The caravan to the official start is a miracle parade of the derelict and near dead. Other Gamblers catch us on the road or we catch them. Everyone’s having a blast until we realize our hot-wiring job skipped over necessary accessories — like the windshield wipers. We jump the terminals while rolling down the highway, satisfied by our ability to pry functionality from entropy’s cold grip.
The day goes that way. We sign our waivers and collect our waypoints, the morning passing in a haze of spent hydrocarbons and nicotine. We MacGyver the alternator with a folded business card and pop the hood in traffic to keep the old V8 from melting to slag. No one’s letting this bastard lie down and die.
The weather settles into a thin drip, the air flirting with freezing as the clouds drape themselves along the conifer hills. As we parade out of Cascade Locks and cross into Washington at the Bridge of the Gods, the Columbia River looks small and dark below us. Even with the cold and the wet, we’re wired with the absurdity of what we’re doing, of chasing a Pinzgauer through a small town in an AMC with off-road mudders, a zip-tied CB radio crackling at my knees, a Dale Jr. bobblehead nodding his approval from atop the dashboard.
We face our first obstacle when the route takes us onto a climbing two-track. The road dissolves into deep, muddy ruts. It’s a litmus that splits the train of salvage yard rejects in two. There are those like McDonald who have to drive their machines 200 miles home, whose sense of mechanical sympathy runs wide; and there are those like Morgan, who hit that hill full throttle. The shriek from the Miata’s little four-cylinder fills the sky. As I hike up to watch it struggle, I nearly catch a flying softball-sized rock with my face. The Miata flings stones in a shotgun spray, its tires spinning and smoking, fighting for grip, and losing.