New club focused on giving back

There's a new club in town, and they're on a mission to give back to the community.

After just being founded in September, Notorious Performance Car Club has already hosted one community event and is planning another.

"That was pretty much all we ever did was played little league baseball, football, and basketball, and now that we're older, we understand that no one really gets paid to do those things," said one of the club's founders, Alex Galvan.

"(We want) to be able to do things for the community, for kids, adults, anything. We just wanted to make a bigger impact on the community," added co-founder Draven Saiz.

With both born and raised in Portales, Galvan said they became close in high school while playing baseball together and have been best friends ever since, sharing a passion for baseball and for customizing their trucks.

Saiz said he and Galvan had tried to join another car club and, after being unable to do so, he approached Galvan about starting their own.

"He was on board from the minute I said anything about it. He was really excited about it," Saiz said of Galvan. "We've been really into vehicles forever, always upgrading them, always finding something to do with them."

Saiz said he and Galvan just wanted to be able to share in their passion with others while also giving back to the community.

"We knew some guys who had done work to their vehicles and took a lot of pride in their vehicles, and we started by asking them if they wanted to join," Saiz said. "Then it slowly started expanding itself. We started having people ask to join or who had buddies who might want to join, and it just kind of took off from there."

Galvan said the two men had both asked their brothers about joining, and their brothers in turn asked some car enthusiasts in Clovis.

"Everybody was just really on board with what we were trying to do," Galvan said. "It was really cool to see everyone come together like they did. And now, we are all really close. Those guys from Clovis, we didn't really know them, and now, we can call them for anything. We just became close like that in a short amount of time."

And "that was the whole goal when we started this," he added, was to build a club family and to give back to the community at the same time.

Saiz said the club meets monthly and the meeting activities vary.

"It ranges in different aspects. Some meets, we are getting together to plan what the next event is we are going to do, and some meets are to put a lift kit on somebody's car. It is very family-based, so sometimes we get together with our families to just visit," he said. "It's really gotten me out of my comfort zone. I've met people I never thought I'd meet, and it's given me an opportunity to be more involved in the community."

The club hosted a drive-thru trick or treat event in Portales in October, and they are making plans to provide Christmas for a local family in need in December.

"It's really given us a chance to give back to the community. The support we got from the town when we played little league sports, it's nice to be able to give back to the town that supported us all those years," Galvan said. "We are fortunate enough to have the nice things that we have, and there are some people who are not as fortunate, and we didn't see why we couldn't give back to people a little less fortunate than us."

To ask about joining the club or to find out about events, visit the club's Facebook page, Notorious Performance.