Ahhh it seems like only yesterday that we were all at the Midnight Garage grand opening having a blast with great food and amazing people…Anyone that follows The Chronicles and my adventures through life know that Midnight Garage and The Chronicles go hand-in-hand. It’s been a place for me to hang out whenever I have free time, and everyone that I know that has been apart of the Honda community has been by there at least once to chill. It was just a couple weeks ago that the east coast/midwest guys came out and stopped by to hang out. S2kjay’s car was just chilling out back and we were snapping pics of it…
Ahh how quickly things change…I’ve taken you guys on a guided tour of the place from the moment it has opened its doors to the public, the ridiculous situation when Ross’s xB was vandalized, the rebuild of the Phaze2 NSX, and now today, I come to you with sad news…the end of Midnight Garage…
I woke up this morning (okay, it was like 2pm) to a phone call from Ross. Normally when he calls me it’s not really too important, maybe he just wanted to grab lunch or something. I as usual had been up until the earlier hours of the morning (7-ish cuz I was updating this site), so I didn’t answer. I was gonna call the dude back in 20 minutes once I collected myself and woke up. I call back to see what’s up and Ross tells me the news…
I’d tell you what he told me but I think a picture would express it more appropriately…
This was the scene as I arrived…the whole street had been blocked off and traffic was being redirected so I had to pull into another lot and walk over…
What once looked like this when I rolled up to Midnight Garage…
…now looked like this…
It’s all gone. What we knew as Midnight Garage…no more. Just charred remains of what was once Ross’s everything…
My buddy Tony Lee had been passing by to get some stickers from Island Motorsports and saw smoke coming from the top of the building. He pulled up to the lot and noticed that the building next door’s rear door was turning brown…Apparently the owner of the shop next door had put something in his trashcan that wasn’t completely put out yet and the fire started up inside his shop and had somehow found an opening where the piping runs through both buildings and once the fire department pulled up, Midnight Garage just lit up and caught fire. Jimmy, who owns a metal fabrication shop a couple spots down, was close with Ross and wasn’t sure if anyone was inside so he went and tried to bust the doors down to no avail. The fire began to spread fast and luckily nobody was inside. Everyone had gone out to run errands not too long before that and the only part of the Midnight Garage family, Delilah the shop dog was still inside. We lost her. The shop dog that Ross and Sara so deeply loved…passed.
She had made her way to the bathroom to hide after the fire set off and she couldn’t handle the smoke inhalation. Firefighters took her out once the fire was out before Ross arrived back at the shop…
After the fire was completely out and the fire department was finishing up, we were finally able to take a look at the damage inside…
It didn’t look good at all…There was an Infiniti M35 that was inside as well and Ross had just left to go pick up some parts for the Universal Air system that he was gonna install this weekend…
I was speechless when I walked in…so much lost…it wasn’t even recognizable…From the outside, the M looked okay, we thought that there was just minor fire damage to the front end of it but once we got in there, that thing was toast…
All the tires and wheels that were inside had to be cleared out and was probably a major contributor in what made the fire so huge…
I kinda had a feeling it was gonna be unscathed even with the huge fire and I was right…
Underneath the burnt rubble against the shelf that had undoubtedly caught fire first, was my piece of shit Rota Slipstream wheel that I was intending to make into my Rotamaster Emo wheel…
Here’s a shot of the taillight on the M35 so you can get an idea of the extent of damages inside the shop…
The office was a bit better than the bay…mostly just smoke and water damage but it was just a mess. Surprisingly the most random things didn’t burn. The posters Ross had collected were just fine, as well as Tony’s NSX hood that he a bunch of import models sign and was keeping a memorabilia…
Here’s the ceiling of the office…the fire had begun to spread up there but firefighters were able to put it out. One of the guys that helps Ross out regularly had his custom kit for his xB sitting up on the ceiling area and it was so badly charred that he had wrapped itself around one of the metal ventilation tubes…
Since they were gonna board the place up and shut everything down, we had to empty out whatever was salvageable and move it to a storage unit. Surprisingly a lot of stuff in the office was straight…Laptop, computer, and all the important files and what not made it out fine…
Good thing Ross had great friends to come by and help out. Even Big Mike came down to lend a helping hand. By 10pm everything was almost out and a crew came by to begin boarding the shop up. The fire had started next door but Ross’s shop had so much more to burn and the fire hit Midnight Garage the hardest. It’s still unbelievable to look at the pictures now…
I mean, everything material is obviously replaceable but it’s just the time and blood, sweat, tears that were invested. That’s just stuff you can never get back. Plus there’s so much paperwork and stuff to deal with now and re-building is going to be quite a journey. I honestly don’t know what Ross is going to do next. It’s a shitty circumstance to deal with and I wouldn’t wish anything like this upon anyone….it’s gonna be fucking brutal the next couple months. My heart really goes out to Ross…man, just when he was starting to do really well and grow, shit like this hits the fan and we’re back to square one…and to lose another dog…man I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like…
All we can really do right now and sit and wait, and face whatever will come in the future head on….I’ll try to keep you guys up to date on what’s to come. I can’t really say if Ross will rebuild or not, I was with him the majority of the day and he and Sara were just kinda going through the motions. I don’t even think it has really hit them yet…
This is probably the least important of all that has happened but I told you guys about a bumper that I had been searching a long time for. I called it my “unicorn” not thinking I would ever find it. It was a JDM Cima GT front bumper that’s super rare because of the OEM optional lip that it came with. Believe me, that thing was rare…..one day while I was going through Yahoo Japan auctions, crazy enough, I found that shit. I was willing to pay whatever they were asking for and even managed to bring it over. It was sitting in Ross’s shop awaiting paint and fuck man…
…no more…where it was sitting in the shop I’m sure it was the first to burn. I don’t even know where the lip is at, probably melted onto the floor. Good thing the fogs were boxed up in the bathroom where it only saw some light smoke damage. I was able to save that and it’s sitting in my 4Runner now making the whole inside of the car smell like a smoke…I’m sure I’ll be able to find another one, just sucks that we all lost a little something in there. Tony had just picked up a rare Blitz kit for his GS300 the same time I got my bumper and now his sideskirts are toast.
At the end of the day of course all that stuff can be replaced…
I sent a text to Ross after I left…
“You have your life and those who think the world of you and care about you. That alone will give you the strength to get through anything.”
That’s all that really matters. Everything else is material and unimportant in the broader spectrum of life. Things can always be worse… It just sucks to have to deal with this stuff but we will all get through it…
That’s all I got for today…I’m exhausted…
Thanks to everyone that came out to help, I’m sure Ross appreciates you guys to no end.
Goodbye Midnight Garage and rest in peace to Delilah the puppy…