⸻ peter gadiot, 35, cis male, he/him // in the MASONBORO neighborhood of Wilmington, you’ll find GAVIN ROBLES who’s lived there for FOUR YEARS and they spend their days working as the OWNER OF THE HIDEAWAY. They’ve been described as COURAGEOUS, RESOURCEFUL, RESENTFUL, AND MERCURIAL by the people that know them. This is his story.
“Every time I think maybe I’m heading in the right direction, I end up in a place I never even knew could feel this bad.”
triggers: car crash, alcohol and drug addiction
As a child, no one thought of their dreams realistically, or at least that would be Gavin’s argument. Never did he see his dreams, whichever one he ended up sticking with and pursuing, amount to anything. They were always these big ideas and something of grandeur and escape, since it also seemed that all kinds pretty much thought their hometown was boring. His first attachments to hobbies and likes were all things automotive, starting with collecting toy cars then building model cars and eventually working in the garage alongside his father. Gavin and his father got along best when they had a project they were working on together, and when his dad heard that he was interested in being a racecar driver someday they got into building go karts. He raced as a young teen and eventually grew into bigger vehicles as he grew along with his talent behind the wheel.
The graduate from karting was FIA Formula racing, and it was his biggest ticket out of the small town quaint life that Wilmington offered Gavin. He was fortunate to travel around the states and even a few stops outside with his success in karting but with Formula racing everything became a bigger and grander scale. Gavin kept winning and it seemed as though there was no stopping his rising star until a crash during his chase for his second Formula 1 championship nearly took his life. The recovery process and the time it took not only for his body to heal but also his mind was costly, and Gavin never made it back that season. His attempt the following year was a near disaster as his mind simply wasn’t right for racing anymore. Gavin couldn’t shake the newfound claustrophobia he had being in the tight driving space of the car, and he couldn’t get past the panic attacks he would sometimes have — even in the middle of a race. It all prompted him to take time off, go back to karting and working on builds, rather than continuing to force his dream of greatness.
It was another year before Gavin made it back to any kind of real racing circuit, only it wasn’t Formula 1 that he returned to. He began sports car racing and challenging for championships yet again. Success would be found and Gavin would win not one but two world championships before it would all be torn from him yet again with another horrible crash during a race. The road to recovery was difficult once more but even more so to his mind and spirit when the doctors advised he not race again, for damage done to his body and his head. His family and then girlfriend convinced him to take the doctors earnest requests in giving it all up, telling Gavin that he could manage a team or train other drivers. That he could open a garage and build custom cars and karts. Not being able to live his dream anymore and do what he loved had a dark effect on him, with a broken spirit and an unfortunate addiction to pain pills he began to drink too much. It took his girlfriend leaving him for Gavin to enter into rehab and try to make something of the shambles of his life.
There was a lot to regret and a lot of mistakes made because of his addictions, but he had one thing he could turn to and that was music. When he was a kid his uncle taught him how to play guitar and Gavin had fond memories of them sharing music together. Playing and writing music helped him in his darkest times and he had no desire to play in a band or perform, no desire to make anything of his own music. It was all personal enjoyment for him but with the money sitting in his bank account he decided to open up a blues club back in his hometown once he had returned from rehab. He named it The Hideaway for too many reasons, likely obvious ones but it was something for him to do and music had a way of soothing the demons that laid under the surface. Despite his faults, his addictions and the way his broken spirit can lay out onto other people, the blues club has become successful and gives Gavin a bit of meaning.
