Adventures

BORN TO RUN: PART Ⅱ

For this entry, we continue the first-person account from Trevin Hermosillo about his experience on goldRush Rally 2022 - One More Run Against The Sun. Click here to get up to speed on part 1 if you missed it. 

 

 

“After we finished up the goldRush rally in Miami, we started the trek home to Montana. Our first stop would be Atlanta, Georgia - six hundred and sixty-two miles. A reasonable start to our 3000-mile journey home. At this point, tired from our goldRush event, we kept a leisurely pace and didn't hesitate to stop to eat or fuel up. 
    

We planned to get into Atlanta and, the next morning, get the oil changed at the local Ferrari dealership. They knew we were coming, and it would be an easy turnaround. After that, there were a few other people I had intentions of visiting and showing the car too. Sadly, it wouldn't turn out that easy. 
    

As planned, I took off first thing in the morning and immediately got caught up in some traffic. It was starting to delay my arrival time, but I didn't care - we had all the time in the world. As I got closer to Alpharetta, paying attention to my GPS to navigate my way, in addition to all the traffic, we ended up in some construction. The signs slowed down traffic, and the freeway narrowed. I noticed up ahead, as I was starting to fight my way to the exit lane, cars moving around, and it appeared they were avoiding something in the road. Being vigilant, I kept my eyes up and tried to slow down as much as possible, but by then, it was too late. Whatever was in the road made an audible noise as I felt the steering wheel jolt. 
 

View Project SERPENS.

 

 

My heart sank, it wasn't good. I made my way over and took the exit. Once onto some nicer freeway, I immediately noticed the steering wheel vibrate. I had felt this before, we had bent a wheel. Five more minutes later I arrived at the Ferrari Dealership. The service manager greeted me and was excited to see the car. I explained what happened, and one of his guys knew exactly the road construction spot I hit and said it's pretty common. As I did my walk-around, I saw it, the passenger front wheel was bent…. bad. We identified that I had plenty of miles left on the oil change to get home, and at this point, it was more important to get the wheel repaired. 
    

My next stop would have been Butler Tire and wheel anyway, so I rang them up and explained the situation. They said to limp the car over, and they would take care of it that day. I got there, and they didn't hesitate to put it on the lift and start the inspection. I nervously waited in the front showroom, and just when I began to feel a sense of relief, the technician approached me with a grim look on his face. 

 

"We have something to show you, you not only bent the front right wheel, but you also bent two more…" 

 

My heart sank for the second time that day. Whatever I hit ended up taking out 3 of the 4 wheels. But, they were still confident they could straighten them all out and have me back on the road the next day. I waited for a bit, got a tour, and received the next batch of bad news while doing so. 
 

"I can straighten two of the three, but one of them cracked. The manufacturer can get us a new barrel by tomorrow, via FedEx overnight shipping, and we can still have you out the door tomorrow,” the technician said optimistically. 

 

I retired back to the hotel, and my wife and I took advantage of the free morning and walked around downtown. 
    

Ten o'clock rolled around, then eleven, then noon. I called, and as luck would have it, FedEx showed a delay through the weekend and the following week. Back to square one. Luckily they found a loaner set of wheels and some take-off tires that they said I could drive home on, and when mine showed up, they would ship them to me. They got me fixed up and sent us on our way. Luckily there weren't any more issues on the way home. We drove nice and slow and steady. For a total of 98 hours of seat-time, start to finish, I'd say we did OK.”              -Trevin 
 

 

 

Learn more about the origin of the Ferrari FF: SERPENS here