Art of Gears
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Aaron Kaufman Says Goodbye On Discovery’s Mega Race

By Martin Feigen

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Tonight’s Mega Race on Discovery is more than just races between the Fast N Loud crew and the Street Outlaws team. It is a farewell to our beloved bearded wonder, Aaron Kaufman.

After weeks of build-up and car building, the Mega Race is finally here. The killer crossover is not about March Madness, but Motor Mondays on Discovery. Two of the biggest car shows in the country head west to face off in a unique set of races between four teams. Texas versus Oklahoma and Aaron Kaufman versus Farmtruck with AZN in two matchups that will have us talking for a long time.

As big as the on-track battle between the two groups is, it is being overshadowed by the departure of Aaron Kaufman. As the Mega Race was being announced, Kaufman was breaking the news to Richard Rawlings that he was leaving Gas Monkey Garage. It came as big of a shock to Richard as it did to the fans.

When Farmtruck and AZN showed up at Aaron’s house to challenge him to their own race, we got a few more episodes with Kaufman on his own. It has been interesting watching AK build his first solo project in his garage. It made me wonder if he might end up having second thoughts about leaving Gas Monkey and the resources he had there.

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The difficulties all four groups have faced getting ready for the Mega Race have been crazy. Both Big Chief and Farmtruck have had to change cars mid build and rush to make the trip out west. The new Crow that Big Chief and the boys have built is part nostalgia, part modern beast. It is a tribute to the car he ran when Street Outlaws became a must-see show on Mondays.

Gas Monkey Garage opened the checkbook and went mad on their build. The problem was, they did not check to make sure all the pieces would work together. A huge engine purchase had to be completely rebuilt to work with their setup. It would seem Richard should have brought in the Laughlin boys before he started giving out his credit card information.

Even with a longer build time, Gas Monkey ended up in a massive time crunch after slapping the wall testing. The Street Outlaw crew was pushing it to finish after a very late start. Just to be able to make it to the track on time it is going to take rivals working together. It has been an entertaining month watching vastly different groups building some mean machines.

It is fitting that what could be the last we see of Aaron Kaufman would be racing a crazy project. His LS powered BMW represents why he left Gas Monkey Garage. Aaron has a vision of what a unique build should be in 2017. It is more than what can be shown on existing television. His attention to detail and desire to engineer something new is difficult for viewers to understand.

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However the Mega Race turns out, I hope this is just the start of more crossovers of our favorite shows. I would love to see the Diesel Brothers get involved along with the guys from Chrome Underground. It might be a sad goodbye to Aaron Kaufman, but it could be just the beginning of a lot of fun for viewers.

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