The Story of Velocitaters
Velocitaters – Proving you can start with nothing
The Start
This may be a long, boring story of Velocitaters but you can’t change history. My first car was a 1978 Honda Civic, silver with rust spots. I named it Spud. Then my second car was a brown 1976 Dodge Monaco Royal – also with rust spots – and called it Spud 2. Consequently, people assumed incorrectly my nickname was Spud.
It started here – well one car before actually.
How It Happened
In the 90’s, I was interested in computers and cars – specifically racing. Wanting to combine my interests in making websites and racing – I ended up with a themed site for amateur racecar drivers. It all began on Geocities, and after moving it to AOL, Velocitaters finally ended up with a .com in 2000.
The tatercar favicon – it is my hat tip to the past:
Where did the name come from?
I wanted to come up with something ultimately unique. My Dad, being a Professor of German, influenced me to try using some German words for “potato” to join with different words that meant “fast.” At my parents’ house I grabbed the dictionary, and after about 20 minutes of frustration, my Dad asked me what I was doing.
I explained what I was hoping to do, and how I liked “velocity” and wanted to mesh it with something potato-like. I explained my process of using foreign words but I was not happy with any of them, as they didn’t flow.
When I got done explaining, he paused for about 5 seconds and exclaimed out with, “How about Velocitaters?”
My mouth dropped, as I knew this was it! It was perfect!
Life Happened & Is Still Happening
Velocitaters – went on permanent vacation. Somewhere around 2003 – I had moved cross-country to Los Angeles and basically just paid to hold the domain name. Met my wife, and later on, we moved to Raleigh-Durham.
Revival
It wasn’t until late 2014 that we started going out discovering Raleigh, and going to car events. Falling in love with photography and cars I started to play with the Velocitaters website again. The spark is back!
To learn about the next stage please go check out Shifting Gears Towards The Future.
While going to car shows we became friends with a particular family, and one of them used the word “Velocitaters” in a way I hadn’t ever expected. He called US – The Velocitaters. This opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at how to utilize the meaning.
Velocitaters now stands for anyone moving forward. Whether you are feeling stagnant – at work, your self-growth or life in general, you need to find that part of you that pushes you forward even if it is just a small amount.
Future
Help people in the local community grow their businesses, while others can realize their dreams in a more realistic way.