It’s been a while — too long, Eddie and I thought, and so we jumped at the chance to cover Escape From Berkeley. I did some early pre-press in this techyum post but nothing compared to the day the race began: getting up early on saturday and interviewing the anti-petroleum car hackers, then watching them speed off into the mayhem of the crazy road rally was exhilarating. The Green Team’s bio-truck drove here all the way from Alabama, and there were in fact two bio-trucks; one was a Dodge Dakota V6, and they both ran on wood scraps. The Green Team told me they all run a sawmill so no trees are felled to power their trucks, and they haven’t paid for gas in four years! But who won? The adorable little Lotus kit car (Kinetic Vehicles). Actually, I know it’s a cliche, but in something like this *everyone* wins. They’re already planning next year’s alt-fuel-only rally, despite the fact that the event has put the Colbert Report “on alert”.
Here’s the post over at GETV; below is a sneaky photo Eddie shot from behind the camera while I was mid-interview.
Photo by Eddie Codel.
