Take it or Leave it NL: The Extremez

[Pocket with NL Extremez at the
Clarenville Drag-way]

Despite the title, I'm not going to rant about the NL Extremez motorcycle community, though I did have a great time racing them at the Clarenville Dragway and doing the Ride for Sight. The first part of this post is more "car driven". I apologize for the pun, it's late. I was never a car fan until I realized how upset I was after someone modded my Lottus without letting me know...in Grand Turismo. First thing's first, never mess with a girl's Lottus.

Then this September I started noticing cars, race cars, lots of them. Now, it could have been because all the Newfie race car drivers decided to go for a spin at the same time, or because of the fact it was during the 10th Newfoundland Targa (54 cars finished). For those of you who don't know about Targa Newfoundland according to their site, it is the first and only event of it's kind to be held in North America. This September, a multimillion dollar, one of a kind, Ferrari Enzo, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Marystown, Newfoundland. The owner (God love him) handled it quite well. Read the CTV news article.

[Ferrari Enzo crashes into the ocean]

I was discussing this event to a owner of a Porche 911 and he started talking about his to-do list for his trip to Vegas. In case you are one of the many people who suck at being a tourist like me, I want to let you in on several unique maybe-not-so-obvious experiences that you can have if you ever decide to travel to Vegas. I'll also mention several local alternatives.

[Racing an opponent at the
Clarenville Dragway]

#1. Locally, you can pull off a quarter mile on the Clarenville Drag-way, wait for Targa Newfoundland and chuck out a lot of dough, or pull some illegal stunts elsewhere. So, why don't you race against your friends in a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porche, Audi, or other fancy car of your choice on the Las Vegas Speedway with the Exotic Racing school. Yes, you can do this. Yes, you can go fast. Watch the video below to see the track.

[Flying in Australia]

I'm a bit of a thrill seeker so I admit, I was a little envious, and he couldn't stop there. He knew I flew 48 hours one Christmas morning to meet a girl my age from Australia whom I've never met in person before but use to MUD with a copious amount when I was 13. He knew that new years day, my last day in Australia, she dropped me off in a field and said she'd be back later. In the field was a shack. I walked to the shack and people were inside prepping to drop me out of a airplane flying over 14,000 feet in the air. This brings us to his second event. He sent me an email with the subject line "it's not quite a skydive but it's the best I can do...". Inside the email was a link to the video below.

#2. Jump off the Stratosphere with SkyJump Las Vegas. If you YouTube this, you will get many entertaining reactions of people taking their very first jump from the SkyJump's wrist camera which can be supplied during the event. You can do this during the day or night. For those who cannot make it to Vegas to zip through the sky, there are several local options. Marble Zip Tours has eight zip lines and is located in (you guessed it) the Marble Mountain ski resort in Corner Brook. Here is a blog of someone who has experienced it. Marble Zip Tours also have ATV tours. Zip the North Atlantic has seven zip lines (according to the government) and is located in Petty Harbour, 20 minutes from downtown St. John's.