West Palm Beach is about to be infiltrated by car lovers—lots of car lovers—for the fourth annual FuelFest.
Scheduled for March 8 at the South Florida Fairgrounds in West Palm Beach, the day of drifting, music and revving engines is all for a good cause: the festival benefits Reach Out WorldWide, a nonprofit founded by the late actor Paul Walker in 2010 after the devastating earthquake in Haiti. When he died in 2013, his family and friends carried on the mission, and for 15 years, ROWW has traveled the world helping people impacted by natural disasters.
Bringing together things that Walker loved—cars, music and giving back—FuelFest has raised more than $600,000 for the nonprofit. The family-friendly event kicks off in Tampa on March 1, and after Florida, the festival continues on in Atlanta, California, Utah, Texas and Arizona. So far, the entertainment is ¡Mayday! and DJ Paul Hogan.
“This has grown to be one of the biggest shows that we do all year and Florida has become home to where we start this tour each year,” says Cody Walker, Paul’s younger brother. “The car culture in Florida is awesome.”
Singer and fellow “Fast & Furious” actor Tyrese Gibson, who hosts the event alongside Walker, calls it “therapy with adrenaline.” He also noted that the event brings together people of all walks of life for a day of fun. “We’re really excited about bringing this energy to the city,” he said.
Boca magazine had a chance to chat with Gibson and Walker in anticipation of the fourth annual FuelFest in West Palm Beach.
How did your love for cars and the culture start?
CW: I am much younger than Paul. Same parents; I was the surprise, the accident, the blessing, I’ve been called many a thing…I was in seventh grade when the original “Fast & Furious” came out. Paul and I were extremely close, actually the age gap made us closer. It was almost like I had two dads growing up and I spent a lot of time on set with Paul throughout my childhood and traveling the world with him and he took me to a lot of the stuff he was going through with the car scene.
Like a lot of American kids growing up, on the west coast, my dad was into motorcycles and older cars and Chevys and Fords and all that, so he came into that realm we kind of grew up around that. Paul landed “Fast & Furious” and became indoctrinated with the whole tuner culture and became a big tuner car guy, a Japanese tuner car guy. That brushed off on me big time.
TG: I grew up in South Central, next to Compton, called Watts, and we were more so into the old school, the Impalas with the hydraulics, basically all of the images that you seen from all them NWA videos, Snoop Dogg, Easy E—those were the cars that took over our world. We weren’t really into anything new, everything was about the old school.
South Florida has really embraced the Cybertruck. Thoughts?
CW: I was open-minded about it, but the more I see them, the more I hate it.
TG: Not for me. That’s a no. I’m not feeling it all.
There’s definitely subcultures within the car world; how is this represented at FuelFest?
CW: That’s one thing that makes Fuel Fest unique; we are not a make or model specific show, we’re putting on an automotive festival that represents the culture as a whole, so you’ll see all different makes and models, you’ll see show cars, you’ll also see race cars. Those are two different things and we’re bringing everyone together under one umbrella, so to speak.
There are so many subcultures within the culture and we’re uniting everybody together to create a family-friendly event, and kids 12 and under are free. We want to inspire the next generation of car lovers too.
Tyrese, can we expect a performance from you?
TG: I’m always on stage, I’m always performing. It’s full throttle up there. I’m that guy riding go-karts through the crowd.
CW: True.
TG: I’m just wilding out…Me and Cody tend to drive around at the event on little scooters where we’re like literally driving through the crowd on them little stand up, two-wheel scooter bikes that are electric and our security hate our guts. But we are all just about connecting to people and just wanting them to feel the love and appreciation because they could be anywhere and the fact that they’re showing up to our little event is a big deal.
And of course, proceeds benefit Paul’s nonprofit, Reach Out World Wide.
CW: It’s something that he funded 100% on his own when he was here with us, and when he passed away it left a gaping hole as far as what was going to happen so far as the organization. I wanted to create something that Paul would want to get behind if he was still here and something that was sustainable that we could do all over the place…We call it partying with a purpose and a portion of the proceeds of every FuelFest since day one have gone directly to ROWW.
ROWW has done a lot of work in Florida for hurricane victims, but also right now in California with the devastating fires. How have you and your loved ones made out?
CW: I have a lot of friends who have lost their homes. Before moving, I lived in Altadena and my house was spared by one street, so a lot of our friends and neighbors were impacted.
It’s terrible, honestly…It went from wildfire to neighborhood fire. And let’s not forget all the other parts of LA that were burned. Over 10,000 structures. That’s a lot of people now who are homeless and have nowhere to go and are in a bad place because of what was going on with insurance and people getting dropped by their insurance. It’s really, really bad. It’s going to take a long time for things to be normal.
TG: I definitely got a few people, my lawyer lost her house, burned to the ground, it’s definitely a few people that I know of…I’m just praying for everybody. Life is more precious than any materialistic possession, but I just couldn’t imagine, ‘Hurry, hurry up, hurry up, grab the animals, grab whatever you can,’ and the smoke, inhaling all of that smoke, and just literally being traumatized and terrorized while dealing with ‘How do I get out of here alive?’ Grandparents, people that are disabled, animals; I’m an empath so I just felt everything.
CW: Aside from obviously donating money—if you can’t donate money that’s fine too—they’re always looking for volunteers that are local, typically to the disaster area and always looking for volunteers. That’s what makes everything work.
TG: It’s also all of the things that are needed during a natural disaster. Water, IV treatment, any medical supplies, any and everything, it’s all welcome. People are out here starving, losing everything they’ve ever worked for and if you have something that could make a difference besides your time and beyond your money, go to ROWW.org.
You said you wanted to create something that Paul would stand behind. What do you think he’d think of FuelFest?
CW: He would be blown away and so humbled by this whole thing. Paul was a very private person, honestly. It sounds crazy because he was in Hollywood, but when they weren’t making the movies, he was off in some part of the world helping people or he was surfing somewhere or just driving his car. He didn’t really care for all of the limelight…He would be very touched by the way the car community has come in, how much people looked up to him. He didn’t think of himself that way. He was just a normal dude. So I know he would be really touched by all of this.
I know he’s looking down, shaking his head sometimes thinking, “This is crazy.”
TG: Paul was an adrenaline junkie. He has the same personality as me. We’re extroverts while being introverts. Time to isolate, be alone when it’s just to be around our immediate loved ones, we do that really well and then when it’s time to go rally, no one goes bigger than us. Paul would have probably been out there jumping out in the audience crowd surfing.
To learn more and to get tickets to FuelFest, visit fuelfest.com/south-florida
