This is what went down in Denver on 4/20/2010. Outside the State Capitol thousands of marijuana advocates, both medical and pro-legalization, gathered to celebrate the strides in progress and at the same time, protest the continued war on drugs. The city of Denver is walking a fine line between huge advances in the legitimate medical community and legalized marijuana use, as hundreds of dispensaries now serve over 100,000 “medical” marijuana patients. In the downtown area they’re more common than coffee shops and fast food restaurants combined. And the numbers continue to grow, with the Health Department receiving over 1,000 applications per day! At this rate, Colorado will most likely go the way of California and put full-on legalization before the voters sometime in the near future.
As thousands lit up as the clock stuck 4:20, a vast cloud of smoke filled the air of Civic Center Park, while inside the Capitol building city officials voted on new dispensary regulations. More photos and the full story at www.denverpost.com.
Ken Block and Travis Pastrana are in Portland this weekend, taking on the rest of the field for the Oregon Trail Rally, round four of the 2008 Rally America National Championship. Team Subaru USA landed at the Portland International Raceway on Friday before heading out to the Tillamook State Forest for the real deal this weekend. Lucky for me, I just got back to Portland and was fortunate enough to be invited to ride along with Ken for a little demo on what these guys do for fun. Check out the video below to see what it feels like coming into a 90-degree turn at 90+ mph in a souped up Subaru STI.
We’ve been featuring press releases about Team Subaru’s accomplishments for years, but it took a ride in the car with Ken to understand how incredible of an organization this really is. Keep in mind that Ken Block and Travis Pastrana came into this highly competitive sport with no prior formal race training, and immediately began to dominate the point standings. Two guys from a skate, snowboarding and motocross background have managed to not only take over the Rally America circuit, but managed to bring Rally Driving in general to a larger audience via the Summer X-Games. They even got BMX champion Dave Mirra on the team now! It’s inspiring to see these guys not only achieve greatness in their previous endeavors, but continue to follow their dreams and be successful at another true passion in life. Special thanks go out to Team Subaru for the invite, and to Ken Block for not rolling us into the ditch.
Ken and Travis in the line up.
Mobile Garage.
Sometimes I wish I had a pit crew.
Strapped in and ready to rock.
The Cockpit.
Ken gets plenty of support from the 20-man crew that travels the world with team. Vermont Sports Car handles everything, including shipping the cars to Europe, South America and Japan in the PWRC class international circuit. That’s right, when Ken’s not busy making dope sneakers or new snowboards, he’s racing cars around the world. Not a bad gig, I’d say.
Confusing computer stuff.
Man, heading up to the hill in this thing would be fun!
Good ol’ #43. Check out Ken’s monster jump below too if you’ve never seen it before. Ridiculous. —Pancho.
