No Good Story ever started with going to bed at 10pm. There are very few good reasons to drive two hours to Dublin on a Thursday night. Especially when you have work in the morning. And especially when your smartwatch has already decided that you should be in bed early tonight. But sometimes, you go anyway.

Our goal for the evening was two-pronged. Firstly, shoot some rollers of Livs C33 Laurel for a video I'm working on. Preferably in the port tunnel because who doesn't want to see a Midnight Purple C33 ripping through a lit tunnel at night?

Secondly, meet some friends who, very often go to great lengths to attend my events but I'd yet to meet them on their home turf. Avi, who runs Black Cat, has been putting on an event called Texas Fridays for the last few years. Despite the name, Texas Fridays occasionally happens on a Thursday, which is either a logistical inconvenience or a very convenient excuse. And I’ve been threatening to attend for a long time. Which, given what I’m about to talk about, feels slightly contradictory.

Texas Fridays has gone from small meet, to one of the better gatherings in North Dublin, to nearly being cancelled altogether due to some very unwanted guests and back to small gathering again. Which, I guess is how a lot of get togethers tend to go when public spaces are involved. So, on a warm and humid August Thursday, we set sail from the sunny south east and headed north. Firstly, for something far greater than a car meet. Sustenance. If you’re ever in Blessington, San Patrizio Pizza is well worth your time. I’ll say no more on that for fear of branching into a loose food review channel. Actually, I will say one more thing. Chorizo and hot honey is a ridiculous combination, and I mean that in the best possible way.

After meeting Avi, Luke and Ismail, and filling my face with ample amounts of doughy deliciousness, we made our way through the glorious North Wicklow mountains, making a beeline for Dublin Airport, which is roughly where this little get-together happens. On arrival, we were met with a small crowd of highlighter-pink T-shirts and Air Max-clad teenagers, who instantly began filming Liv’s C33 Laurel from every Dutch angle that was remotely possible. There was also a selection of diesel Golfs and Leons who seemed genuinely offended by the audible rumble of SR-powered shotgun pipes. Slowly but surely, some tasteful machines began to appear and once a few more people had arrived and started introducing themselves and their machines, the conversations began to flow.

The laughs got louder. And the wheels started turning in my mind about why this all works. Why do people turn up to this expansive petrol station on a random Thursday to hang out? Why does everyone seem to be permanently busy nowadays? And what is the actual state of the car scene in Dublin?

I don’t know if I found the answer to any of that just yet, but we’ll continue the story and revisit that question later on. About fifteen or twenty people had gathered by this point and, as is the norm, we’d fallen into variously sized groups. Some people were chatting about detachable number plates. Others were discussing neon-draped subwoofers. And Luke’s super-rare Lexus IS100 was getting my undivided attention because he had just fitted a delicious confetti recaro on a custom rail that was tallboy approved.

The spot had a massive turnover of both regular fuel-grabbers and people who were there purely to hang out. It was getting busier at this point, and the planes flying overhead from the nearby airport were beginning to make conversation desperately awkward. There’s only so many times you can ask someone to repeat themselves before you just nod and pretend you heard what they said. So sometime around eleven, we decided to bail out for our third and final location.

I hadn’t been in Grand Canal Dock, or Dublin’s inner city for that matter, in years. And with the Port Tunnel closed for some unknown reason, it made our journey through the heart of Dublin all the more authentic. Bustling traffic. Street food. Delivery drivers. Apartment blocks. The full experience. I’d never seen the Dublin Convention Centre at night in person, and what a first experience it was. Hanging out of the back hatch of a Range Rover filming Liv’s C33, Smiley’s EK9, Avi’s 350Z and a few other cool machines as we came across the excellently lit Samuel Beckett Bridge. It was one of those moments where the footage looks a lot more organised than the reality actually was.

After some well-coordinated hard parking at Hanover Quay, we all fanned out and began snapping photos, telling stories and shooting videos. The Red Sticks added an atmospheric hue to the mix of warm and cool street lighting, and their reflections on the water further added to the magic of an evening where there was no wind and it was still safe to wear shorts after dark. Dare I say it, but the atmosphere was somewhat romantic. Like I was in a Fontaines D.C. music video. Just with more questionable wheel fitment to the occasional passer-by.

We called it quits around one in the morning. With a two-hour drive home ahead of me, it gave me ample time to break down the events of the evening and try to understand what had made me drive to Dublin on a fucking Thursday, get home early Friday morning, and why in Christ’s name I had to be up for work in five hours. By the time my head hit the pillow, the whole thing was a bit mushy. I couldn’t see the wood from the trees.

After a couple of days processing — I’m a slow learner — it occurred to me that I didn’t stay out way past my bedtime to film Liv’s Laurel or Smiley’s EK9. Sure, that was a cool part of the evening, and I’ll get to use that footage to tell the story. But I would’ve gone without the camera. I went for two reasons. Because sound cunts are in short supply. And because modern society — or my smartwatch — would tell you that I should’ve been in bed by 10:30. I’m not saying you should be up until all hours every night of the week. There is a limit. And I've certainly been burnt out on more than one occasion.

No good story ever started with a 10pm bedtime. Or a salad, for that matter. When people go out of their way to make the effort and that effort is returned and reciprocated, it feels like everyone’s pulling for each other. And that positivity is something we could all do with a bit more of. I’ve lost track of the amount of boring people I’ve encountered in my life.