Obviously, you guys have noticed that Mike Finnegan has moved to Off-Road magazine, and I'm the associate editor for Mini Truckin'. I want to be the first to say that Finnegan will be missed because he was always down for anything. I learned a lot from reading his articles, and they gave me the motivation to work on my own trucks day in and day out. Filling his shoes has been a challenging task, but I've made a commitment to work with Lance and focus all my efforts into making this magazine the best it can be. Each one of us have our own passions and reasons why we do the things we do, but at the end of the day, I say, once a mini-trucker always a mini-trucker.
What makes someone a mini-trucker? I'll let you in on a few things about me, which I feel have made me into the enthusiast I am today. My mini-truck roots started in the small desert community of Lancaster, California. It was the summer of 1996 when I had my first real mini-truck encounter. I constantly heard my buddies Paul Skura, Gary Benjamin, and Justin Lightfoot talk about Justin's 'bagged Toyota. Unfortunately, I never got to see it because he traded or sold it, and the truck quickly became a myth to me. One day, though, Paul rolled up in his shaved white-primered 'Yota and played around with something inside the cab. The next thing I knew, his truck began a very slow descent toward the pavement, right before my very eyes. Mind you, this was 1996, so the descent seemed to take a couple of minutes. We all look back and laugh on that now, but when I saw his truck slammed to the ground, I was forever changed.
I bought a '96 S-10 in August 1998. I began doing a few things here and there, but said I wasn't going to cut it up because I had to pay it off first (yeah, right). Well, that didn't last long. As soon as Gary talked about 'baggin' his Hardbody, the race was on. Eventually, my truck was rear-ended, but only a mini-trucker would see that as a good thing. As soon as I received the insurance check, I began picturing what the baddest mini-truck would look like. I got in way over my head, however, when I decided in 2000 that my truck would be body-dropped on 22s all the way around. I had many of the usual buildup nightmares - shops taking way too long and not delivering on promises, incompetence, and so on. From all this, however, I learned the meaning of friendship, dedication, and that hard work and patience do pay off. I'll never regret anything that has happened, but I will continue my daily pursuit of fresh pavement, reflectors, friendships, and the perfect mini-truck.
A common expression for describing a situation in which you dedicate all your time, money, and energy toward a particular task, goal, or hobby is to "eat, drink, and sleep" whatever it is that consumes you. To finish that sentence, using myself as an example, would be something like this: "I eat, drink, and drag mini-trucks." For my day to be complete, my two healthy meals must consist of a spark sandwich down a freshly paved virgin road for lunch, followed up by a substantial helping of reflector casserole for dinner. This, along with seven years of dedication, makes me a mini-trucker.
On this note, I want to say that first and foremost, I am a mini-trucker, not a "magazine guy," and that will never change. I want to meet and throw sparks with each and every one of you at shows nationwide. At every show I've been to so far, someone has been gracious enough to take me out for a drag session in his or her mini. Since we fly into most shows and neither of my trucks are there for me to cruise in, I'm looking forward to draggin' in as many different trucks as possible. Call me a 'bag ho if you want, it's OK. Every trip I take out of state, I'm going to grab a road reflector and label it with the name of the show, the date, and your signature. If you see me and offer to take me draggin', we'll add one to the Mini Truckin' reflector collection. Special thanks go to Brandon (BlazerTuckinDubs) from West Palm Beach, Florida, for dragging through his muffler and being the first to donate to the MT Road Trip Road Dot collection. Until next month, L8.