Running After the Ice Cream Man, or Picking up the Sidewinder

Remember when you were a kid and you heard that sound? You know, the sound that could motivate the dead to rise and you to drop whatever you were doing and run like hell screaming with whatever coins you could find clinched in your tiny hands? It was a melody that seemed to carry through the air even from miles away and could interrupt anything that was going on in your life at the time making you swing your head in the direction it was coming from. Yeah… that sound: the Ice Cream Man’s theme. It wasn’t the same theme every time and there were different vehicles, some yellow and some white… but they all had the same wonderful junk. Where else could you get ice cream with gumballs for eyes for one hand and a giant Pixie Stick for the other hand? Ah, the rush.

Anyway, I can honestly say that vision is the only thing I could use to describe the excitement that quickly spread at the Bosch Technical Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan when Jim and I arrived to pick up the Sidewinder after the DCX Tech Fair. As we fired up the engine its sound traveled through the plant like the Ice Cream Man’s theme, pulling people from their desks and stations. We had a long drive ahead of us traveling from Michigan to Chicago so we let the Sidewinder warm up for a while, and the crowd grew. The Bosch folks were genuinely excited to see the truck. Good. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see the people who are responsible for some of the most advanced automotive systems on the planet impressed to see our “little engine that could.” These folks are our peers, and partners in our upcoming Duramax race efforts. For them to be that thrilled says a lot about what we do, and what we can accomplish together.

Wait till the Type-R is done. We might have a riot on our hands.