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I was sitting in a flat in Paris last November and decided to put together a small run along the Northern California coast and into the Redwoods. The end of August looked good for weather and did not conflict with other events. The run would be a total of four days of insane coastal and canyon racing with stops for really tasty treats and beer (none of that pseudo-chicken BS here). If you've never been to Northern California or the Redwoods, it is impossible to describe. The scenic beauty of the coastline is eclipsed only by the enormity of the California redwoods. Check out the following pics of The Lost Coast and the Redwoods (it will save me from typing 1,000 words). The first day of driving had us meeting at The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. My buddies Ted and Seth came up from Los Angeles and met us there. Ted's car is a 1972 Datsun 510 with an Autech SR20DE engine that puts out 275HP stock (just say, wow!). Ted's also an avid racer that I describe as "boringly efficient" as he never makes a mistake on any track. Seth, well, Seth got to play bitch. I am running a modified 1969 Datsun 510 with a turbocharged and fuel injected motor. It sounds better than it is. The displacement is so small that I am probably getting only 135HP. No other cars showed, which was expected from a first year event that called on people to take two days off work, spend over $1,000, and drive at speeds in excess. We left and started heading up Hwy 101, across the superbly bonerific Golden Gate Bridge. Traffic was fairly light, but my car has an experimental engine management system controlling fuel and spark and it had been problematic to date, leaving me stranded a few times. The bridge would not be a good place to stall. As we exited the bridge, we turned off at the first scenic view that overlooks San Francisco and allows you to walk on the bridge. Total miles traveled for our first leg = 3. OK, a slow start, but neither Ted nor Seth had ever walked the bridge or seen a bunch of the sites up close. We scurried, took pics, and headed back for the cars. A few folks were checking out the car and eventually this led to our most heard comment, "I used to have one of those!". A bit of story telling and we were back onto Hwy 101 heading north.
Now, it sounds like fun cruising with your friends in old cars, but I had just installed a 4.111 differential and 45 series tires on 15" rims. Even with a 5 speed trans, I was buzzing at 4,000 RPM at 68 MPH. Ted, on the other hand, had a 3.90 diff and a 6 speed trans. He was at 2,200 RPM. We slowly wound our way to HWY 128, where hills full of trees took us out to the coast. The first half hour of HWY 128 was amazing. The turbo was spooled up to 16PSI out of every turn and I rocketed forward. But then it happened. Damn slow ass people in front of us. My car became a cow scoop as I slid up slowly on each person until they finally realized they were holding up traffic and scooted over. Not too bad of a drive. We ended up on HWY 1 in short order. HWY 1 is the scenic highway that everyone raves about. What they don't tell you is there are a few spots that are shitholes, like Fort Bragg, and that is exactly where we were headed. We were supposed to stop for lunch in Fort Bragg, but we ran late. We did see a few other Datsuns in groups and thought they might be looking for us to caravan to the meet spot a few hours away, but they went on their own way. Could be because we had to skip the lunch meet spot and there was no way of notifying anybody. Oh well, next year will have registration. We made our way around some jackass driving his van on the railroad tracks that kept dropping the crossing gates on everyone. Somebody should have just beat the shit out of the guy. And then we hit the coastal part of HWY 1.
We were all alone. No cars on the road. This is the part in all those pictures where the road is perched high above the ocean. And there were no other cars in sight. I mashed the accelerator to the floor and spooled up the turbo and attacked the corners with wreckless abandon. Ted was on my ass. I pitched right, then left, sliding around hairpin turns with only a small gaurdrail separting me from the cliff and ocean below. Ted was still on my ass. I upshifted into a corner, gaining speed before the entry and kept my foot into it the entire time, spooling up at the apex and blasting out of the turn like a Saturn V rocket at Cape Caniveral. Ted was still on my ass. I looked closer and Seth had a death grip on the "oh shit" handle. There would be no in-car footage of this section. For 30 minutes we blasted every turn, every straight, every transition, never seeing another car in front of us, behind us, or coming the opposite way. The coast was amazing; the sky was clear blue and the sun was smiling down upon us. Everything was right and Baby Jesus wept. We had caught the very best section at the best time with nobody to get in our way.
The last turn along the coast was a right hand sweeper that led uphill, into the Redwoods. This section of the Redwoods connected scenic HWY 1 to ugly HWY 101. The good news was that it was about an hour of driving a small twisty two lane highway through the forest and we were still alone. The bad news was that a crash here meant you were going to *smack* a 200 foot tree with a 12 foot or larger base. Airbags were not an option in 1969 and the crumple zone is your spine. The turns between the trees were rated at 35MPH. This was not the white sign, but the orange sign. You see, in California, white speed limit signs mean that is the law. Orange signs mean a group of engineers figured out the safest speed for the road was a certain limit. To us white signs means you risk a ticket and orange signs mean you risk your life. We hit the turns a touch over 65MPH. The turns in the forest were so tight and came in such quick succession that I started to slide around my seat a bit just from man handling the steering wheel. I was using 4 of the 5 points on my racing harnesses, but I guess I should have put a 2" trailer ball in the center of my seat and butt clenched to stay centered. And Ted was still on my ass. About 40 minutes into the trees and it happened. Some dumbass in a newer shitty Chevy Impala pulled out right in front of me. These dumbasses not only blocked the road, going 30 MPH slower, but also were weaving so we couldn't get around them. I thought about just pulling a dangerous manuver in a turn, but after looking around, realized I was in the middle of nowhere and a crash would mean that most likely the first people on the scene would be Skeeter and Bubba with a meat wagon. I decided I could slow down a bit and ride the last 20 minutes or so at a moderate pace.
We said "so long" to the hillbillys and jumped on HWY 101 North for another 45 minutes of FWY driving before we hit our destination above Eureka. Pulling off the FWY, we noticed the hotel row was really crack alley. There were burned out busses with dirty hippies living in them. Panhandlers were all over the place. Cardboard signs at every corner and in front of every store. What the hell did I get us into? Just as we were exiting the car, a local named Doug pulled up and spoke to us for an hour. Cool guy. Saw our postings on the net and wanted to join in, but his car wasn't quite ready. We told him where to meet us for breakfast the next day and headed into the hotel lobby. Just then three more Datsuns from Oregon pulled in. Our twosome was now a fivesome and there were a few racers in the small pack. An evening of Mexican food and beer ensued as we prepped for the long Saturday the next morning.
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