The Tour is an epic production. We here at Super Street train intensely for it during the off-season. John eats tuna salad sandwiches because he thinks they make his breath smell better, Ricky calls his own cell phone to test his reaction time and see how fast he can actually answer a call, and I practice writing my autograph on wet paper napkins to learn how to properly control the flow of ink that seeps out from the tip of a Sharpie marker. The new guys-well, we make them run laps around the building, all while tossing Jimmy back and forth to each other like a Nerf football, and that's only because we want them to develop their young, tender back and shoulder muscles. We double-check our Mapquest directions because we already know that they're wrong and so are the ones printed in the Passport, but in the end looking it up on our own doesn't really help any because we still wind up getting lost. But no matter how much we prepare ourselves, we, the Super Street staff, always came up empty-handed (except for the mass amounts of cashish we make off of you kids from T-shirts, and as far as you know, Tour bags are, um, free), because things never went as we hoped they would. In the grand scheme of it all, the only problem with this year's escapades was the fact that it was too damn hot and humid. To all those people I met who said, "Ah, you get used to it after a while"-I say you're full of it. I read your eyes, and they were telling me that it was hot and humid, too.
Let's rewind to my arrival in sunny (and humid) Miami, in the lovely state of Florida. I happened to make my way over along with the digital staff, whom you might know better as Digi "That Rat-Faced Bastard" Doug and John "Ill-Fitting Shirts Rule" Adolph. (Damn straight they do.-RB) After we checked into our hotel and dropped the kids off at the pool, we made our way over to the first breaking point of that week-the kick-off party at HP Racing. Upon our arrival, we were pleasantly surprised to see the lot filled to near capacity and the festivities well under way. Frank Pasquis of HP had done a swell job of getting the word out onto the streets, but I also got the feeling that a number of people who had showed up had actually mistaken our party for a casting call-after all, "he" showed up. We don't need to mention any names because, frankly, we don't really care. As the night wore on, the crowds increased, more so because they were in full swoop mode (Much like Ro-Ro.-JN) and prepared to take anything we threw out during the giveaways. While we appreciated the enthusiasm you displayed, we were a bit thrown back when some of you guys fought to get a girl's baby-T. I was actually trying to throw that XS size to the cute girl behind you. For all you cheap asses, it was $20 for the T-shirt, then you would have gotten a free bag. Didn't you hear JD? His voice was cracking the entire time he was explaining it! The crowds started to disperse after everyone realized that all the free food was taken and after 20 boxes of free schwag had been given away. That was perfect for me, because I had a long day coming up. Well, not really.