ABOUT THE BOOK

This was the moment it all started, captured by ace photographer Paul Mosely, immediately after checking in at registration at Hill Country Rallye 2025.

I had just released my photo book Waiting For the Sun to Come Down, and I was feeling eager to contribute to the Hill Country Rallye by putting together some kind of volume about the event. In my head, it seemed like the story could be told through photos. There are so many great photographers that attend, and it seemed simple enough to gather up and print some of the best images from over the years.

I asked Sean Brindley, “are there any significant anniversaries coming up?”

“Well, next year will be the 25th year,” Sean said. It seemed I had volunteered for the job.

Over the next few months, the photos started coming in. About 6,000 photos actually, all told. And as the Rallye photos piled up, so did the questions I had. When did the car restrictions — which were stricter than today’s event — begin to lift? What is the Early 911S Registry? What was the South Central Rendezvous? I learned that this event wasn’t even called “Hill Country Rallye” until a half a decade in, which makes sense, because when it started, it wasn’t in the Texas Hill Country.

This was going to be a lot more complicated than a mere book of photos.

I talked to Jamie Novak, who had been attending as long as anyone I knew, and he recommended some folks I should speak to. One call led to another, more names, and more people. In the end, I conducted about twenty-five interviews. At first, I was just trying to understand the history. How did this all come about? It wasn’t written down anywhere, and it seemed like almost no one, besides Ed Mayo, had a full picture of the sequence of events. Luckily, Ed has a fantastic recollection.

Over the course of these conversations with people, more milestones jumped out, and more things kept coming up over and over again. For a lot of people, the 2007 event was the beginning of the Rallye as we know it today. That was also the first year that the someone from Monterrey, Mexico came to HCR. For dozens of attendees, Jeff Trask is the reason they come back to the Rallye each year, all the way from the west coast. And for just about everyone, things haven’t gone to plan with their car’s reliability at some point.

I also had a survey sent out to gather memorable Rallye testimonials from people I didn’t have a chance to interview. Almost all of these made it into the book.

Once I had finished the text, there was still the matter of selecting from 6,000 photos. But now I had fifteen chapters and a chronology, and a sense of how this would come together.

From the start, I had brought on Chris Nguyen, a close friend and longtime HCR attendee, to collaborate with me with the design, direction, and overall management of this project. As we turned our attention to the design of the book, he suggested incorporating the textures and grit of the Texas Hill Country itself.