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Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
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The Long Way Home: Ending my military service with a 1,300-mile road trip in my track car

“Life has many doors, Ed Boy,” said a character in a hallucinogenic-fueled fever dream of an Ed Edd N’ Eddy episode. My, oh my, how that throwaway line stood the test of time.

Six years ago, 19-year-old me had signed one of the most transformative contracts to have ever put leashed me. Lost, despondent, in search of an edge in life after my first trainwreck of a college career, I enlisted in my state’s Air National Guard unit, and soon, it was a life of monthly drills and annual training with one of the best C-130 airlift wings. Fast forward six years, plenty of training months, a COVID emergency activation, another short-lived college attempt, a couple of entry-level car dealership jobs, and an overseas deployment, and my tenure has reached its end.

To extend my contract or not to extend? That was the question. Ultimately, it was the latter choice I thought would suit an older me best. But was the journey worth it, the option to join years ago and the choice to leave to fully pursue a career in automotive media? I couldn’t even say with a hundred percent certainty at the time, and my mind raced with a million possibilities for a life I hadn’t fully sorted out. But perhaps a little road trip would give me time to think.

By February of this year, my contract had finally timed out. Come April, I embarked on one last journey from my home in sandy, sunny Las Vegas up north to Reno to collect trinkets-turned-memorabilia from my locker and say some goodbyes to old friends. “Never say never,” they say, so I’m certain it wouldn’t be the last I’d see of any of them. But it’d certainly be the last I’d see most of them for a long while. So I prepared for the long haul and loaded a weekend’s worth of attire in the trunk of my less-than-practical 2022 Subaru BRZ, heavily modified for track duty by a good friend who previously owned it yet just livable enough to be my just-good-enough daily driver and, for this instance, an all-weather road-tripper. Maybe I should’ve listened to my mom and bought a Forester.

Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

One last time on familiar roads

8 a.m. on a Friday, I psyched myself in for yet another 400-plus mile excursion on familiar two-lanes I’ve driven dozens of times on my way to Reno for Guard training and activation. It’s a simple trip, and I’ve driven for longer. But my goodness, that first run up to Reno is always a dreary haul.

Miles and miles of nothing but sand, rocks, the color brown, and, oh, look at that! More sand. The I-95 northbound eventually widdles down from a traditional four-lane highway to a two-lane country road, cutting through one of the most desolate parts of the entire United States without much in the way of other traffic to enjoy on-the-go car spotting. When you do, it’s often an 18-wheeler, a lifted pickup, or some Malaise-era rust bucket. Snoresville. Travelers making this journey, please bring lots of caffeine and a playlist of heavy music, and know that passing the inevitable semi takes a sharp mind and a bit of horsepower.

Occasionally, the wandering mind is treated to historic mining towns like Goldfield and Tonopah, popular stops for lab-brewed caffeine-in-a-can, fresh octane, and junkyard car spotting. Walker Lake near Hawthorne is Middle Mevada’s sample tasting of French Riviera motoring, with cliffside views, roadside homes and lodging, and flowing sweepers to let the BRZ stretch its legs a little, or at least when it’s not stuck behind a convoy of lumbering semi-trucks. Otherwise, the drive is mostly a bore.

Thankfully, the persistent bunch who cross into the Reno-Tahoe area are rewarded with flowing hills and lush greenery unheard of to a desert rat like me. But not me, though. I was greeted with a flash snowstorm that my all-seasons thankfully dispatched with somewhat ease and with only a little bit of pants-browning on my end.

Farewell and thanks to the airmen who guided me

Through snow and slush, I made it to my home away from home in time to make one last round at the local Air Guard base. I didn’t think much about my future on the way up. All I could think of was escaping the The Hills Have Eyes counties and high-tailing it to civilization to the hotel check-in desk without turning the BRZ into another road safety statistic. Shoutout to Goodyear for making stellar rubber and my friend who loaned me these hand-me-down tires.

The next couple days were spent filling my travel cup with sentiment and nostalgia for days when younger me didn’t give a damn about anything other than the weekend. Coworkers in my shop said their goodbyes and their best wishes, imparting their post-service benefits advice as I loaded my Little Subie That Could with old military uniforms. I rendezvoused with old friends and reminisced on our times together, from student flight to basic training and on to our first and only deployment together to the shores of Northeast Africa. Djibouti was a blast, and now we were left pondering on the next steps in our lives as my friends also contemplated life after service and whether they should continue or also part ways.

Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

It’s a volatile time in the world, and we Gen Z brats hardly give much thought to where we’ll be in a year, let alone where we’ll be in a decade. Keeping with the typical Asian-American family dynamic, I’ve faced immeasurable pressure to succeed and fall into a field where stability and security are at arm’s length away. Doctor. Nurse. Engineer. Stay in the Air Force and make officer ranks. Right. Perhaps I damned myself with any sort of digital media gig, instead falling into a purgatory where I teeter between abundant hope, feeling like a million bucks and that I’m on top of the world, or feeling like I’m on the verge of imminent failure at all times. Better Help, take my money.

Anyway, enough existential crisis. We’d rather not spoil the moment. We had late-night pancakes to finish and celebratory liquor to down.

The long way home

So came the end of my military service, out with a laugh and some drinks rather than some big bang of a TDY like I thought it would. Still, so many friends I wish I could say goodbye to who were either away on their own TDYs or had already separated from our unit and dropped off the face of the earth. It was goodbye, but not for forever. I still owe my best friend from basic training a dual at Thunderhill against her Camaro. That’s for certain. Now, how to make this final run home count.

Ah, yes. Here comes Apple Maps to the rescue once again. This time, pitching me an alternate scenic route that takes me down past Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes, running alongside the Sierra Nevadan mountains before dumping me in the I-15 between home and Los Angeles. It’d extend my trip by over a hundred miles and turn a six-hour drive into nearly nine.

Sure. Why not? It’s the weekend, after all. It was one of the routes Maps always recommends you take, but you never do out of “I ain’t got time for that.” But on that particular weekend, I had all the time in the world.

Onward I went. From Reno down south past Washoe Lake and into Carson City. From Carson City into Gardnerville. And from Gardnerville into God knows where I was after that, but man, it sure was breathtaking. The highway departs northern Nevada suburbia and begins to snake up and down, in and out of the nearby snow-capped hills, soon dumping me on the coast of Topaz Lake. Or so the signs said it was Topaz Lake.

Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco
Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

I was in and out of agricultural lands I never even knew existed in this corner of Nevada and northeast California. I wanted to believe that once you’ve seen a few patches of grass driving up the I-5 between SoCal and The Bay, you’ve seen them all, but this was different. Familiar yet alien. It was like the drive up here except with more greenery and less creepy crack houses and brothels. The hours ticked away, and a few podcasts and playlists were crossed off. I passed a junction flooding with tourists bound for Mammoth Lakes, soon followed by a drastic descent from the treeline down into a valley where the Sierra Nevada mountains grew from mere hills to gargantuan towers, with their snow line soon disappearing from beneath your hood and rising high above.

Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

I know we car enthusiasts often bemoan freeway road trips versus secluded backroads, but come on now. Sometimes, it’s worthwhile to leave the sports car in Comfort mode and cruise, especially when the freeways look like this so you can stare at nature’s creations you wouldn’t see anywhere else. And I couldn’t ask for a better sports car for such a journey. Or, well, maybe I could. Nah, who am I kidding? I could. But it got the job done.

The greatest and worst GT car

For hundreds of miles upon miles, the little BRZ came into its own and made good on my claim that it’s the world’s cheapest GT car and surprisingly capable tourer. Mostly. I mean, that GranTurismo Trofeo from a couple months ago would’ve been epic, but we embark on journeys with the tools we have, not the tools we want.

My main compliments from my press car review last fall stood strong: ride quality was remarkable for such a small, cheap car, even on track-focused coilovers that my friend had set to nearly maximum stiffness. Potholes were of little to no concern. All-season tires were game-changing in how my car tackled the rain and later snow and slush in the Reno-Tahoe area, encouraging me to explore the snowed-out country two lanes nearby. The seats were oh-so-cozy, and their fiery-hot, ass-searing heating elements came in clutch. Toasty!

Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

The aggressive alignment could do with a little less tramlining, even with skinny, not-so-race-ready rubber. Just a little. And the fuel economy with the massive aero took a notable hit versus a stock BRZ. The mpg wasn’t bad, but the economy hit, plus the small tank, meant the range was sometimes a bitch. Still, I couldn’t complain. It was a fantastic and wonderfully capable driver’s car, and nearly running dry near a gas station at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, just within a stone’s throw of Mount Whitney, was its own blessing in disguise.

Even Bob Ross would still stop and stare, and maybe he’d even paint my car a happy little friend.

Final thoughts on my final stretch

A great trip needs a great finale, and I found one on a familiar highway traversed by my family as well as millions on a regular basis. As the valley of otherworldly mountains spat me out onto the I-15 and the arid desert, I reflected on the life I led and the one I had been given. If you told 20-year-old me that those high school dreams of getting paid to write about cars like my favorite automotive personalities, I would scoff and probably give you a good gut check for playing with me like that. It was a dream that felt out of reach under the pressure of family conformity and utter confusion at how people even broke into this industry. Now, I look back, grateful I took the leap I made, although fearful for an increasingly uncertain future in such a volatile field. But hell, I made it this far, didn’t I?

Subaru BRZ Reno-to-Vegas
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

Whether I was a humble freelancer or Supreme Editor Overlord of Road & DriverTrend, the truth was I had made it into a career I had dreamed of but didn’t think possible. All I have to do is run away with it and not look back. And that’s probably the best advice I can give a stubborn dreamer fueled more by passion than material desires. If you see a window of opportunity, any window, big or small, jump straight through it and never stop. Of course, play your cards right and play them smart, but don’t back down lest you discover the biggest life regrets come when you throw in the towel on your endeavors.

Is my career perfect? Fuck no. But I’d still be parking cars or bouncing between lecture halls for some dead-end major at the university right now if I didn’t take that chance.

As for the Air Force, it’s safe to say that chapter ran its course as this new avenue of digital media and the oh-so-fantastic world of adulting (and for realsies this time) just turned green for me. Come to think of it, aside from extra coin, a splash of life guidance, and a bit of adventure, I can’t fully recall why exactly I enlisted in the first place. But while I’m deciding to part ways and begin anew, I’ll forever be grateful for all it gifted me, even as a mere Guardsman. And so onward I go into this new career I’m building from scratch. I will always look back on that uniform fondly.

I started this trip overflowing with anxiety and my mind racing. “What’s next? What am I going to do? What if I fail at this? Should I have stayed enlisted? Should I change careers?” On the last leg home, my mind fell at ease, only asking one thing at the moment: “Lake Dolores Waterpark looks beautiful under the setting sun, doesn’t it?”

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Acceleramota Eats
Saturday Morning Car Tune!

Here are some awesome gearhead restaurants for your next Southern California trip

Following a recent trip to view the soft launch of the new-to-us Fiat 500e, I decided to extend my stay to tour the local touges and sample SoCal’s finest eateries, soon realizing there were plenty of places that serve someone in search of both. Call these a cafe racer’s delight! Yes, I know that term is primarily for motorcycles, but bear with me here as I showcase to you a few of the best places in LA that I’ve discovered to be culinary havens for car enthusiasts in one way or another.

Some on this list may be blatantly in-your-face about their affinity for car culture, while others serve as more of a mere convenience to gearheads due to their location rather than a tribute. Either way, every place I’ve tried on this list is a worthwhile destination for your next LA excursion, and I implore you to take that damn McDonald’s pin off your CarPlay map and indulge in some real Californian eats.

The cherry on top? All these places are within a stone’s throw from some iconic driving roads. Or, well, you know. A stone’s throw by California traffic standards.

Neptune’s Net – From that one scene in that one movie

On Highway 1, next to Yerba Buena Road, minutes from Decker Canyon, Topanga, Tuna Canyon, and more

Acceleramota Eats Neptunes Net
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

What’s hot?

  • Self-service fridge full of drinks (like a convenience store)
  • Slap bang in the middle of many technical Malibu mountain roads

What’s not?

  • Pretty expensive menu items
  • Woefully crowded on any weekend

“What’s the retail on one of those?”

“More than you can afford, pal. Neptune’s Net Sampler combo.”

You already know. After beating up on Ferrari F355s on Highway 1 or coming down a downhill rager on Yerba Buena, you can treat yourself to a buffet of self-serve refreshments and some roadside food at that one set from that one movie. Established in 1956, Neptune’s Net has seen its fair share of pop culture usage, even being recreated in Grand Theft Auto V. Today, its popularity fails to waver for better or worse.

Seriously, don’t even bother on a weekend unless you’re ready to box a mom and her kids for a parking spot.

Still, the litany of convenience store refreshments, from energy drinks to booze, and the top-notch fried seafood are worth the adventure, even if the price tag can climb quite a bit. The fried shrimp and scallops are my favorite, and the coleslaw actually ain’t bad! Haters be damned. I’ll eat their slaw every time. Burgers, salads, and sandwiches are also available, although I have yet to try them in my months of visiting here.

Fujiwara Tofu Cafe – Here’s one for the racers and weeaboos alike

Off the 10 in El Monte, CA, 30 minutes from San Gabriel Canyon Road and Glendora Mountain Road

Acceleramota Eats Fujiwara Tofu Cafe
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

What’s hot?

  • A fun, unconventional menu like few milk tea shops around
  • Doubles as a lifestyle brand for Initial D and local grassroots motorsports fans

What’s not?

  • Soymilk-based everything is an acquired taste
  • Most merch is usually only sold online or at events

Order food. Order drinks. Play the arcade games, and go tear up Glendora Mountain Road afterward. Doesn’t matter to me. Just don’t spill the water.

A personal favorite of mine that I’m now shoving down all of your throats, Fujiwara Tofu Cafe is probably one of the best, most honest, and true-to-its-roots take on a themed eatery outside of an amusement park. I mean, come on. There’s Initial D playing on the tele. The order counter is adorned with various car culture, racing, and Initial D stickers with signage from Bunta’s tofu shop overhead. Over the ordering tablets is an AE86 Corolla door with the tofu shop script. And beyond that, they’re a retailer for kickass automotive lifestyle merch and Initial D memorabilia and a venue for small-scale car meets. Oh yeah. And the menu.

Iketani Senpai (green Thai tea) is my current favorite, which is ironic because I hate Iketani in the show. The fried tofu with its sweet-and-sour sauce is (insert Italian hand gesture emoji), and as a Filipino-American, their tofu puddings send me into Anton Ego mode, vividly reminding me of taho.

Doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of the franchise or not. If that doesn’t scream car enthusiast haven, I don’t know what does. Go here and give them your money. Sure, soy-based everything is an acquired taste, and I have an even split of friends who love and hate the menu, but it’s certainly a whimsical take on your typical tea shop offerings and still worth every bit of your time to stop by after a long road trip or a hard canyon drive.

Wild Oak Cafe – Brekkie under the trees near LA’s most famous driving road

On Chevy Chase Drive in Glendale, CA, minutes from Angeles Crest Highway and Angeles Forest

Acceleramota Eats Wild Oak Cafe
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

What’s hot?

  • Expansive breakfast and coffee menu for a small shop
  • Gorgeous patio area and decor

What’s not?

  • Limited parking spaces
  • In the middle of a neighborhood, so don’t be a dick if you have a loud exhaust

Perhaps the least car culture-oriented place on this list and the most quaint, serene, and lowkey. Wild Oak Cafe is saddled right in the middle of a lovably peaceful Glendale neighborhood in the hills at the base of Angeles Crest Highway, one of the most famous driving roads in the LA area. Just a few minutes from the entrance of the road is this breakfast joint seemingly built out of an old market or gas station, with trees filtering the sunlight over the hilltops and potted plants and a dilapidated old Model T setting the mood.

The entire dining area is outdoors on the patio, and you can treat yourself to an array of familiar and cozy breakfast dishes to start or end your morning drive. Breakfast sandwiches, burritos, traditional American breakfasts with eggs and bacon, and waffles are staples here. A treat for those who’ve never had it would be the Armenian coffee served in a traditionally small portion but brewed with enough of a kick to the teeth to jumpstart any coffee junkie.

No, it’s not really car enthusiast-centric, but its location makes it the perfect stop before or after the canyons. Just don’t be a dickhead and respect the neighbors who probably paid an arm and a leg for homes I can never afford in my lifetime.

Motoring Coffee – Mochas, matcha, and motor oil in the air

On Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA, 25 minutes to downtown and 30 minutes to Topanga Canyon

Acceleramota Eats Motoring Coffee
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

What’s hot?

  • Top-notch coffee shop offerings
  • Starbucks doesn’t have a Honda Acty dining table

What’s not?

  • Being a storage facility for privately-owned cars, you can’t get too close
  • Limited food menu

Not that hungry but can go for some caffeine? Meander on over to Motoring Coffee between downtown and the coast, where LA’s eclectic upper echelon of car enthusiasts have decided to turn their storage facility into a hip public business. Just don’t breathe too close to someone’s car.

The food menu is quite limited to basic coffee shop affair, like croissants and cookies, and their drinks menu is comprised of fairly standard offerings you’d find at any other cafe. Thankfully, they put forth effort to do it right and make them as good as they can be. Their mocha and matcha lattes are sweet and satisfying without being overly decadent like the liquid candy masquerading as coffee from a chain coffee shop, and the vibes of being surrounded by classic 911s, old Land Cruisers, and a few trick motorcycles make for a pleasant place to kill time for a short period.

Cons? Well. I wish I were a member. Their private rooms in the back, separate from the coffee shop front, are just the place I want to be when I say I feel like going for a drive, but the sheer weight of my laziness keeps me from actually making it to any worthwhile road. So please stop by for a drink and at least feel like a million bucks as you spill coffee all over their Honda Acty dining table.

Sigh. Man, I miss FoodTribe. Those were the days.

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FeaturesSaturday Morning Car Tune!

Check out your Saturday Morning Car Tune at Acceleramota

The traditional auto mag as we know it is slowly fading. Not out of existence but rather evolving to take on a new cultural landscape. Social media and video dominate, leaving room for written works to be more personal and experiential, almost like diaries of one’s trials and triumphs like some of the best publications have done and still do. It’s their way of further humanizing themselves in a sea of content farms and cookie-cutter formulas. Well, it’s time to get in on that action. Enter Saturday Morning Car Tune, your peek into the Acceleramota crew’s automotive exploits.

Come take a gander as we bring our passion away from the keyboard and into real-world experiences. In the garage or on the street. On the road or at the track. From how-to’s, track days, road trips, garage builds, car purchases, and more. Even if it’s a “bad” story, like perhaps a tale of a colossal screw-up we’ve had overcooking a corner on track or losing every 10-mil in our garage to The Great Void, it’s still a story worth telling.

WCCS car show
Image credit: Jeric Jaleco

Check in every so often to see me adapt to living with a track-built Subaru BRZ as my one and only car and if it’s still competent enough to conquer daily life (or just wait for me to tear the splitter off on a curb). Or read about Peter Nelson nursing an old B5 S4 back to life while taking to the race tracks to prove it’s the E82 BMW 128i that is made in God’s image, as previously documented at The Drive. Maybe Michael Van Runkle has some words to say about his colorful garage history dotted in Porsches and Monteros, or perhaps Nathan Meyer can walk you through the deets of South African car culture from his home in Port Elizabeth. I’m sure the cult of big turbo Volkswagen Rabbits down there have their own stories to tell.

Or, if you enjoy masochism, I’m sure our supreme ruler, Gabe Carey, has some colorful words to say about the wonderful world of Alfa Romeo ownership and his Guilia Quadrifoglio that just refuses to die. Perpetuating the stereotypes there, aren’t we, boss?

Kidding. Don’t shitcan me, please.

And who knows? We’ll likely spin this off into a social media-friendly video series as well, which you would most definitely see on our Instagram and TikTok. We’ll get there. Psst, give us a follow on there. Will ‘ya?

Think of this new corner of our site as a way to take a small step away from the SEO and the industry news, instead taking a day to focus on ourselves and what makes us who we are as members of the car community, dedicated to our hobby and bound by passion. It’s our contribution to the internet to show that we’re not mere content drones and that we’re real, real enthusiasts and real people with real experiences, and we can’t wait for you to tune in to read all about it.

2023 Radwood SoCal
Image credit: Michael Van Runkle

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