Live fast, die young
Souped-up cars, hunky males, hot women and blaring sounds dominate the car racing circuit. Be it organized or underground, auto sport never fails to bring in their loyal followers.
Many films were dedicated to car enthusiasts casting actors who are also passionate with these four-wheeled machines. From Paul Newman to Nicholas Cage to today’s current film stars, we enjoyed the scenes involving cars with the need for speed.
Most of our generation came to love a movie franchise combining rebellion, banditry and fast cars. The “Fast and the Furious†movie series captured the car freaks in all of us, went full throttle when Vin Diesel’s biceps challenged Dwayne Johnson’s rock of a body in the 5th and 6th installment of the FnF film.
One of the lead stars, Paul Walker, a few days ago had his life ended ironically in a flaming car crash, as a passenger on a red Porsche Carrera GT. This car is not for ordinary living things like you and me as it sells in excess of P20,000,000 and only seats two. Its V-10 engine has 610 horses, roughly three times the power of your average car. Automotive reviews say that this vehicle is notoriously difficult to handle even for experienced and professional drivers. With this kind of power, this car doesn’t run, it flies on the road. Sure, anyone in this country worth his PDAF can have a Porsche but let’s forget fast. With the kind of drivers and traffic we have, its more of the furious thing.
With a degree in Marine Biology, Walker has dived and tagged great white sharks for National Geographic, rides the big waves as an avid surfer and maintains a fleet of cars which he races. Filming on the 7th installment of the FnF series was on-going in Atlanta but is indefinitely halted due to the lead actor’s untimely death.
Now let’s get to know the driver, Roger Rodas. Walker met him at a California race club when he noticed that Rodas was driving a Porsche GT3 he once owned. The two had some conversations and the rest, as we all say, was history.
Rodas, who comes from El Salvador, is also into charities, raising money to help orphans and widows in his country. He owns a race shop in Los Angeles, called Always Evolving, is captain of their racing team and has Walker listed as driver on the team. This explains the common bond between them.
Recognized as America’s top 1000 financial advisers, Rodas is managing director of wealth management for Merril Lynch. He reorganized Walker’s finances and converted it to a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, cash and alternate investments to preserve capital. Considering Walker’s income is not regular, Rodas meets with the actor everytime a film is completed and reevaluate their finances.
It was Rodas who advised Walker to put up a bonded and insured car shop that caters not only to his passion but also accepts labor from other car owners, thereby generating income for Walker to finance an expensive passion. Paul used to spend his own money to maintain full-time professionals to handle his vehicles prior to creation of the car shop.
Knowing Roger’s philanthropic work back in El Salvador, Walker invited him to form a foundation to help countries in need. Together in 2011, they founded Reach Out Worldwide, a network of highly mobile first responders assisting third world nations in the aftermath of calamities. ROWW was one of the first responders in Leyte after Yolanda left behind massive devastation.
Both Walker, 40, and Rodas, 38, attended a ROWW fund-raising event prior to the tragic crash. The fast and the departed. Hopefully, their work will inspire more actors to show more concern to the less privileged.
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“I can buy you, your friends and this club.†This statement has probably made the BIR chief really interested in the female “buyerâ€. Na hala, go na. And can we just stop the tele-novela at the Senate? There are better things to do than calling each other names. They’re not “honorables†anymore, but sounding more like horror-rables.
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