Bullrun Blog
by Bill Tsagrinos (Driver) VW
It started back in April of 2006. I caught a commercial for a TV show called Bullrun. It was on Spike TV. It showed a group of cars with 2 person teams trying to out drive & navigate each other for $200K. I watched a few episodes and thought, wouldn't that be cool to do in an air cooled VW. At the end of the show the host Goldberg says. "If you think you got what it takes to be on Bullrun, log onto www.Bullrun.com and set up a profile. So I did, than checked back every few days to see what was happening. After a while I stopped going back to the site. Fast forward to November 11th 2008. I get this email out of nowhere.
Subject: BULLRUN Casting
Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 11:06 AM
What's up! Thanks for applying for BULL RUN on bullrun.com. I am the Casting
Director for the show. So now that you are signed up I need to speak with
you
over the phone to go over some details as far as what I need from your team
so
that you can compete on the show. Please e-mail me back with the best number
to
reach you at or you can call me at***** I have also attached a
questionnaire that you will need to fill out and send back to me. Look forward
to speaking with you and getting you all set to be on the show.
So the packet I get says I need to be available from December 1st thru the 20th. Needless to say I'm starting to think seriously about this. If I'm going to be on this show, I should ge the bus dialed in. This rally is 4K miles and I have a list of things I've been wanting to do to the bus since I "finished" it in 2003. I got the car "close enough" to drive to the classic in `03 with some detail work needing to still be done. So like always weather its the OCTO meet or the VW Classic nothing like waiting till I have a dead line to get some work done. The list goes like this.
Change temporary trans cooler lines to real high pressure lines on the oil system.
Swap gas tank from10 gal stock to late model 15gal. (which means removing the engine).
install new fuel lines throughout.
General tune up. Oh and find out what happened to clutch. (see below)
Before all of this. We shot our audition video. This video I put together in about 10 minutes. While filming the video when I side stepped the clutch to do a nice smoke show. It hooks good ( no smoke show) I hear a bang, and the clutch pedal drops to the floor. Looks like the clutch needs to be check out now. No big deal we need to change the tank any way. Since no radios are allowed I might as well pull my stereo system. Its about 300lbs (that should save some fuel). So I thrash the bus together while my brother is trying to get things set to leave his new shop for 3 weeks. we hardly have time to get together for more than 3 hours to plan for this trip. George My brother is at my house the day before were supposed to leave. He still seems a little hesitant to go. I'm planning on towing the bus down to hollywood for the interview. George thinks we should drive it there. he says "if it wont make it there then we shouldn't be on the show". My response is "if she's gonna break its gonna be on TV". I would hate to be watching this season thinking wouldda couldda shouldda. Its thanksgiving weekend. If I get picked I have no Idea what I would do with my truck and trailer. I call Russell with OLD SPEED. we chat for a few he has his guy meet us at his shop so I can store my truck & trailer there for 3-4 weeks. Russell also hooks us up with a spare tire & a master cylinder. Oh I forgot to mention our master cylinder was dripping alot. Kind of. Thanks Russ we owe you you'll see. We pull in to the hotel. Nerves are going. I suspectingly look at anyone in the hotel who looks like a car guy. I'm trying to size up the competition. We unload the Bus in valet and there she sat until the rally.
Stay tuned to see what happens after the first episode.
Update:2-23-09 Episode 1
Too much to list so Ill start from the beginning. So when you see us walk in the warehouse. That was the first time I had seen the bus since they took it to be decaled. Before we walk in the exc Producer is telling me " Ok, now's you chance to shine go in there check out every car comment if you like then go stand by your car". I'm usually never at a loss for words until now. When we walk in the warehouse, first thing I see is the Bus all decaled up. Then the 10 teams next to their cars. 3 spotlights and not a sound. Talk about stage fright. I totally cheesed it. But maybe its a good thing I could have ended up like Team Evo. After that scene. The producers have us gather around and review the rules. They proceed to tell us the rally will start in 10 minutes. We all had a chase vehicle that would monitor us to insure fair play. We could load any spare parts we would like in the chase van. Good for us bad for her mileage. We loaded 2 crates of spares including the kitchen sink. I loaded that crate thinking to myself "I am NOT going home due to a breakdown". We go over the bus check oil, linkage, air cleaner nuts, I see under the bus is about an 8" puddle of oil. That's the kiss of death for a VW, oil is its everything. We pull the rear apron to see what is going on. Well it seems I forgot to tighten the 2 hoses for my full flow oil lines. Well lets hope that's all it needs. Cross our fingers. As we get in the car & ready to go. I'm getting real excited & nervous at the same time. I'm thinking were going to Vegas. I'm gonna get on the 210 to the 215 then I'm outta here. We pull up to get the card it doesn't say Vegas. It says Stove pipe wells, Death valley. WHAT!? That completely threw me & George for a loop. Stay calm just go get a map. Now its a mad dash to get a map. We stop 1st at a gas station, No map there useless stop. Trying to keep my sense of direction so I can find the freeway. Then finally thank heaven for 711. ON to more stuff you didn't see. Well the new gas tank has a factory vent tube that should go to a vent line. Well in my infinite wisdom I decided to vent it to ITSELF. So the fuel pump starts to collapse the tank. What you didn't see is about 300ft before the death valley check point the Bus started running out of gas. When the bus stalled George jumped out. He opened the gas cap. All you could hear was the tank popping like a tin can. Then I heard the fuel pump started working again. We started the bus up an went on to the check point. A half a mile later we pull in to a gas station fill up to try to gauge mileage. We had no idea what our fuel range was. Filled up the tank & headed out to Vegas. Meanwhile team Porsche arrives a few minutes later. We bolt from the gas station and try to keep a good pace. Now we see headlight coming up on us its team Porsche. They pass us now I'm getting a little upset.The one rule is no speeding and if were not speeding you can only catch the next team if they stop. Well team Porsche is making tracks pulling away from us little by little. As we approach the intersection Team Porsche is nowhere to be found. They probably missed the sign that read. (VEGAS turn 300ft ahead) It was an unmarked side road that turned in to the road to Parumph. Needless to say they didn't beat us to the check point. That's all for now check back after next episode.
Episode 2 let the cheating begin
So we wake up at LVMS. Get to
our cars & wrench or detail our cars whichever we chose. Killing time
till the challenge (bus take down) is ready. As you saw Spire & Mike get
their Super snake fixed at shelby. Lucky for them. George & I tinker with
the bus checking everything out and venting the gas tank. The producers have
us drive our cars over to the circle track. Now remember every time we are
not in the rally we are not allowed to drive our vehicles anywhere without
being supervised. Once we get to the track they line us up to park for some
pics & wait for the challenge to be set up. We now are instructed to drive
in pairs out of the speedway on to LV Blvd for our team pictures. So as we
are called 2 x 2 to go out there, us and team dart are waiting on the side
of the road. This is where the "stranded" video is taken. As we
are driving up, Team Evo is driving back to the speedway. Chris from Evo has
been bumming smokes off of my brother George all day. They have been complaining
about not having their kind of snacks & drinks. We are subjected to whatever
"craft services" AKA Crap services has mostly water, crackers, tons
of tea for all of the limeys (JK). So after our photo shoot. We pull up back
at the track and team Evo has smokes, Rockstars, and chips and an Atlas. Needless
to say while we were all unsupervised to go to the photo shoot & directly
back Evo detours to the store. We think wow I'll bet they go fuel too. We
start asking questions now they start acting all defensive. Yea guilty. Everybody's
talking about it. That where the comment I made to Goldberg at the end of
the show in page AZ. Now on to the rally of the next day.Our
strategy was to stop for fuel first since it was right out side of the speedway.
This would mean after the 1st check point we would not have to stop for fuel
until after the 2nd check point. Talk
about home town blues. We get our card 727 S 9th street. I get confused. I'm
thinking that Charleston is "0" or the center of town. Just in case
your wondering its Fremont street. So I tell George (who is wanting to drive
this leg) to exit Sahara. As we are coming over the hill I realize that we
are at the 2000 block and we need to
be at the 1000 block. At
this point I feel like an idiot. What you don't
see is that behind the scenes the alliance started to use the radios to communicate
between teams. I realize my mistake, call solstice and tell them
not to exit sahara, but to exit Charleston. No response. Now we finally get
to the checkpoint. Waiting there is team Shelby, Ferrari, Solstice, and Camaro.
The other teams Dart, Evo & Avalanche arrive a few minutes later. We are
scrambling around the address looking for the check point vehicle. Its nowhere
to be found. Everyone is in a panic. I'm looking through the bushes like an
easter egg hunt. Nothing. Finally the check point vehicle shows up about 20
minutes later. We get our next destination card. It reads Fredonia Az Duel
baseball diamonds off of the 89 north & 1st east.
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Larger Map
The CP vehicle was at 727 NORTH 9th street. That's when Vette & Pantera showed up first, got their CP card & took off to AZ by way of phoenix. We got our card while everyone was going back up charleston to I-15. I thought we should take streets to 95 so we could avoid traffic. Wrong move. while driving there and trying to find Fredonia on an Atlas courtesy of team Solstice. I'm scanning through the radio channels listening to the other teams. I hear Dart say its on the way to Lake Powell. I look at the map there it is. Luckily we didn't make the same mistake Vette & Pantera did. But we still screwed up. We get on 95 N to take the I-15 N to Fredonia. The inter change is closed due to construction. Not cool. I exit the next street MLK Blvd Its torn up all the way to Lake Mead Blvd. Oh and a construction zone with a 25mph speed limit. It gets worse. Lake Mead Blvd doesn't have an on ramp on the east bound lane. I have to go through a light with tons of traffic. I cross over the lane cut through some apartments and save us about another 5-10 minutes another light. So we work our way back on to the freeway. Probably a good 15 minutes behind. Luckily we don't have to stop for fuel since we filled up at LVMS Now were off to Fredonia AZ. As we come through the Gorge at St george. We notice all these construction cones all over the road. We pull into Fredonia get to the check point. There's all these kids by the CP vehicle. We pull up George gets out to grab the card. I ask the kids how many cars are in front of us. They tell us there are about 5 cars ahead of us. We head to the nearest gas station fuel up and finish the rally to Wahweap Marina Page AZ.
The rest of the drive is pretty uneventful. Its cold, getting dark & i'll be happy when we get there to find out where we finished. We get there check in to the hotel, go to dinner. Still no Pantera or Vette. They show up LATE that night. They go right to bed so they can fix there car first thing in the morning. We arrive at our cars that morning Team Pantera & Camaro are knee deep in pulling the Pantera apart. George & I have to fix an intake leak in the bus. Every time its running its making a popping noise. Everyone starts with the popcorn maker comments. Super Dave (who by the way earns his name) is team Camaro's chase vehicle gave us a ride to auto zone so I could get some gasket material to fix out leak. George stays behind to pull the manifold off. George & I fix the bus and go over to the Pantera to lend a hand. I see Nick trying to get this bearing off of the throw out shaft. I noticed a boat repair & fabrication shop about 300yds across the desert. Brook (camaro) Nick (pantera) & I grab this bearing run across the desert to this shop. We catch the owner on his way to lunch. Convince him to let us in his shop to use his Press, Vice & angle grinder. Brook, Nick & I work on this thing while this guys employees are trying to eat their lunch. were shooting sparks everywhere. These guys don't look happy. Nick tries to give the owner some money for letting us use his tools. He wouldn't take it. He was a really nice guy. If you look at the map you can find his shop across the road from the launch ramp. So we get back to the Pantera and its all hands on deck trying to put this car back together. The challenge starts in about 1 hr. Luckily we got the car back together & they made the challenge. It sucked to see Pantera go they were good guys. Once they got eliminated they offered me there auxiliary fuel tank. It was 12 gallon tank that I could have put in the back of the bus and ran a second fuel line so we should now have an advantage for fuel. We asked the producers is that would be cool. George & I talked about it and decided that if we were going to win it was going to be with the car the way we brought it. Well, George more than me. I didn't see an issue if another team wanted to give us there auxiliary tank. But George is half the team and he was right... Kind of. So there you have it end of episode 2
Episode 3
What can I say? episode 3 was a great one. In my opinion it gave a really good feel for how the rally really is. When your on the rally its tuff to figure out where you are (time wise). Now I know what its like to be on the other side of the "monday monring quarterback" Everyone can do it better, they would have done this or that. Let me tell you its a whole nother ball game when your in the game. This epiode I will post a video commentary. So click below & enjoy. Oh and here are maps to where we went.
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