By Colin “Corndog” McAuliffe

So here I am, in my Land Rover/ Drive Around the World standard issue North Face-supplied safari shirt, sitting in the pressroom of the Las Vegas Convention Center, working the SEMA auto conference. We, as in the entire drive around the world crew, came here to raise more money for our expedition. There is plenty of free coffee and spokesmodels for the various mufflers and speakers that are being expo'd here to distract us. I must say I'm having a blast. Let's take last night for example:

Adam, Neil and I (that's the documentary crew) were not very excited last night because we wanted to go out and gamble like most people do in Vegas, but we had to go to this B.F. Goodrich press event. We had no idea what it was, all we knew was that there was free food, which -- enticing as it sounds -- did not rival the idea of a long, adventurous night on the town. So we piled half the crew and a Land Rover exec named Bill Baker (who by the way is an interesting guy) into our Discovery, and we head over to the Las Vegas raceway expecting the standard schmoozefest that we've grown so accustomed to.

Boy, were we wrong. Believe it or not, we rolled in, were handed really nice sweatshirts to keep, fed some great food, and then folks, then, they let us drive racecars. Yep, racecars. Mustangs and everything. We got to ride in (not drive) stock cars going 120 miles and hour. We rode in off road super trucks launching 20 feet in the air. We drove 350Zs and RX8s around an auto cross tracks, and drag raced Rausch Mustangs. It was great, really great. I mean, the idea of going out and dropping a hundred dollars at the Blackjack table pales in comparison. My only regret was that I didn't get to ride in the stock cars because the line was way too long, but hey, waddayagonnado? Regardless, a good time was had by all, and after the fact we still went out a-gamblin' anyway. At least for a little while. (I won 15 bucks from a slot machine, but all the tables were lame).

Oh I almost forgot, I have a new nickname: Corndog, I'd explain it now, but it’s a long story and I think I'll save it for another entry.

Rock on and email me,

-Colin

colin@drivearoundtheworld.com

Help support our cause: Drive Around the World aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by taking four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-mile via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. Everyone making a pledge of $10 or more to raise money for the Parkinson’s Institute will be put in a raffle to win an expedition-style Land Rover.