Run To PARADISE

THE FOURTH ANNUAL OXYTECH PUB RUN WAS CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL

- ANDREW BROADLEY

I THINK former SMOTY champion Aaron Gregory said it best when he referred to the Oxytech Pub Run as a men's mental health retreat. After all, it's kinda hard to have the shits with life when you're fat-arming it up the coast in your pride and joy alongside a couple of dozen like-minded lunatics on a Friday afternoon, bound for a pub.

Pub Run was the brainchild of Oxytech frontman Scott Barter, and each year it sees a tight-knit, invite-only group of automotive industry peeps park their responsibilities, pile into their many and varied jalopies, and point them toward the northern horizon.

The destination is the always-awesome Tea Gardens Hotel, a beaut rubbity-dub on the banks of the Myall River on the NSW Mid North Coast. This year's cruise officially departed from Brintech Customs in Western Sydney, but for some it kicked off days earlier, and from much further afield. Deluxe Rod Shop bossman Steve Alldrick, for example, jumped in his wicked Windsor-powered '32 tudor and cruised 800 clicks from Yea, Victoria just to make the start.

For yours truly, Pub Run was the first time I'd ventured into the wild in months, having been laid up after badly breaking my leg in a dirt bike crash just before New Year's. I was still on crutches and not yet cleared to drive, so I tossed the keys to my long-suffering Torana to my good mate Richard Shumack and assumed the role of passenger princess.