Words by Dante Cavazos. Photos by Lane Skelton

Visalia is a podunk town butted up against the foothills of the great Sierra Nevada. The city is surrounded by flat unassuming farmland and the featureless landscape gives a direct contrast to the towering green mountain ranges of Sequoia National Park. Tourists in commute cars litter the interstates surrounding Sequoia, but vast open stretches of road are baked in the arid desert heat discouraging most from exploring off the beaten path. On July 16th, seventy cars made the journey from five different states through scorching heat to beat those paths on Driving While Awesome’s Sierra Rally Rewind.

On Friday morning the Visalia Event Center’s parking lot looked like a mini Radwood. The group prepped for a small commute to the first drivers meeting by completing our “preflight” checklist. We packed up emergency provisions, and deployed a pseudo smoke screen from cold starting the cars all at once. Fingerlings of freshly burnt oil spread across the lot like fog as we rumbled our way to the local coffee shop before hitting the road for our commute. The “rewind” rally includes routes from a past event in both reverse order and with some variations to make the most out of the previous experience. This allowed DWA to craft an extremely efficient route and gave us the chance to swing by some rivers and other landmarks along the way. The crew stopped in sleepy Kernville for lunch and temperatures would peak around 100 degrees mid-day. We climbed upwards of 6000’ in twenty-plus-year-old cars for over six hours in sweltering heat. I can’t stress it enough when I say that completing even a single day of the rally is a testament to some truly impressive engineering and a solid nod to years of A+ ownership.

Dinner was a banquet style get together with some of the notable vehicles front and center - Travis Tucker and his E36 represented a large group of BMW drivers in generations spanning from E9 through E46, the Ottati’s parked the Bentley Turbo R with windows down to flaunt the ultra VIP interior, and a perfect 993 Turbo represented the other majority of driving enthusiasts in our lineup: Porsche owners. Over a year after the start of the pandemic, the crew was back together again.

The next morning I found myself stirring at 6:30 to the echo of a backup alarm. Fearing shenanigans (I drive a Honda, it’s what we do) I peeked out my window just in time to catch a purple Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler covered in Ghost Flames as it backed on to the quad of the event center. Lowriders began to congregate, and a fully curated show materialized while we ate a continental breakfast and topped off essential fluids. The second drivers meeting would take place on the top floor of a parking structure overlooking the Lowrider show. A handful of last-minute repairs went down to keep people on the road, and we debated if our socks were high enough to cruise back for some lowrider action. The show displayed a remarkable number of custom modified and hand painted cars from the 1930’s to the 1970’s. The lowrider scene had its best foot forward using mirrors to display fully polished underbodies, gold Daytons, and “good guy” dolls with eye liner for days. For much of the crew, the day two driving route included technical roads that would eventually shoot them around Bass Lake and into Oakhurst for the night. We would lose some notable rally attendees to unserviceable repairs, and others to the lake’s own leisurely services, but eventually we trudged through and conquered day two.

Dinner was an open menu graciously provided to us by the guys at DWA! The restaurant “Plazuela’s” was tucked away in an unassuming Raley’s parking lot, they specialized in authentic Mexican food and the owner had a particular affection for craft beer. The restaurant sported a rustic décor complimented by tall, vaulted ceilings and beefy natural wooden tables. The food and drink were excellent; the entire restaurant was buzzing with positive energy as everybody recapped the runs from the past few days. Votes were in from the previous night, it was time to dish out the awards--

Honorable Mention: One of the raddest rides of the rally was the Datsun 510 owned by Joe Whalen. He came toting along his father and his son for a little masochistic summer vacation with the boys! The Datsun’s rarity, condition, and the mere fact that it was stuffed with three generations of Whalen men made it a close contender for “People’s Choice”.

People’s Choice: Mike and Joe Ottati are a father son duo known for bringing a variety of rare machinery to every rally they can get their paws on. The weapon of choice this time around was a black Bentley Turbo R, talk about a knife for a gun fight, right? Both the Ottatis took turns sailing this boat across country roads that surely no Bentley has ever seen before. Congrats!

Organizers Choice: Jon Greco and Martin Gil are a pair of rad dudes from Texas. The Story goes like this— Jon prepped his one owner Z28 Camaro for a drive from Texas to California, he arrived at the LAX airport to pick up Martin. Martin hopped in the passenger seat and these hooligans charged from LA to Visalia to start the rally on Thursday. After 20+ hours of driving, these guys showed nothing but positive energy and enthusiasm for the event. Thanks for coming and we look forward to seeing you guys again real soon.

Sundays never feel more fleeting than when they share a day with the final leg of a rally. We eased into the morning with an F1 race broadcast in the hotel lobby, and licked our battle wounds from over 600 miles of “spirited” driving. The group was at about half capacity due to car failures and exceptional commutes, we soldiered on through some quick-paced and bendy routes for lunch at a full 1950’s themed diner. The route was northbound and after lunch we went for high fives and hugs to bring closure to a tremendous weekend. The events location was a great center point to welcome our friends from the south and we are truly happy to have suffered the July heat with you guys. The rally is a vacation to some and a chance to let loose for others, but to a growing number of returning veterans the rally has become something like a long awaited church visit after a brush with the rapture. En Espiritu Carreras, Amen.