From time to time, I wake up with a terrific idea, usually after too much Champagne on top of pineapple pizza; however, most of these grand schemes come to naught. But at last I’ve come up with a brilliant way to do some good along with my normal drift through a meaningless existence. (Okay, it’s not that existentially morbid, but even I have to question the sanity of some of my plans and plots.)
I’m going to drive through the desert again. And this time, you get to bet on whether I make it.
No, no, no—I’m not making myself clear. (This is a continuing concern.) The thing is, I’m driving to New Orleans for Oktoberfest, yes? And of course this means that I’ll be at the wheel of a roadster, natch, since I am a roadster kind of guy. But here’s the thing: I have two roadsters, and the Z4 has been feeling neglected, since it hasn’t been to Oktoberfest since 2014, so I promised Roland the Roadie that this would be another O’Fest year. (Actually, I just call the car Roadie. The full name is from the classic Dr. Hook megahit, and is also a salute to one of Steve Schlossman’s previous lives.)
Roadie gets ready for a desert run.
Anyway, to appease Roadie, I actually performed various bits of maintenance. I replaced the right-hand mirror, whose mirrorosity had all run down to the bottom of the glass. I successfully replaced the valve-cover gasket without doing myself or the car any major injury. I changed the oil. I even spent money on cosmetic attention to the nose of the car, which had been attacked over the years by a certain number of autocross cones, parking-lot curbs, and triple-digit bugs.
Meanwhile, Nancy Drew is making demands of her own.
That’s the Topaz Blue Z8 that rules my life (and the garage) these days, and I had already assured her that she would get to go to the Big Easy this year, no, I don’t love the Z4 more, he’s not my favorite, of course I still love you—didn’t I buy you a new mirror, too? And try to hang on to this one, would you please? You think I’m made of mirror money?
Nancy Drew wants another run in the sun.
Oh: And what about the yellow car?
Yes, yes: another Z4, this one an Atacama Yellow hard-top roadster. But this one isn’t my car, it’s the latest acquisition of BMW CCA president Steve Johnson. Who lives in Hawaii. But the car is here, because this is where it was when he bought it last week, and I just happen to have room for it until he can figure out how to get it home.
So you can see the possibilities: a three-roadster road trip to Oktoberfest!
Will Steve Johnson’s Z4 make it to O’Fest?
But what’s the point of such a drive, if all it does is afford three drivers the joy of open-air exhilaration, the glorious spectacle of the American Southwest, a four-day jaunt to meet up with our Texas Road Monkey pals in Houston? Why not figure out a way to be useful, to do something for our friends in Houston, and Florida, and Puerto Rico?
Why not make it a pledge drive?!
When I was young and idealistic—don’t worry, it cured itself—there used to be various charitable pledge drives in which walkers would sign up their friends and neighbors to pledge a certain amount of money to be donated according to the distance walked; if I pledged a dollar a mile, and some earnest little striver managed to walk 25 miles before collapsing, I was on the hook for $25.
Well, I am not walking to New Orleans.
But I am determined to herd a small flock of roadsters in that direction, a distance of about 1,500 miles, so our pledges will be based on miles driven. I have already roped writer Alex Tock into driving the Z4, because it was the car in which he first learned to drive a stick. (A word to the wise: Do not show up barefoot for your first lesson.)
At this point, I don’t know whether we’ll be able to bring Steve’s yellow Z4 with us or not, but I hope we can—because I want to ask my friends and neighbors, exes and associates to pledge donations based on the mileage covered by each car. We could even keep this drive going through Oktoberfest and back home again, but I don’t want to make things too complicated. I’d just like to see if we can raise a little money for hurricane relief—just a simple “I pledge to donate $X.XX for each mile racked up by [roadster of your choice] in Satch’s Great Roadster Run.”
We’re setting up a pledge sheet now. And when we hit the road, we’ll stop early every day so we can chat with you each evening while we slather on another coat of aloe vera. You know, social media and all that.
Now, you can tell that I have not thought everything through, but there’s already a lot of enthusiasm out there, probably from people who are making side bets on whether I forget my sunscreen again. You will be excited to know that our friends at Shell have already pledged $500, but I expect to see a lot more pledges in the range of a penny to ten cents a mile. Some people are willing to spend the dough just to see me finally surrendering to Facebook and Instagram, technologies which have eluded me so far. So you can see that I am seriously committed.
The only thing that worries me now is a sort of a sibling roadster rivalry. What if Roadie gets more pledges than Nancy Drew, or vice-versa? I would probably have to funnel in some cash in order to make them come out even.
I mean, there’s a reason these two sleep in separate garages.—Satch Carlson
