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Excitement: to stir up strong feeling, action, or emotion. So what excites you? No, not sexually, about custom rides, the show scene, magazines, and the other people that attends shows? I get excited every time I get ready to go to a show; the hours of cleaning, packing, and planning the route we're going to take until we get side tracked, or lost. It's cool once you get close to the show site and start seeing other customs. This, as you know, is the point where the sizing of the competition starts taking place. You'll often hear air released, juice flowing, nitrogen purging, and see sparks flying......OH those are beautiful sounds and sites. So once you get through the job of setting up, cleaning, and tracking down the people in your group that instead of walking around in the registration line, they cleaned their ride, the excitement begins. I remembered the first big show I ever went to was Texas Heat Wave back in 1991 at Emma Long Branch Park in Austin, TX. My buddy Rick, and I had been up the whole night before cleaning, socializing with some lady friends, and drinking. Needless to say the next morning with no sleep, taking Nodo's to stay awake, and bad bad directions (do we go right here? Hell I don't know, look for other minis, and follow them) helped us arrive AFTER the park was full, and registration for the day was done. This being my first big show was one of the big things that got me hooked on building customs. It was an eye opening experience to see all these people that may or may not have known each other in one place trading ideas, looking at each other's creations, and just having FUN. Anyway that experience gave me that warm fuzzy feeling, and I haven't been the same since. As for Rick, I saw him last year at Texas Heat Wave, I was glad to see that after 9 years he was still into shows, and had joined the ranks of fatherhood, taking his son with him to shows in hope that someday they could build a custom together.As for magazines, I don't remember the first MiniTruckin' I bought, but I do remember the first truck I pulled out of it's pages, and placed on my wall. It was a white Mazda king cab with a shell, that had little scrubbing bubble graphics racing over it, and I believe it had prime 5 stars on it. I remember looking at the pages, seeing those trucks all tricked out, and thinking, "someday I'll have a cool truck like that". The years have gone by, the magazines have changed, some new ones have emerged, but the goal still remains of having a cool ride.
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In the last few years with the easy access of the Internet to just about every house in the free world, it has made it tougher for print magazines. In our way of life there are magazines that do, and will always, have a strong following, but in my opinion the Internet has made it tougher for them to stay cutting edge. At the same time, it will make them more determined to bring us, the reader, a better magazine. The Internet isn't a safe haven though. Online sites and magazines compete just as much. The biggest difference to me between print and the Internet is, where you have to subscribe, buy, or go to the store just to browse through the newest issues in print with the Internet, if you can't entice the viewer all they have to do is click a button and your site's no more then a faint trail on their login screen. Another difference would be the turn around time. If you shoot a feature for an online site, it can be up anytime you want, including the same day. For a print magazine, the quickest time though is usually a couple months due to them having to work in advance. No matter which media you prefer, PLEASE support BOTH! Print helped get us here and the Internet can help in the future. The people that you can come in contact with at shows is so diverse that you're sure to meet someone you have something in common with. Some of the best friends I have, I've met at shows. That's a cool thing about having Internet access is those people from out of state that I've gotten to meet are usually just an IM or email away. A couple of friends I got to meet at a show were my friends from New Jersey, James and Butchy, who came down for the Nopi Nationals a couple of years ago. They were staying at the same hotel we were, and met them while we were making our way around the hotel checking out the other rides there. James had racked up a separate bill on the hotel's towels he used to clean his truck with and we got James to eat grits for the first time. There hBy the end of the weekend, Butchy had managed to flood their hotel room by stopping up the toilet. There Has been many great weekends like that since I started back in 1991, and I'm thankful for every one of them. So there you have my it, my opinions on some things. To my friends, thank you for the great times in the past, and the ones we're sure to have in the future. Later all!Russell ITFELL007@aol.com
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