteps whether we did or not). At any rate, the Lincoln MKZ that we’re driving did 23.4 seconds on a 18 second autocross course. The race track was awesome too though I didn’t drive on it.

Videos:

Open Road, Beautiful Views

Autocross in an SUV!

After lunch at the raceway, we headed south to wine country. We visited three wineries: Castello di Armorosa in Calistoga, Merryvale Vineyards in St. Helena and Kundle Family Estates in Kenwood. Castello di Amorosa was especially neat because as the name indicates it’s a castle. We weren’t sanctioned to participate in tasting but at all three wineries the gettag that we needed to scan was situated right beside someone tempting us to taste. The finish line was of course another winery St. Francis Winery in Santa Rosa.

I must say that it’s great to sit at the table to dinner and laugh and joke with the pros that are in this rally especially since there was no walk of shame involved.  I’m deeply honored. Here’s to many more good days.

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TeamSocialFTW and on Flickr at http://flickr.com/groups/TeamSocialFTW.

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• October 31, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 4 Recap
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• November 2, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 6 (Final) Recap
• November 1, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 5 Recap

In short, we suck! On Wednesday, Natalie Furniss who is running the Autoweek America Adventure told of a team one year that was headed somewhere completely different than they were supposed to be. The were headed to the Indiana Speedway instead of a smaller track in another town in a completely different direction. Well, this year we are that team. We had a clue about one of the most beautiful and natural habitats for pinnepeds. All of my search results came back with the Oregon Coast Natural Wildlife Refuge. John searched for it on Google Navigation and it gave us directions to some place that was about 40 minutes away. Well, we went and there was nothing there. Looking at the Oregon Coast Natural Wildlife Refuge’s website again we found that the place we thought we were going was actually in the opposite direction in Bandon, Oregon and more than 100 miles away. In order to make up time, we cut over to the interstate. It was taking forever and we were way past out alloted time. I looked at Twitter and saw our competitors talking about Sea Lion Caves in Florence, Oregon. Doh! If we had stayed on Highway 101, even thinking we were going to the wildlife refuge we could have stumbled onto the caves accidentally. A lot of time had passed and we got a call telling us that since we were so far off course that we should just go to the finish line. Here we sit like kids called to the principal’s office waiting for everyone else to arrive. Today was an epic fail!

Possibly Related Posts:

• October 29, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 3 Recap
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• November 2, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 6 (Final) Recap
• November 1, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 5 Recap
• October 31, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 4 Recap

The day started out with us in an Aloha Karaoke taxi on the way from the Hotel Murano back to the LeMay America’s Car Museum to line up at the starting line. The taxi driver (from Hawaii) actually sings karaoke and gives a mini tour while driving passengers to their destinations. It was awesome!

Aloha Karaoke Taxi

Out of the gate we went to a maze at the Monarch Sculpture Park in Tenino, Washington to look for our next clue after visiting Torii Gate and Shinto Shrine in Tacoma. We ended up down a dirt road to nowhere on the way to the maze thanks to Google navigation but it seemed that everyone was stumped for a bit by that dirt road. We saw a lot of other teams at that dirt road. Then we were off to Marsh’s Free Museum in Long Beach, Washington after visiting a shrine dedicated to Kurt Cobain in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. I still had grass on my shoes from the maze at Marsh’s. If you’re interested, Marsh’s is the home of Jake the Alligator Man and other oddities. Then we were off to Oregon. This was the absolute first time I’ve been in Oregon. We went to the Goonies House in Astoria, Oregon and then the Peter Iredale shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park also in Astoria. My shoes were so not appropriate for the beach. The shipwreck and the almost sunset were neat though. I didn’t fall though somoeone who shall remain nameless did fall at the beach but I did not capture that on photo or video. A bunch of deer were just hanging out in the road near the state park which made driving conditions kind of precarious. It was already dark when we were on Pacific Coast Highway Route 101 headed toward Lincoln City, Oregon. I wanted to see this in daylight. Day or night we got to see a lot of quaint little towns though. And people were really nice.

We got a text to go to a resort in Newport. Aww bummer! No key for us. The good news that each day is a new day and points start anew. We will have a fresh perspective and new energy tomorrow morning.  I think I know where we went wrong though.  Google Navigation will give you the shortest route distance-wise and we took Pacific Coast Highway while others took I-5.  (We need a map.)

Also of note is that when we have a good cell phone reception the Autonet Mobile internet connection is perfect. I was able to do FaceTime and Google+ Hangout from the moving car.

Follow us on Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/TeamSocialFTW

Our photo pool is at:
http://flickr.com/group/TeamSocialFTW

Possibly Related Posts:

• October 29, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 3 Recap
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• January 24, 2012 -- Tonight’s the Night! Autoweek’s America Adventure Will Be on TV #AWAdventure
• November 2, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 6 (Final) Recap
• November 1, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 5 Recap

I just wanted you to know that I will be competing in Autoweek’s America Adventure (theamericaadventure.com) starting tomorrow. We start out in Seattle today (starting line tomorrow) and end up in Vegas next Tuesday at the SEMA auto show (semashow.com). The catch is that we have no clue where we will end up along the way. Each day we will be given Amazing Race style clues as to where we need to go and challenges (most involving driving – including some race track driving). At the end of the day whoever scores the most points will get a key.

At SEMA each team with a key will be given a chance to see if their key starts a Mopar Charger worth $40,000. If it does, they (we) get the car. The Discovery Channel is doing a 1-hour documentary on the competition.

My partner is John Davis of Detroit. Here’s his short bio:

John Davis is a native Detroiter who has traveled the world for work and pleasure, and is always ready for a challenge. John is the host of 2 Guys & A Mic on whatchatalkinbout.com. His wit can be seen on social networks far and wide. John has appeared on numerous television programs, most notably “The Weakest Link” on NBC. John is a frequent radio guest discussing sports, technology, politics and social media.

More info including my bio at: theamericaadventure.com/teams/49

Even if we don’t win the car this could be a trip of a lifetime. I’ve always wanted to drive the Pacific Coast Highway and we likely will. And you probably dont know that I want to go on The Amazing Race. After working for FTI with all that “by the seat of your pants” travel I’m sure I could do it. You know I have my camera and a bunch of other gadgets with me.

We were selected to participate in this competition for free (entry fee is $5,000) because we will cover the competition on social media. I’m asking for your support by following along with us.

The easiest way is on Twitter at twitter.com/TeamSocialFTW. The Twitter account will include links to other media we post like photos, videos, and blog posts. If you’re on Facebook a lot of what’s posted will end up there too. Photos will be at flickr.com/groups/TeamSocialFTW. We’re working on a shared YouTube channel as well and other ways to aggregate the content in one place. On top of that we will have in car internet so well be connected wherever we go.

I hope you join us on this adventure. Thanks for your support!

Kenya

Possibly Related Posts:

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• October 11, 2011 -- Official Contenders for the Autoweek America Adventure
• November 1, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 5 Recap

Did you know that the Adventure actually supports a charity?  It supports the Graham Rahal Foundation that helps children with medical conditions.  Take a look at the charity on Facebook Causes.

In the meantime, I got some AutoWeek swag.  I normally don’t do pink but this shirt is really nice.  The competitor shirts are the same type of shirt.

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• November 1, 2011 -- #AWAdventure Day 5 Recap