Before:

After:

Team New Mex Express driver Matt Ruybal explains the modifications made to his 95 Mustang Cobra in preparation for the Dustball 500.

(I’ll be riding along with them this Saturday, June 27, on the 500+mile “gimmick rally” … follow me here and on Twitter: @dustballdave.)

This Saturday, I’ll be Tweeting from the Dustball 500, a 500-mile gimmick rally leaving from El Paso and going god knows where.Team New Mex Express, two guys (Matt Ruybal, John Paul Gonzales) with a sweet ‘95 Ford Mustang Cobra have invited me to fold myself into the back seat.

So yeah, follow us on Twitter: @dustballdave.

What’s a gimmick rally?

What’s a gimmick rally? Here’s how TNME navigator John Paul Gonzales explained it in an interview a few months back:

SFR: Is it a race or not?
JG: The saying goes: ‘It’s a rally, not a race.’ What we get at the beginning of the rally is a sheet of paper with ‘gimmicks’ on it. These are clues to items that you’ll see as you’re driving along the highways. So you’ll have a picture of a sign and you’ll be asked to identify the location of the sign or you’ll have to pick out the fourth letter of the third word of a street sign on the left of mile marker 20, and you string these together to answer a question. The competition is who is able to solve those questions the fastest and the most accurately and basically make the best time over the distance.

So, really this is competitive road tripping?
I wouldn’t say it’s just a road trip, unless you also you want to boil Formula One racing to just guys in cars driving around in a circle.

Still unclear? Me too! It sounds rad. It also looks like we might have a sponsorship for an aircard to use the net  from the road whenever we get a signal.

Crossposted at Maassive.com.