What’s In My Pack?

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Pouch One has a few bottles of hand sanitizer, bug repellent and sunscreen.  Hand sanitizer is very useful because it is usually pretty hard to wash your hands properly at the track.  The spotters stand is usually far away from facilities and sometimes your transporter is far from anything except for disgusting porta pottys.  Sunscreen is self explanatory.  I specifically carry bug repellent in this pocket for FD Florida because they have nasty chiggers that bite like hell in the grass around the track!
 
I keep this Borg Warner beer cozy in the pocket as well to keep my drinks cold longer.  FD events are usually either super cold, raining or blazingly hot.  They are seldom comfortable!  Having drinks and snacks help because at some events we might be in the spotters stand half the day and not get to eat.
 
If i need a bright light, I carry this Surefire ED2 in the second external pouch.  Eric Hsu got me this for my 50th birthday which was handy because my old Streamlight had just gotten lost.  For my critical lights I usually carry military or mountaineering like products because cheapo commercial lights like Maglites and their Chinese clones always seem to be dead or not working when you need them.  Old school Maglites used to be awesome but i think not so much anymore.  They must have started to make them overseas or something.  The ED2 is expensive but it won't let you down.  It puts out an amazing 200 lumens in a package the size of a mini AA cell Maglite! That's 10x brighter than a big 3 D cell police Magliite.  It also has a lower 5 lumen output setting  for extended battery life.  It's made out of hard anodized billet aluminum and is totally everything proof.  It uses a high power LED for low power draw and lithium batteries that can sit for 10 years without going dead and don't leak.  The lithium batteries seem to last forever too.  On top of that the crenelated ends are designed to be strike weapons as well.  The 200 lumens beam can also be used as a dazzle weapon. Cool!  I use Surefire lights at home too and in our family emergency kits due to their reliability.  I got sick of replacing screwed up Maglites.

In the small back pocket of my pack I carry some spare business cards because I always seem to forget them.  I also carry a pack of Claritin or Allegra D because I am super allergic to something that grows in the South and and on the East coast.  I also carry a Leatherman CX multi tool which i might have in my pocket alternatively to my pocket knife.  Jeff recently turned me on to this handy little pocket tool, it's awesome and I had to get one for myself.
The Leatherman CX is pretty sweet as it can function as a set of pliers, wire cutters, wire strippers, needle nose pliers, screwdrivers and what I like most: the blade opens with one hand and locks.  I hate pocket knifes with non locking blades because I had one fold on my hand as a kid.  Older Leathermans didn't have locking blades. I just got this tool a little bit ago and love it for track use.  It is way more compact than an old school multi tool and is super lightweight being aluminum and carbon fiber.  The block coating is DLC as well.  This thing is totally cool.  It will probably replace my pocket knife as my always all the time pocket tool.
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