| Turbo Related | 51.5% |
| Car Related | 36.8% |
| Non-Endemic | 11.7% |
I have been thinking a lot about T-shirts lately. I have 68 of them. My neighbor here at work, Dan Frio, editor of Honda Tuning, has 12. Yikes. I am a prime candidate for TLC's "What Not To Wear" TV show. I usually wear a pair of jeans that are three- or four-years and 40-pounds-ago old. The belt I bought on vacation in Ireland last year has gone from the second-to-first hole to the last and I am contemplating notching a hole of my own. Fashionable for me is wearing black jeans with a T-shirt.
I am the tip of the spear for Turbo magazine and feel I should represent 24/7, so I am usually wearing a Turbo T-shirt with my jean selection of the day. The fact that, like a seasoned magician, I could always pull one out of the hat (or drawer) got me thinking about A) how many T-shirts I have and B) how many are Turbo related (have the magazine logo somewhere on them). I was staring at a deadline and was yet again column-less, so at about midnight the search was on. I elected to categorize my findings under three headings - Turbo Related, Car Related and Non-Endemic.
It was evident early on that I am a car guy to the core as the non-endemic pile was a wasteland. In my searchings I came across some classics-a couple of 1995 10-Year Anniversary Turbo shirts, a cool 1998 CMI North vs. South event shirt from Sacramento Raceway and an OG RS Akimoto Speed Factory shirt. On the new side of the ledger I had five Turbo shirts, one Trek To Texas shirt (with Turbo logo) two Papadakis Racing/AEM shirts, one Urban Racer shirt, one Rotary Performance shirt and one Turbonetics shirt-all still in their bags.
I pilfered my dresser and back-tracked all the way to the washing machine. After finding two dirty Turbo shirts in the hamper, one soggy Turbo shirt in my gym bag and realizing one Turbo shirt was serving as pajamas for my daughter, Clarise, the tally was 35 Turbo. Car Related checked in with 25 and the lowly Non-Endemic managed a measly 8. Two of these had to do with horse racing; a 2004 Santa Anita Derby shirt and a shirt from The National Irish Stud. While this subject matter deals with A) racing and B) horsepower (one horsepower), it is still non-endemic.
The breakdown by percentage can be gleaned in the accompanying chart. The mind-boggling thing is 88.3 percent of my T-shirts have something to do with cars.
One of the more difficult shirts to categorize was the one Clarise made me when she was four years old. It depicts my Buick Grand National being so cool the sun has to wear shades. Since the shirt, made at a time between T-shirt redesigns, had a "logo" on it I counted it under the Turbo heading. There are two factors that make this tally more "impressive." About two months ago I whittled down the number of shirts I had, and I don't have a single copy of the latest-generation "Get boost or go home a loser" Turbo T-shirts. Whoa, I feel the ratio going up. I have to call "Grand-ma-ma" in the marketing department and place an order. See ya.