Show Up Anyway: A Builder’s Reminder for Summer

When the shop’s quiet and cold. When you’re under the truck at 11:42 p.m. telling yourself this’ll be the year. The year you finish the damn thing. The year you finally race, or finish your build, or heck, even go to your first diesel event. The year you stop making excuses and start chasing the version of you that doesn’t flake when it’s time to load up and go.

Those promises hit differently when you’re staring at a frame with no drivetrain and a parts list that reads like a phone book. But hope is easy in the cold. Summer feels far away. There’s time. Always time. And then you blink, and it’s June.

Suddenly there’s sunlight bleeding through the shop door. The calendar’s full of events. Your phone’s full of texts. And the excuses? They’re still there, but they feel heavier now. Harder to say out loud. Because this was supposed to be the summer you showed up.

I don’t mean perfect paint or a trophy-ready setup. I mean you—you, hauling out that half-built mess of horsepower and intention, and putting it on the line. At the track. At the show. On the back road where you said you’d always take it for a cruise.

This summer’s different. Or at least it can be.

We’ve all had those years where we watched from the sidelines. Sat behind the camera instead of in the driver seat. Telling ourselves, next time. And sometimes we were right. Life hits hard. Money runs out. Builds go sideways. There’s no shame in that. But sometimes we just got in our own way.

Let June be the check-in. Let it be the slap on the back of the head you needed. Because the weather’s warm, the roads are dry, and you didn’t pour blood, sweat, and stupid amounts of money into this thing just to let it collect dust until October.

Maybe your paint’s still trash. Maybe your tune’s not dialed. Maybe your trans leaks a little and your nerves are worse. So what?

Go anyway.

Show up half-ready and figure it out when you get there. Borrow tools. Borrow confidence. Do the burnout even if you think it’ll grenade. Chase the pass even if it isn’t your PB. Because no one remembers the truck that almost made it. They remember the one that showed up, flaws and all.

And hey, maybe this summer won’t be the one where you win. Maybe it’s just the one where you belong again. Where you remember why you started this mess in the first place.That’s still worth it.

We make a lot of noise in this industry. Big talk. Bigger plans. But the loudest thing you can do sometimes? Is quietly keep your word—to yourself.

So here we are. June. The sun’s up. The excuses are tired. And your truck? It doesn’t need to be done. It just needs to be moving. This is the summer we promised ourselves.

Let’s not waste it.

Dustin a.k.a. @Dusti_LBZ