The Weekly Reekie: Danny and Alex - A Drag-and-Drive Bromance
This week, Sick videographer Matt Reekie discovers friendship forged in bad ideas…
I’ve been watching a bromance blossoming since Death Week and it warms my cold heart. Danny Grubaugh and Alex Brody are a couple of kindred spirits aged 17 years apart, and their friendship is a prime example of drag-and-drive’s propensity for bonding automotive adventurers together like J-B Weld.
Since they first met six months ago, this pair has traveled over 10,000 miles in cars together. They’ve crossed the country three times within arm’s reach of one another. Hell, they’ve even been to Disney World together!
“He’s a great road buddy,” Dan said of Alex. “He’s 19 while I’m about to turn 36, so I’m twice his age. But he has a good head on his shoulders. He’s a hard worker. He puts his mind to something and does it.”
“He’s an amazing guy to be friends with,” Alex said of Dan. “He always supports dumb, bad ideas and they turn out to be great adventures!”
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Dan and Alex live 45 minutes from one another in Southern California but they may have never met if it weren’t for Death Week. Their origin story takes place in late-September at Duct Tape Drags at Tucson Dragway, Arizona. Alex noticed that Dan had a Death Week sticker on his car, and that’s how they got to talking. Death Week was less than a month away, and, since neither of their cars had more than the trip to Tucson plus a few more miles on it, they made plans to meet up and drive together to Wild Horse Pass for the start of the event.
No doubt this odd couple would’ve turned some heads on the interstate – Dan’s kooky green 1973 AMC Hornet Sportabout station wagon with a Bob Ross plush toy zip-tied to the grille (yes, that Bob Ross, the guy who did the art show on PBS back in the eighties). And alongside it, Alex’s brawny rust-and-blue 1974 Dodge Charger with an ironic surfboard strapped to the roof racks and a lifesize skeleton in the backseat.
Story continues below…but in the meantime, how about some more Weekly Reekie?
Death Week was a heavy bonding experience even by normal drag-and-drive standards. I put this down to factors such as the magnitude of the nine-day challenge, the lower-than-normal car count, the jaw-dropping beauty of the sights, and because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Dan and Alex felt the love along with everyone else, and they kept in touch afterwards.
“We’ve done a car event together each month since Death Week,” said Dan. “I’ve become a part of the Brody family already! I’ve been going over often since they live close. Alex’s parents love the fact that I can be somewhat of a mentor to him.”
They met up for more good times at Hot Rod Garage Day at Famoso in November and the three-day Hot Rod Power Tour West in December. Alex was in his Dodge while Dan was in the rare Dodge Charger ‘ute’ that he raced at Sick Week in 2022 and ’23. Sporting the number plate ‘HEMI UTE’, it’s a 2006 Charger RT that’s been converted into a two-door pickup using a Smyth Performance body kit. This will become a crucial part of the story later on so hang tight…
The next step in their relationship was teaming up to take on Sick Week 2024 in Dan’s Sportabout with Alex as co-pilot. The plan was to drive the wagon cross country from SoCal to Orlando and back, but they only got as far as the outskirts of Louisiana when the engine threw a rod. This led to an insane thrash to perform a complete engine swap followed by a 10-hour cannonball run to Orlando Speed World, where the pair showed up covered head to toe in grease with just an hour to spare before tech cutoff.
“Swapping an engine with Dan was an adventure in itself,” said Alex. “We were both extremely tired but we tore into it, and, with our combined knowledge and will to not quit, we got it done. It took me being forceful with a rather large pry bar to finally get the motor in but in the end we made it on time.”
From there it was mostly smooth sailing and they had a blast at Sick Week. They went to Disney World and bought Mickey ears. They got the Sportabout to run its quickest ever quarter-mile pass – an 18.98! And they won the event’s inaugural Top Tourist award. They then drove all the way back across the country for a final tally of 6640 miles in the one trip.
A few weeks later, the two Mouseketeers were back together again on another hare-brained adventure. As it turned out, while they were having all that fun at Sick Week in Florida, Alex found time to buy a Dodge Charger ute very similar to Dan’s, a Smyth conversion deal, only this one was based on a 2008 Charger RT AWD. It was an unfinished project, running and driving, but the pickup bed wasn’t attached to the chassis and the back window was out of it. Alex made arrangements with the owner to return at a later date and pick up the pickup.
Dan and Alex took a red-eye flight to Tampa with the aim of cobbling the ute together enough to drive it home. Friday morning, they got to work riveting the bed onto the chassis, hooking up the tail-lights and duct-taping them in place, and installing the rear glass. That took a couple of hours and then the adventure really hotted up. Friday night it was off to Bradenton to watch a demolition derby at the Freedom Factory, Saturday it was up to Gainesville to take in the NHRA season-opening Gatornationals, Sunday it was over into Alabama to visit with the king and queen of drag-and-drive, Keith and Tonya Turk!
After that it was mostly just haulin’ ass and adding gas all the way back west. They arrived home in the early hours of Wednesday morning with another epic adventure in the books and all kinds of plans for the future. This weekend they’re meeting up in Vegas for Muscle Cars at The Strip!
The plan for Alex’s ute is to finish up the bodywork and freshen up the paint. It’ll be his daily driver, but there’s a high probability it’ll see drag-and-drive action eventually. Of course, ride-or-die Dan is down to assist. Then they’ll have matching rare Dodge Charger utes! Now ain’t that just the cutest little bromance story?
Stay Sick, and tell your pals you love ’em.
Matt Reekie
