I figured the Chevy Silverado ZR2 Bison was in all probability overkill. A ZR2 Bison might be overkill for many conditions, however fetching a couple of arcade video games from any individual’s home appeared under its pay grade. Hitch a trailer, load up within the driveway, achieved. Not a lot event for Multimatic spool-valve dampers and locking differentials there, to say nothing of the Bison’s additional AEV underbody armor. However that is the good factor concerning the new breed of extraordinary off-road pickups: they nonetheless work as vehicles, when referred to as upon. So I grabbed a trailer and set my GPS to go meet a man named Tom. Simple sufficient, proper? Later, after I would seen Tom’s 200-mph bikes and do-it-yourself cannon and we might set the woods aflame with a fireworks launcher, I spotted that the game-for-anything Bison match into this mission a bit bit higher than I would anticipated.

Some minor overlanding was required to place the ZR2 on the entrance door.

Tom had some arcade video games for me, in varied states of performance, from mint to fixer-upper. The trophy machine, exhibiting indeterminate issues booting up, was a two-player 1998 Sega Rally 2 Championship imported from Japan by a U.S. army member who was stationed there. This is without doubt one of the coolest driving video games ever constructed, that includes automobiles just like the Lancia Delta HF Integrale and Toyota Celica GT-4. Every driver will get a handbook transmission (full with clutch) and a handbrake. The highest of the machine is topped with driving lights fitted in a purple metal tube body. All instructed, the entire thing weighs practically 1200 kilos. Thankfully, it may be disassembled into three items, however extricating it from Tom’s home would flip right into a mission that truly referred to as for the ZR2 to flex its chops. That is as a result of the video games would wish to come back out the entrance door, and Tom lives on 200 acres, roughly certainly one of which is between his driveway and the aforementioned door—up a brief flight of untrustworthy steps. “These entrance steps had been rotten after I purchased this place 23 years in the past, and now they’re worse,” Tom suggested, as we assessed the game-extraction prospects.

An event when a tall tailgate is simply the factor.

So, we might need to wrestle 500-pound machines out of the home with out utilizing the steps. I shortly realized that the one possible method (no less than, that would not finish with me crushed beneath a Sega Rally 2 Championship steering wheel) can be to detach the truck from the trailer, maneuver it over to the entrance steps and cargo either side of the sport individually into the mattress.

The Silverado’s hitch cam is clutch whenever you’re hooking up a trailer.

The Proper Instrument for the Job

The ZR2 proved the right instrument for the job. Its elevated floor clearance relative to a traditional Silverado’s put the dropped tailgate degree with the entrance door. Low-range four-wheel drive let me inch as much as the home to get the truck within the good place. And the ZR2’s softer suspension is simply the factor whenever you’re hauling fragile outdated video video games over uneven terrain. That comfortable suspension tune implies that the ZR2’s max payload—1520 kilos—is the least of any Silverado 1500, however nonetheless a lot for the mission.

It labored for a minute.

After a couple of journeys as much as the home, we might refined the tactic: Throw a recreation within the mattress of the truck, haul it out to the driveway, decrease it to the bottom, and wheel that sucker into the trailer. The Sega, although, was so heavy that we did not wish to cope with extraction from truck to trailer, so we tackled that one final and left it within the mattress. Within the course of, I realized that Tom is what you may name a fan of adrenaline.

Just a few dragon eggs.

Harmful Issues

In his sixties, with lengthy hair and a surfeit of vitality, Tom has a playground of harmful toys. In his barn, a number of terrifying bikes, together with a Honda RC51 twin-cylinder race bike, had been parked close by a do-it-yourself cannon that might be used to fireplace rocks at metallic targets hung in an adjoining vary he dug together with his excavator. There was a Honda 250L Rally dual-sport bike parked outdoors, however he stated he was promoting it as a result of it did not have sufficient energy to wheelie over obstacles within the woods. Quickly sufficient, Tom pulled out what I would describe as a fireworks gun, together with handmade shells bearing labels like “Dragon Eggs.” Quickly after that, we had been energetically shoveling filth on a small-to-medium hearth out within the woods, as a result of it seems you wish to shoot Dragon Eggs straight within the air and never on a 45-degree angle over the bushes. No drawback!

After about 10 minutes of Filth CrossFit, it was all put out, or no less than extinguished sufficient for Tom to complete the job later with the excavator. Lest you pigeonhole Tom as devoted solely to horsepower and explosions, one room of his home was full of guitars, and the only automotive within the storage was a genteel and understated Lexus SC430. “I purchased it from a bit outdated woman.” he stated. “It is a hardtop, it’s a convertible, it is a Lexus with an enormous V-8, and it was $7000! What extra would you like?” I can not argue with any of that, so I do not.

Driving the Rooster Truck

I questioned how Tom afforded all these cool toys, and he was blissful to elucidate. “I did a couple of years of faculty, however by no means completed,” he stated. “I ended up shopping for a hen truck and driving it. I would receives a commission $1.43 a mile and do 600 miles a day, so 3000 miles per week. You do the mathematics! What different blue-collar job is gonna pay a pair hundred grand a yr? I cherished it. Driving is not even like work. You are simply sitting there, and it does not odor as a result of the chickens are behind you. But when I may inform you what number of little outdated women handed me at 100 mph as a result of they did not wish to be behind the truck . . .”

Every driver will get a legit e-brake.

Tom purchased the arcade video games when his youngsters had been little, and now that they are grown up he is acquired different plans for that room of his home. And I’ve acquired plans to repair the Sega, which initially booted up on one facet however not the opposite after which refused to start out up in any respect. As I bemoaned my incapability to sling digital filth in a bellowing all-wheel-drive gravel monster, I remembered that the actual factor was nonetheless sitting proper outdoors, ready for somebody to push the beginning button.

Senior Editor

Ezra Dyer is a Automotive and Driver senior editor and columnist. He is now primarily based in North Carolina however nonetheless remembers easy methods to flip proper. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and as soon as drove 206 mph. These information are mutually unique.