The cruise around Atlanta earlier today was so damn awesome. We met up to pay respects to Paul Walker and the community and culture he represented. When we originally set up this, we had no idea it would blow up. In under one week a over 1200 people confirmed that they would attend, even though the weather was terrible. It was storming all day!
The craziest part of this all is that everyone showed up in the crazy weather. So many people showed up that it caused a lot of issues like insane load to the highway system. When we met up at Josephine Lounge in Dunwoody, before even the scheduled time, the lot was full. Even with the rain, people kept piling up and we had to leave before we caused serious issues. Even leaving was difficult given the amount of people who showed up. The cops came to block Peachtree Industrial for about 15 minutes simply to let us on the highway. Even on the highway, it was virtually impossible to coordinate such a large group of people through traffic. There was tons of confusion, but at the end of the day it kind of worked out better that way. Everyone seemed to be scattered around the perimeter, finding others and coordinating among themselves. One group took 285 East instead of 285 West and eventually met up with Zen Motors and ATL Mopar Club and joined a big group again. Other groups broke off into smaller groups and eventually made their way to the Varsity.
Varsity was awesome, it felt like back in the day again. The police officer said it was OK to post up there for a short while, and by the time it was over we went to Lattea to finish off the day. All in all it was a great time. Over 900 cars from all over GA (As well as many 'bama folks, NC folks, and a ton of FL cars came out- IN THE RAIN, to make a statement about their culture and community. The more news articles we see about Paul Walker and the various charitable things he did in the past, the more he deserves to be honored like this. It wasn't well organized because it was more of a casual event, but when that many people actually showed up and the disorganization, with people improvising plans kind of made it even better. We worked together to keep the culture together and to represent ATL. We stood united and proud as gearheads and car-enthusiasts. Today was a really awesome, different, and extremely unorganized car meet/rollout to various locations in ATL with over 900 cars in swarm formation. Over 700 cars ended up in the Varsity parking lot and people were hanging out in the rain without any issues. It is still official and confirmed that Varsity will never allow a car meet there in the future. We checked just to make sure, lol!
This was simply a dope event. I doubt it's something we should do again, but working together to help other like-minded gearheads was an awesome feeling- much better than a car meet. We all helped people find groups, directions, or relayed information. Amid chaos and no clear directions, we figured it out and "winged it" to have a pretty epic event today. I doubt any other community of strangers could say the same.
Does anyone know of a charity we can have an event with- that require inputs other than money?? Perhaps something like Habitat for Humanity? Something where a bunch of us meet up and completely build or fix a house in a day. It would probably only take us hours considering we know our way around a toolbox and are probably much younger than the usual guys.
I think Paul Walker would have saw today as a good representation of the culture that he was a part of. Rest in Peace, Homie! Everyone- Check out Reach Out World Wide.
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