I don't know... Hey! How about voting for me because the whole purpose of my entry was to get a chance to put 3 minutes of local news airtime onto the topic of land use!?
Yeah, my junk is engine swapped... and tranny swapped... and axle swapped... and mostly home fab... and probably weighs more than some of the trucks that have stopped in my driveway to deliver parts...
... but that's not what this is about!
I'm a guy who tried to take this "essay contest" seriously and make it into a call for social action on behalf of the wheeling community... whatever they drive. However, once it came down to the final 5, it became a battle between me and a videographer (he's good... gotta give him that) who drive's an XJ. Jeepers are voting for him because I have a bezel... land use be damned.
I'll be the first to tell you that I don't have the first CLUE about building buggies. I'm in about 65 or 70 thousand dollars on a pile of **** with some nice welds that have never rolled farther than the end of my driveway and back. That's an experiment. All bets are on hold in that department.
However, I've been wheeling since '99 here in the valley, and I love these trails. I want to keep wheeling them, when my buggy is done, and I want you to, too.
The winner of this contest is going to be someone who, like me, isn't a veteran of extreme wheeling. They're going to show up with a sleeping bag, a helmet and a nomex suit and get several days of crash course education on how to drive Camo's buggy. Then, in a blaze of glory, they're going to cross the starting line along with 93 seasoned veterans of rock racing. Whatever happens after that is anyone's guess.
I'm a generally pretty skillful guy. I actually think I can do this and make a respectable showing of it, but that's not the point, either.
The point is, I'm a surgeon at the county hospital. I'm a respected professional. It's going to be very strange that I'm a walk-on at the KOH, and that's news! My hospital has a PR department. I can call an office and TELL them to get the news people in. I can then make my "interview" into a wakeup call regarding the issues of land use. I can tell the people who watch the news that wheelers aren't just drunken dumb ****s who destroy desert vegetation. I can hit the heart strings of Arizona pride: Freedom. Self Reliance. Love of Land. I can tie it all up in a nice neat little sound bite that the newsies can put on TV and several thousand people will get the warm fuzzies about us for one night after supper.
That's about the best I can offer.
It's a lot more than the others.
That's why you should vote for me.
Enough said.
