Across the country, the love of muscle cars, trucks, racing, hot rods and big ol' engines is celebrated. That is a party that we are lucky enough to attend, and when we do, we bring one of our Mr. Gasket Race Trailers. The east coast trailer is a 53 ft. full size black truck with a big Caterpillar motor and a lift gate to help load a Mustang into the top. Fully loaded, it goes about 80,000 lbs. Filled with displays of our newest products, a distributor testing machine and some parts to rescue our friends at the track, the truck also features it's most valuable cargo, Tom. Tom has been behind the wheel of our east coast race trailer since 2004. There's a tight community in the world of the drivers who attend the car shows and races across the country, and they all know and respect Tom. I've been lucky enough to go out and work with him at Cruisin' Ocean City, Rockingham and Kalamazoo, and it is far from easy. The reality is when we go to help out at the events, we don't see 50% of the work it takes to get there. I sat down and got Tom's story for this article.

Favorite Destinations

Tom loves going to Daytona for events. First off, the speedway is awesome, just great to be around. It's also some of the best weather he gets to see. Navigating that truck can be tough, so the open space at the events in Daytona is also favorable, plus "they have lots of good restaurants there."

Favorite Car Out There

Every weekend at every show, Tom finds a car that he falls in love with. When I asked him what his favorite was, he said "Besides Al and Don's Kracklin' Rose? There's a '65 Impala with a great big motor and a blower on it."

Tom's Street Cred

Tom is no stranger to the garage, after being involved in racing, he's now excited to focus on 2 1965 GTOs he is restoring. The first one he is tackling has a 400 Pontiac engine with 3 deuces. He says he's putting on some Lakewood suspension products and he is always keeping an eye out for GTO parts.

The Road Warrior

Last year Tom wanted to give our own Tim, who has taken the Exhibit Manager position, a taste of the road. He invited Tim to not only work a show in Texas but then make the late night drive to Florida and sleep in the truck. Tom says it's better to stop at rest areas than truck stops because a lot of truckers keep their noisy generators on through the night. When it got pretty late, they pulled into a rest stop to get some sleep. A truck pulled in next to them with a really noisy exterior generator. About every 20 seconds you'd hear the pop off valve releasing the pressure and it sounded like a pistol. After a while counting between pops, Tom got to sleep. In the morning when he asked Tim if he had heard the valve. Tim hadn't gotten a second of sleep, and could tell you the exact number of times the valve popped per hour. Tough sleeping conditions and long late night driving isn't the hardest part about being on the road. Tom says what he misses most is his family, especially his 12 grandchildren. He looks forward to getting home to catch high school football games at 3 different schools, wrestling, cheerleading and anything else they do. We love being a part of the family at the car shows, drag races and cruises. We love the fact that when you're in a pinch, we might have the gasket or wires to help out. We know that having our displays out there gets you excited about our latest products. When it comes down to it though, having people like Tom behind the wheel, that is the key to our east coast Mr. Gasket race trailer.