My interests contradict so badly

"RallyWrench" (rndlitebmw) 04/16/2020 at 18:22 • Filed to: life with cars

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L istening to climber Tommy Caldwell, a man I greatly respect, talk about his environmental activism... while I drool over big-block 4x4 ambulances. I struggle to reconcile my environmental conscience with my automotive enthusiasm, they’re increasingly at odds. I expect there will come a day when I simply have to hang up the car shit for good to fully do what I know is right for my children and our planet, not to mention my own soul, but it’s my life, my career. I quite literally can’t support my family without them at this point. The things the brain dwells on in difficult times.... Anyway, this ambulance is cool as shit, check it out and be well.

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CB > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 18:41

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Is it not recycling to use it instead of buying a new car?

RallyWrench > CB 04/16/2020 at 18:47

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Absolutely, and t his is one of the ways I justify things to myself. Old cars, well maintained, are a fine way to reduce new impacts. Especially if they’re fuel injected and fitted with catalysts. Lots of cool stuff fits that bill.

Jim Spanfeller > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 18:51

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I struggled with that idea too, once. I think I’ve decided I’m okay with vehicles like that, since 1), they’re very, very old, which means they’re polluting less every 20 years than if you had just bought a car less than 20 years old. 2), old cars and trucks are typically driven less often, or for smaller distances than newer cars, so they pollute less often. And 3), driving old cars or trucks is a bit like recycling, in that you’re keeping a vehicle running rather than letting it go to the junkyard, which is less wasteful. Sure, they’ll never be as environmental ly friendly as an electric car, but they’re not terrible.   So if you want to enjoy older, more emission-y vehicles, you totally can and you don’t need to feel guilty about it. If it means that much to you, you can use it as just a weekend fun vehicle and save newer, cleaner vehicles for the daily driving duties.

Don’t worry, i t is possible to be both a lover of nature and a petrolhead :)

DipodomysDeserti > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 19:00

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There was a dude camped out on the side of El Capitan when I was there last Fall. Yosemite was one of the most surreal places I’ve ever been. It was like being inside a giant stone cathedral. I have the same struggles. I was in fucking printing for most of my life. I tried to mitigate our impact as much as possible, but it’s still incredibly destructive. I think back to the end of Desert Solitaire

One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. -Edward Abbey

And to this scene in Full Metal Jacket:

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 19:02

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Drive an EV, ride a bike, or use something fuel-efficient for your daily and save the big block stuff for the weekends and you’ll be doi ng OK.

I had a discussion once with a friend who’s a full-on eco-Nazi about the environmental impact of my racecar . When we sat down and worked out the environmental impact of me towing it to the track half a dozen times a year and doi ng 40 or 50 laps at abou t 4 mpg, I was still doing less damage than he did by throwi ng his mountain bike on top of his Prius and driving it 3 0 miles to a forest every weekend. Frequency trumps efficiency.

PyramidHat > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 19:21

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I hear ya.  I figure if it’s Coronavirus is Natures way of getting back at us for egregious shit, then I’m definitely on the list.  Past 30 years, I’ve dicked around with all sorts of polluting, gas guzzling machines:  Muscle cars, sports cars, power boats, 4WD trucks, motorcycles and airplanes.  But:  I do like clean air and clean water and I do very much realize that those interests run largely counter to each other and reusable bags really only go so far...

PyramidHat > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 04/16/2020 at 19:22

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Not to mention they had to strip mine Nova Scotia to get the lithium (or whatever) for that Prius battery..

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 19:26

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“I struggle to reconcile my environmental conscience with my automotive enthusiasm, they’re increasingly at odds.”

This really resonates with me. The enthusiast in me wants something like a KIA Stinger or Chevy SS for my next car, but the environmentalist in me keeps saying I need to get a Chevy Volt or something similar.

RallyWrench > PyramidHat 04/16/2020 at 19:42

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Part of why this is front of mind again now, even more than usual, is the shelter at home orders. They’ve brought massive positive changes in air quality by sim ply slashing the number of ICEs on the road . Anyone can see it. I’ve long been conscious of my own footprint, and feel guilty burning gas for fun, and I’ve had a lot of fun with it . Much less now, I gave up trackdays well over 10 years ago. But it’s also my career with road and race cars , the only one I’ve ever known , and I have to lean hard into it now to get through this. Bags, bulbs, and recycling don’t do it. I’d really love to just ride my bicycle to work every day, but that’s an hour each way with ever more assholes on a two lane road , which isn’t feasible as a dad.

PyramidHat > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 19:48

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One of the things I miss about the old days (OK, maybe 8 years ago) is that I lived 10 miles from work and could ride my bike in.  I love my job now, but it’s 25 miles from home and I’m not that fit and not that fast..

RallyWrench > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 04/16/2020 at 19:49

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Indeed. I would so love a nice 4-door dad hot rod like those. I’ve long thought about an E39 M5, a GS430 or AMG wagon for stuff like that . But really, I have a hard time with driving fancy cars myself and much more strongly feel the need for solar on the roof and a used Volt, E-Golf or Leaf or something for the days I can’t ride my bike. I wish I could work closer to home and just bike, for that matter. I’d feel a lot better just limiting fossil fuels to the weekends or road trips .

RallyWrench > DipodomysDeserti 04/16/2020 at 19:56

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It’s wild seeing the portaledges up there! There were a couple of crews on the wall when we were last there just before the world ended, always blows my mind. Pure magic place. Shamefully, I had never been into the park until about 4 years ago and have a lot of catching up to do.

The waste of the automotive trade has always bothered me, and the huge waste of every sort during this crisis just adds to it. Just.... aaa rgh.   I reread Desert Solitaire for about the 6 th time a couple months ago, that quote always resonates hard, and it’s one I recall whenever I feel this dilemma. Some comfort, at least.

RallyWrench > Jim Spanfeller 04/16/2020 at 20:01

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This is largely how I justify myself to...myself. I’m not driving an H2 or anything, it’s just getting harder for me to enjoy cars without imposing a sense of guilt or perceived social pressure on myself. I’ve spent a career keeping other people’s cars in top shape, running their best and most efficient, so that’s some small comfort, but it’s  just getting harder to balance my own books. Not sure how I’ll handle it, ultimately. 

RallyWrench > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 04/16/2020 at 20:16

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I do love bicycles and ride in some form almost every day , I just wish it was more feasible for the commute. And my commuter is a 25 year old minitruck, reasonably efficient. For me, it’s sort of an accumulated lifetime of fossil fuel enjoyment catching up to my conscience.

I stopped doing trackdays over 10 years ago , and don’t really miss them. I got to the point of being good enough to use a lot of expensive tires and brakes every weekend, and it became a question of taking the next step into a tow rig, rollcage and numbers on the doors, or stop . I do have to opportunity to work on other people’s racecars professionally sometimes and have for years , but it’s getting a lot harder for me to justify involvement in it at all. Pro level roadracing is largely a rich (conservative, white) man’s sandbox filled with burning gasoline, and more and more I just feel a little too hippie for it . Conversely, I just have absolutely no interest in EV racing, no passion for it at all. It’s the mechanical symphony and interaction of human and machine that hooked me as child, and EVs just... don’t have it for me . I still have a deep seated love of the machine, it’s just the conflict of my impact with it that adds this new dimension to my thought process. The little steps of reducing my own impacts and that of my family do help, but it’s a battle in my brain. 

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 20:23

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I will say I am really digging this work from home thing and it would mean any car is pretty much an option since it’s not a daily driver. I’m really hoping my company learns something from this quarantine and let’s us work from home 2-3 days a week.

While I’d love to have the money to buy Rivian, Model S, or Taycan, but unless i win the lottery soon that’s not happening. I’ve also thought about getting a used Leaf since those can be had for pennies on the dollar and literally only using it to committee to work. And then just get what I really want for weekends and road trips.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 21:10

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I stopped racing and moved to just trackdays about 3 years ago when my car got stolen, and I was faced with replacing it. I realiz ed then that as I’ve got older and felt I had less to prove, I’ve found myself enjoying the intera c tion between man and machine more than I did the actual competition, and dancing around on the limit more than absolute speed.   So I got rid of the towcar and replaced my 450hp ex- Group- A Holden Commodore with a more or less unmodified Toyota 86, which is actually a hell of a lot more fun on the track, as well as being massively cheaper (and more eco) to run. Plus it’s a pretty economical commuter.

While ecological concerns weren’t really a driver, I do feel better about using it than I did the Commodore.   I work for a cleantech company and the mental clash between trying to sav e the planet weekdays and filling it with fumes   weekends was always hard to square, even if the absolute value of dama ge done wasn’t huge . I miss wrenching on it - the Toyota doesn’t need any of that - so when my house project is do ne I’ll get myself a project car. But that’s no t going to be a big gas-guzzler either - muscl e cars have never really been my thing for their own sake, even when I raced one.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > RallyWrench 04/16/2020 at 21:31

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Your feelings resonate with me. I try to feel better about it by riding the bus when I can; I’d bike more often if my life would line up. But I’m also very likely to build myself an EV or maybe try a through the road hybrid.

Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle > PyramidHat 04/16/2020 at 21:42

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And large swaths of Kuwait were once burned to the ground in a dispute which in no small part in volved oil . And not very long ago 5 million barrels of oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico. And oil production and transportation has a history of destruction and environmental damage.

Neither is perfect. But EVs seem to now be the least CO2 producing when taking into account the entire lifecycle. Hopefully we get better and better at recycling the lithium we took out in the first place: there is no way to recycle the oil.

RallyWrench > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 04/17/2020 at 00:18

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You can’t just tell a man you had a Group A Commodore without sharing a picture of it, come on! Cars like that are forbidden fruit, nothing like them here. So sorry it was taken from you! L ove the 86 though, quite an appealing all ‘rounder, a good one to strike your balance with.

RallyWrench > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 04/17/2020 at 00:27

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I do hope this whole crisis serves as a wake up call of sorts, and people and companies learn about their own flexibility and what’s required to meet their needs. More working from home allowed, for one thing.

I’d be stoked on a Rivian too, love the look of those! And no Tesla cult. But forget that kind of money. Used Leafs are a straight up bargain, if just an ugly appliance. They do the job well,  nothing wrong with that.

RallyWrench > Neil drives a beetle and a fancy beetle 04/17/2020 at 00:43

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We do what we can. I’d be happy to ride the bus if the schedule put me anywhere close to work on time. I’d love to build an EV down the road, out of an old Vanagon or some other old VW  for a useful runabout.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 00:49

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By your command:

1981 VC Holden Commodore. The Commodore was introduced in ‘78: the VC model was the first facelift. Originally built as a 4 cylinder model, but converted to a racer and upgraded to a V8 in 1987.

It was built to race in the NZGT Series, which nowadays is a “run what ya brung” handicap series, but back then ran under Group A rules. From sometime in the 90s until it was stolen, it was raced in various regional muscle car and historic touring car classes, and moderately uprated over the years. But it still wasn’t a million miles from the original spec. I had it for about 5 years.

It’s fairly mild in appearance compared to later Group A cars bec au se at this point Australian Touring Cars were still runni ng Group C, which had much slacker homologation requirements, so the wings and flares of later cars weren’t yet on production homologation specials so weren’t allowed f or Group A.

Back-story to the theft here and here .

LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 07:26

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I bought a Prius in 2011 due to environmental concerns. Then I realized that I was suppressing part of who I am, and went GTI in 2016 . That has been a good balance of efficiency and fun, such that whenever I’m tempted to go full racecar, my environmental concerns bring me back to the status quo.

And now after 3 years of autocross I’ve gotten a lot of my competition interest out.

What I ’m saying is that in some cases it can be less harmful to thoughtfully indulge one s interests than to tie oneself up in self- imposed rules. I think that cars may be one of those case s.

RallyWrench > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 04/17/2020 at 11:50

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Wow, wow, wow! What a machine, I love it. Thank you for sharing. Sorry for the loss, I feel your sentiment from the conclusion post that it’s a damn shame it didn’t go out in a blaze of glory after such a long life as a racer.

My (now) wife and I spent 3 wonderful months backpacking around NZ in the early 2000s and I fully immersed in the car culture there, among so many other things. It was just glorious. After a little time up north, we found our way down to Taupo and the first thing I saw when rolling into town around sunset is racecars on trailers all around. So the next morning I went right to the local guide shack to ask what was going on, and they pointed me to the track. It was just mental, so much variety of machine that simply didn’t exist here then, or even now. I really need to dig out my old photos of that time, and we desperately want to come back someday. New Zealand really encapsulated my combination of deep environmental beauty and car culture, but I was too young to really understand that. 

RallyWrench > LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com 04/17/2020 at 12:08

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I’ve thankfully never felt the urge for the Prius, though I will defend them as good cars. I can’t live with the seats and steering, they’re just too bad. I had a Mk4 GTI for many years, and it’s a good car for balancing out these concerns. Economical, practical, and fun. Did a lot of track days and autocrosses in that, and   I’ve gotten past much of that interest. It’s definitely a case of “all things in moderation”, and it’s the self-imposed rules that I struggle with. One of those is that when I take the 911 out, I just feel like people are judging me as a “self indulgent wie ner with too much bloody money”, to quote that great cinematic masterpiece, Gone In 60 Seconds. Like I’m not thoughtfully indulging, as if I’m only out to waste and flaunt. It’s not at all true, and I think that I largely do a pretty good job balancing out my consumption with environmental responsibility, but it’s something I force upon myself. It’s just that yesterday, listening to one of the best environmental activists we have articulate his concerns while looking at crazy 8mpg 4x4 vanlife porn, I was struck by that internal dichotomy more than usual.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 12:38

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Just remember, it’s best for the environment if we don’t exist at all...

Do your best for the environment , but don’t give up living, and don’t give up completely on things that give you joy in life.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 14:44

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That photo of all the cars outside the pit garages was actually taken at Taupo. More photos from that meet here:  https://oppositelock.kinja.com/nzhrc-tasman-revival-race-meet-photo-dump-part-6-the-c-1500890669/amp

RallyWrench > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 04/17/2020 at 14:47

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Wow! I don’t even remember there being garages at the track, but that was back in 2002. The paddock was basically grass, as I recall. Wonderful place.

RallyWrench > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 04/17/2020 at 14:53

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Trying, my friend. I remember that constantly, hence the internal dilemma. There are other things that bring me joy that don’t burn any carbon, but damned if I don’t enjoy it sometimes. Too much a part of me. 

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 14:54

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They upgraded the facilities and extended the track in 2006 when they won the NZ leg of the A1GP series. It’s now NZ’s only FIA Grade 2 track. So considerably flasher and more than twice as long as when you were there. 

RallyWrench > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen 04/17/2020 at 15:02

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So what you’re saying is that I need to go back... ;)

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 15:04

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Yes, but maybe not this week :-)

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 15:18

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Just like travel is too much of a part of many people and they’re not going to give up flying to distant places on this globe to see them in person.

Moderation in all things. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 15:44

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I’m actually getting out for a half-day drive in the OK Ozarks tomorrow morning. =)

RallyWrench > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 04/17/2020 at 17:23

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Very nice! I imagine  it’s exceptionally pretty in spring?

RallyWrench > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 04/17/2020 at 17:31

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That’s what makes my carbon footprint much less than some of the biggest activists out there, I imagine. Still, it’s a guilt I put on myself, a self-imposed box . I’ve got a monster draft saved on such matters of the mind , actually. Related to cars at first, and building into bigger things . Just needed to vent some hard times of the mind into the void. Don’t know if I’ll ever hit publish on it, but it’s there.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 17:35

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Yeah, should be gorgeous with everything greening up and budding. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 17:37

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I’d read it. But maybe float it to a couple publications first to see if they pay for it? Unless you don’t think it’d translate to a larger audience...

RallyWrench > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 04/17/2020 at 17:41

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I’d trust you to read it with discretion. I don’t think it’s something I want to share with the world beyond Oppo , if even that. A  bit dark (really dark, actually) and personal.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 04/17/2020 at 20:36

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davesaddictionOPPO@gmail.com 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 05/06/2020 at 14:02

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Jalopnik’s new EIC:

I also want Jalopnik to be the place where car enthusiasts talk about the future of car culture, specifically with regard to commuting, climate change, urban sprawl, alienation and other fun topics. The tension between my love of internal combustion engines and my desire to limit the role I play in destroying the planet is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I don’t see that stuff being discussed regularly in automotive media and it’s a discussion that we as a community should be contributing to—in addition to posting about craigslist garbage, naturally.

You should really get in touch with him about contributing your thoughts.

RallyWrench > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 05/06/2020 at 15:20

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Interesting, and refreshing to hear someone say that on the professional level. I do indeed think of it often. Like, every hour of every day. Sam Smith (of course) did a piece for R&T along these lines last year which I really appreciated :

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a29356034/peaks-and-valleys-november-2019/

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 05/06/2020 at 15:26

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I look forward to following your byline soon.

I hadn’t read that yet. Thanks.

RallyWrench > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 05/06/2020 at 16:07

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Sam, as ever, saying the things I think. Guess I’d better find my own voice!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RallyWrench 05/06/2020 at 16:10

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Yessir!