"A Day in the Life of a Conn 5 Nomad Expedition" Gumball 3000 Tour 2008

"A Day in the Life of a Conn 5 Nomad Expedition"

Who: 3 amigos

What: Gumball 3000 Tour 2008

Where: SF - Beijing

• 8th August 2008: Launch party in San Francisco.
• Friday 8th August San Francisco: Nob Hill: 12.00pm – 11.00pm (6 hours)
• Saturday 9th August San Francisco: Nob Hill: 09.00am – 1.00pm (4 hours)
• Saturday 9th August Los Angeles: Hollywood Blvd: 6.00pm – 11.00pm (5 hours

Why: impulse; spontaneous road trip; cuz I'm a true nomad w/ a license to dip!

How: Dippin in a 2008 Scion #685 (out of 2500) Limited Edition in that Gold Mica (color) fresh off the line; riding on 19" Stag. with radar detector – we smashin son!

Up at 7:30, out of the house and on the road by 8:00am: We’re headed to the Gumball 3000 Tour 2008 kick off in San Francisco. I didn’t even go out the night before, just so I wouldn’t miss the starting events... That would've been all bad! So here we are Finally! at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco... All you see is ILL Cars, thousands of spectators... and a lot of cops (of course) That is not all! We got major celebrities, from the worlds of entertainment, Tyson Beckford, David Hasselhoff, Bam Margera and The Jackass crew ... and too many others to name off the top of my head right now.

Back to my story... So I’m seeing million dollar cars, old school cars, new school cars and cars from the Scion Evolution Crew, which is the crew I am member of (shout out to all my crew members).

The first launch sets off at 12:00pm: I notice someone from the Gumball tour left their bag before the take off. So I pick up the bag and take it to Puma Booth (sponsors of the tour btw) I had the rep @ the counter ck the I.D. to see who the bag belonged to, she said she recognized the man on the I.D. from the staff and would take care of returning the bag. So at this point we were good to go. We do some shopping and have a little brunch in The City. 1^st we stop by Huf on Sutter Street. I bought some shoes from the homie (shout out to the Huf Crew!). Then we cop some bomb ass pizza around the way. All of a sudden I have an epiphany… “We should follow the race!” So I call my friend, J.T. from Templebiz to see if he was down to film the next two legs of the race and I would photo the rest. J.T. was down to roll so I pick him up.

We're on the road by 5:11pm: We're smashin down Hi-5 headed towards stop #2, Los Angeles. We are pacing a Mercedes Kompressor doin like a buck 5 (105 mph). All of sudden we see a Hwy Patrol coming in the opposite direction, Radar dectecters are bouncing off the wall, we see the patrol man, flip a bitch and get back on the hwy headed our way! So now I’m really smashing (not really) tryin to make it to the next exit. I hop off the highway, my hearts about to explode. We luck out the cop kept going, he was after the other car pack ahead of us. So we pull into the gas station to fill up the 2008 Scion #685 (out of 2500) Limited Edition in that Gold Mica (color) fresh off the line; riding on 19" Stag. with radar detector (did I mention with lower sways?). Then the driver of the Mercedes Kompressor pulls in, he says "Did you see that? That was so cool! Glad I got my radar!" we all laugh and chop it up for a minute. Turns out, he was a F1 Racer, he had his teenage daughters in the car with him as well. He was actually coming back from picking them up. He claimed they were going to be the next generation of F1 Racers. lol. Cool Kat! As we parted way, he also told me "If you want to pace me back I’m down!" haha.

4 hours later: We're crossing over the Los Angeles city limits.

It’s now 11pm: We are smack in the night life of Hollywood Blvd! The street is shut down with the car show smack dab in the middle the blvd. J.T. and I are ready to get to work. Strapped with our video cams and photog, we start capturing the night’s festivities. We get some good night footage and spend some walking around admiring the cars and all that good shit. But then, we find out we have to be up at the wee hours of the morning, to be at the next Gumball flag drop at 8am. WTF?!

Next Morning: We're up and ready for action. We arrive on Sunset Blvd. We decide to stop for cup of joe at the Coffee Bean and we happen to run into the next homie (shout to Jasper from Rogue Status), so we let him slide into the line with us. lol. Jasper and I shoot the shit about... Well we just shoot the shit. On with the story...

(Wait! I gotta give one more shout out to Jasper for the press plug. Us TRUE NOMADS go the extra mile + 300 + $$+ Petro- to get that footage. Lol)

So now we are at the starting line of the race (footage below). We're not even sure at this point where the race was headed. After we get our footage of the flag drop, we hop back in the 2008 Scion #685 (out of 2500) Limited Edition in that Gold Mica (color) fresh off the line; riding on 19" Stag. with radar detector (did I mention I slapped Gumball stickers all over the car?), and try to pace the race. We're pacing behind a Range Rover – but we had a switch up cuz that fool didn't know where he was going. So then we meet up with an Audi and continuing pacing (footage below). In actuality no one really knew where they were going at this point. However, the pace led us to a beach front, where the Gumball Tour pit stopped again, which turned out to be day party for the event. This stop was more plush then the ones before... Women in bikinis, Big Screens, top of the line cars…Some real swagger shit!

Though the race would continue on to Beijing, this is where The Conn 5 Expedition of the True Nomads would end…

24 hours later (from the time we left SF): We're back in the good old Bay Area. Tired as hell! But it was well worth the journey.

Enjoy the footage below… Next Year we're goin all the way baby!