The rally was originally supposed to end at The Grove, one of the tonier open-air shopping areas in Los Angeles. However, at the last minute, mall authorities reneged on the deal, as they'd been doing some research on the Internets and decided that the Bullrun wasn't a "family-friendly" event. During the drivers' meeting at Fontana, David Green informed us that our final destination would actually be the Beverly Hilton, our hotel for the evening.

After a few pace-car-led laps of the track (with Danny Coyle getting reamed by the authorities for passing everyone, including the pace car) and a snack at the King Taco truck, (where they don't know the meaning of the words "no meat"), we lined up for take off. Pulling away from the starting line under escort Keri suddenly called out, "My brakes! Something's wrong with my brakes!" When she got the car stopped and threw the Audi into park, the motor immediately began revving. The gas pedal had gotten stuck under the floor mat. Emil later remarked, "I told her she should've ditched that thing at the beginning."

She tossed the offending piece of carpet back toward us and took off. But we'd lost valuable positions, considering that most of this stage would be played out in Los Angeles traffic.

We didn't have our route entirely planned out as we took off, but we knew we were heading toward the 210, as we figured the 10 would be an absolute disaster. A number of cars had similar ideas, including the consistently well-placing Darkcyd support Navigator and the Skiny/Haller A6 Avant (now missing most of its stickers due to scanner reports that police were looking for the silver/gray wagon). While on the road, we mused on possible routes aloud to ourself while studying the road atlas, until Keri told us to be quiet until we had something figured out. We let Jen handle the directions at this point, as she's a 909 resident, and thus knows the roads out there better than us.

Finally, she suggested the 605 down to the 60 and then over to the 10, which we were pretty much going to have to be on at some point. In a moment of kismet, we mentioned that were just thinking that it was the optimum route as well. So it was set, the Nav Bitch was yammering and we were off. We'd never spent so much of a stage staring out the back window. At one point, we were pretty sure we'd seen a white Crown Vic a ways back. But every time he was out of our line of sight, Keri would put a little more distance between us until he ceased to be a worry.

We hopped off at La Cienega, took Cadillac up to Robertson, then cut over on Olympic to Beverly to Wilshire. The sensation was not unlike when you're driving home and you really have to go to the bathroom. And the closer you get, the worse the feeling of having to go is. By the final stoplight, all three of us were ready to pop. We'd heard via the radio that Los Matadors (who'd taken the 10 all the way) were already there. We pulled in 18th (filmed by one of the Car-Parazzi kids), right behind Richard Rawlings' 750il. William Wu had blazed to victory on the stage, just beating Carl Lewis due to his handy-dandy little device that turned any light with an emergency-vehicle sensor green.

Now it was time for donuts.

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Skiny maneuvers the A6 Avant into proper takeoff position in San Diego.

Generally, when you wake up in the morning at a deluxo hotel in beautiful downtown San Diego and find out that your next destination is in the 909, your first inclination is to break out in hives, go into a seizure, mess yourself, and then put on a straight-brimmed baseball cap, take a hit off the glass dick, climb into a lifted Avalanche, get a slew of tribal tats and crank up any and every Fred Durst-related project you can get your hands on.

Dave Green (left) used to be pretty. Somehow we doubt Richard Rawlings ever was.

Instead, we had eggs that were quite good, drank a fair amount of coffee, and sat down at a table with a group of people, all of whom, except for Jennifer Nicole, had varying models of Motorola RAZRs. Ours was even admired for being "old school," despite the fact that we only bought it last fall. Emil's was gold, Keri's was pink, and Claus had one in some crazy dark finish we'd never seen before which is probably only available to owners of Brabus-tuned cars.

But much in the manner of ninjas during one or another of those Shogunates they had in Japan back in the time, we and our RAZRs would all soon be hurtling toward California Speedway in Fontana. Little did we know, but those of us in the black Audi A8L would also be headed toward our finest hour on the 2006 Bullrun.

The intersection was a madhouse. Danny Coyle was pulling mad donuts and block-long burnouts in the Mallett Corvette. Jen couldn't figure out which way to point the Audi until Emil pointed out to her that she'd be driving out over a curb. Skiny and Bret were about to enter a world of hurt and emerge unscathed, but with their time shattered. Emil was shooting back and forth like a shuttlecock. And Claus? Well, Claus kicked back with his feet up on the open door of his Brabus and made use of his RAZR. Peter Kolb was undoubtedly being more German than anyone else. In fact, we're starting to wonder if he'd actually shrunken the state of Bavaria down to pocket-size when nobody was looking and was carrying it in his pants, simply for added precision. A little extra Weissach never hurt anyone, after all. Except for James Dean.

And then, suddenly, we were off. And miraculously, we were really off. After blowing past Los Matadors on the 163, we didn't see anyone until we got onto the 15, blasting past Skiny and Haller in their A6 Avant. And then the crackle started on the radio. The heavy hitters were quickly moving up behind us. Tove Christensen. the Lehman-Haupt/Ferretti GT with Noah at the wheel. The Team Chris 911. And of course, Danny Coyle wheeling the Chuck Mallett 'Vette.

They blasted past us, with Danny the first to arrive, but not without Jen getting a crack in to Danny over the CB about how it felt to be behind a girl. More chatter, including some worrying news from the well-tuned scanners in the GT regarding Chippies searching for Bullrunners. And sure enough, not long after, the news came over the radio that Team Chris and the GT boys had been snagged. We attempted to get a shot as we drove by, but our imprecise Japanese camera did not allow us such a luxury. We knew we should've bought a Leica. Peter Kolb is no doubt laughing at us as we write this.

Then we flew past Chuck Mallett on the side of the road, refuelling the 'Vette, which only had a 66-mile range. Keri commented, "Watch, in five minutes, he'll come flying past us." Guess what? He did, doing well over a buck on the hard shoulder. Keri put out an APB to all Bullrunners within range, pointing out that in California, the hard shoulders are often filled with tire-and-air-dam-destroying detrius and that we all should be careful.

Meanwhile, just a few miles before we hit I-10, we got stuck in massive traffic. We're not quite sure how we got past Tove, but with the traffic locked in and the GT boys and Team Chris stuck behind us due to their run-in with law enforcement, we knew we had a real shot. Especially if Chuck and Danny ran out of gas again.

On the 10, we made good time, and on the offramp to the Speedway, Jen made use of her looks and got us up in the line. We drove carefully, as the fuzz tend to hang out around the entrance to the speedway, and then hauled ass to the staging area, where we pulled up third behind the Magnaflow RS4 and the Mallett Corvette. The RS4 guys had voluntarily disqualified themselves because they'd left 20 minutes earlier, due to the co-driver not feeling well, putting the nearly bone-stock A8L in behind the 900hp Corvette.

Which just goes to show that on the Bullrun, horsepower is far from everything.

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The Jundland Wastes are not to be travelled lightly!

With Miss Nicole back behind the wheel and properly chastised, we cruised through some amazing scenery down 95, as well as an abundance of trailer parks, until we got to Quartzsite, which besides being home to overstuffed 55 gallon drums of quartz, is also home to something called "The Main Event," which apparently involves thousands of people in motorhomes trading rocks. It's also famous as the only place Dan Gurney and Brock Yates were ever pulled over on the Cannonball, a traffic stop that prompted Gurney to stretch the Kirk F. White Ferrari Daytona's legs, eventually hitting 171 mph. Ours only tops out at 130, but for the next few stages, that top speed is primarily useless, and the stealth factor will prove invaluable.

"Leaving Lake Havasu" doesn't quite have the same impact as "Leaving Las Vegas," but we left anyway.

Cutting across on I-10 from Quartzsite to Blythe and having switched drivers, we loaded up on bonus cups at a drive-thru Starbucks, cut across town and caught CA 78 south, which turned out to be one of the most incredible drives of the trip. Rory Camagian of Los Matadors took the same route with a camera guy on board their Gallardo SE while Emil relaxed on the Bullrun bus and watched Beverly Hills Cop and drank beer. When we convened that evening, you could see the awe in his face. We went from farmland to straight-up Tatooine-style desert, and then once we took a quick run down the 111 to I-8 east of El Centro, we passed through mountainous, rocky terrain, the likes of which we'd never seen. It was like a micron-sized being's view of piles of sand.

Keri was really giving the long-wheelbase Audi's throttle the business on this leg, and the Valentine One didn't start chirping with any regularity until we got into the San Diego metro area. We were craning our neck and straining our eyes, staring out the back window through the tint, trying to make out telltale Crown Vic grille-and-headlight combos.

We pulled into the parking lot across the street from the W Hotel, not having placed well due to the morning's Garmin goof (we really can't thank you enough, Noah!), but we were proud of ourselves, having shaved an hour and a half off the time predicted by the Audi's Nav Bitch, and somehow, even though the only moments of real levity were laughing about random signs and business in Quartzsite and Blythe, we were friends. There's something about spending more than the better part of a day trying to beat the clock, other drivers and the po-po while doing it safely and taking only reasonable chances that really bonds you to people. We know it sounds somewhat cornball, but it's a trial by fire, and by the end of the day, we were working really well as a team, with the right-seater running the Nav Bitch, the driver doing her driving thing, and Los Jalopnik studying the road atlas, watching for cops, and disembarking in an attempt to figure out why a train hadn't kept a-rollin'.

The next morning, when we ran into Keri in the parking lot while shooting cars, we gave each other a big hug and she asked, "Do you want to ride along with us again today?" While we had other options, we immediately said yes.

More on the Bullrun [Internal]

Generally, one does not fuck with the Polizei. In this case, we are making an exception. Even German precision can be fouled, as was proven with the ailing front differential in the Los Matadors' Lamborghini Gallardo SE. It can be argued that without an infusion of German precision, the Lambo would never have made the 4,000-plus-mile trek. It can also be blamed on shoddy Italian workmanship. It might also be blamed on the lead feet of Emil and Rory Matador. However, the lack of precision in this photograph of Alex Roy and his film partner Corey could only be blamed on the slow response of Los Jalopnik's shoddy, imprecise Japanese camera's shutter and some yahoo with a couple of fingers to spare. Thanks, Alex, for showing up in LA for the soiree. Respect das Law!

More on the Bullrun [Internal]

On our first evening on the Bullrun, Murphy was in full effect — at least as far as technology went. The power port on our iBook decided it was no longer going to do its job. So we resigned ourselves to kicking it Colt Seavers-style; watching a documentary on Wayne Newton while smoking cigarettes in our in-room jacuzzi tub at Caesar's Palace. Unfortunately, Heather Thomas and Markie Post weren't there with us to comment on the day's adventure.

The next morning, after approximately two hours of sleep, Emil Rensing, the Los Matadors car owner, hooked us up with Noah Lehman-Haupt for a quick dash in the Gotham Dream Cars Ford GT out to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with us peering at the Garmin GPS, while Noah jockeyed for position with Tove Christensen's Porsche, Richard Rawlings' 750 and the Skiny/Haller A6 Avant. The Garmin took us off the freeway early, and we finished poorly into the track. After a fairly inedible breakfast and a tour of Shelby's rather unremarkable facility, Emil tossed us into the backseat of an Audi A8L 4.2 with a couple of girls: Keri and Jennifer.

At that point, totally disoriented, we were just happy that we had a ride to Lake Havasu, having no idea that we'd hooked up with some of the cream of the Bullrun crop. The co-drivers were Keri and Jennifer Nicole. We were halfway to Havasu before we figured out that Keri was Emil's wife.

Much, much, much more to come.

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