The 510 Realm

One day back that’s Herculean

Ice D

While I take a break on the pictures, here is some useless information:

I did a total of 1,962 miles (3,256 km), I had a high of 32.9 mpg on the tank where it was a cruise at 120 kmh for 700+ Km.

Pretty much averaged 29 MPG for the trip

My low was 24.3 as that was traffic and a slow back road when Georges and I missed the exit and did a scenic tour of wine country.

Do some weight lifting before going, as packing that 45 gallon drum of wine out of the grocery store was a bit of a work out.

Also, double check your GPS when going on a long trip that it actually shows streets where you are going. My Garmin did not as I got south, do not know why, going to ask Garmin.

Gotta watch for blown up tires, reminded me of my trip to Tuscon from L.A.....600 miles in 6 hours...rental car....

Have GOOD headlights if driving at night, I was glad I put my new bulbs in and there were LOTS of exploded animals on the highway.

Saw a trailer that had a fire, never saw such a flat aluminum and steel slab.

Went to a really nice pizza and pasta place late at night, there was damn near every ethnic mix there eating, way to go America!

When an accident happens down there it is BIG, speed is up and the volume of traffic corks INSTANTLY, mindblowing.

Morning World !

Hard to put into words this trip, EPIC is what comes to my mind. It is impossible to convey the excitement of the event, let alone the Specialty run to the Championship. The tension in the garage at times was palpable, culminating in the GT-3 race itself, which upon reflection was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend for all who were there. There is not doubt the hype for Collin to win the GT-3 race was there and the crowds reaction to the barn burner of a race spoke volumes.

To drive that distance and see ALL the things I did, scenery, traffic, people, the race environment, the camaraderie, was beyond description too. It is seared into my brain and I made sure I took a ton of pictures, most of which will be buried in my digital archive that at least I can go back and look at.

I did one small thing, I sewed a Canadian flag onto the sleeve of my Specialty T-Shirt, proud CDN of course, but, that little flag got me some very cool access to a few things and made a couple of friends who gave me something that they would not normally have done. That is going to be a bit of a surprise for the Specialty gang just down the road.

For the most part everyone was super friendly and those that invited us into their very special garages and workshops is something I will never forget. To see the motor sport history as we did, to be able to touch Niki Lauda's F-1 car, Ronnie Peterson, Jody Scheckter....what can you say..there was even one of Davey Allison's NASCAR's there. As it turned out, in the garage next to us, was a Datsun 510 that was I believe rebuilt by Troy Ernish, and next to that was a Porsche 911 that had major history up the ying yang, driven by Walt Maas. Ed, the owner, went and got a sheet that was the finishing results of a race, that has ALL the major racers of the time on it, Mark Donahue, Peter Greg, Hurley Haywood, Sam Posey...and on. Maybe it is just me, but, to be in a place like that with such history that goes back to when I first got interested in racing, I just tried to soak it up.

The passion in the garages was expressed as the true motorheads they are, we even met a woman who was mechanic of the year, so bubbly and passionate about what she was doing ( for 18 years)...today it was a full carbon fibre car, Honda powered, that was crazy fast during it's race.

I will just throw some pictures up now, in kind of a lineal order, you will get the drift at any rate.

So, Here we go, just a few shots of the drive down, Mt. Shasta is just plain cool, the rolling hills in California were pretty neat also.

Palm trees are still cool.

This are from when I first got to the track, shot with my point and shoot. I had to park at the far end of the track, 1.5 miles from the garage, then Andy ran me up to the car on the ATV and I could park at the garage, I think I walked about 5 miles over the week.

The I switched to my Tablet, shot some ok video too, as I had access to a good vantage point.

More from the garages, etc,.

Troy's 510 of course and the Joe Huffaker pit, he broke an axle after being involved in Troy's shunt during qualifying, admits he should have checked it before the actual race.

More

More, now we switch to the garages with all the F-1 cars, etc. There was even an IMMACULATE CHEVRON there, my stupid tablet did not lock on so it is a bit fuzzy

More cool STUFF

More

More...That is James Hunt's F-1 car on the deck

More...look at the size of those primary's on that 2L motor

And it just went on..
Back to the race stuff

more..on the podium, off the impound and scales. Andy always makes sure the car comes in heavy.