Archive for the ‘Driving’ Category

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More like 600 – 2010 Motherlode 400

June 23, 2010

Rarely but rarely, I get the urge to torture myself by actually driving one of the old jalopies in the RustyButTrusty fleet. This time, it was the spider’s turn to do the dirty work (and it was actually quite dirty) and be the ride for my father and me on the 2010 Motherlode 400. Now, you’d think something called the Motherlode 400 would be 400 miles long… but it’s not. It was actually about 300 miles a day, Saturday and Sunday, plus another 300 to get to the start/finish in Jackson/Sonora, CA, respectively.

These weekend drives are actually surprisingly strenuous, on driver, passenger, and car. By the time we reached the top of the 9624-ft. Sonora pass (highly recommend it, it’s like if they put great driving roads in Yosemite – not that I’m suggesting that, but the roads are narrow and the views are tremendous) on the 108, the car was panting and we were doing mostly second gear to keep the power on tap.

motherlode 2010 5

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Use It or Lose It – 1979 Alfetta GT Goes on the Snowball Rally

April 28, 2010

Occasionally, I feel the need to prove my old cars are not just there to decorate the garage, reduce the values of surrounding homes, or give my wrenches a purpose in life. Those times, I pack up some tools, some clothes, grab my co-driver, and hit the road. Most recently, that was the Snowball Rally, this past weekend. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a several-hundred mile drive through eastern California back roads, up to Lake Tahoe and back.

The ride of choice for this weekend was my trusty ’79 Alfetta GT (when’s the last time you heard “trusty” and “alfetta” in the same sentence?). This car has served me well as a weekend driver and on road trips to Palm Springs and Seattle/Vancouver. With its new seats and hatch strut, it was all dressed up for a long-distance trip. While not as fast as some of the cars on the tour, it was only truly lacking power once we got above 5000 feet or so.

1979 Alfetta GT goes up to 8900 Feet

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On the Road – Bernal GT 100 in the 1979 Alfetta GT

February 1, 2010

Just to prove the cars all work, occasionally they actually get to do more than just run out to the shop for maintenance and smog-related work (don’t ask me what I’m currently doing to get the Beta through smog). The message came through late last week that the weather was good enough for the inaugural run of the Bernal GT100, and since the spider hasn’t been out in a while, we picked it to be the car for the day. So you might ask, why are there no pictures of the spider? Well, at 8:45am on an empty stomach, the battery (despite being disconnected) decided to fail after a bit of cranking the car over on the starter. So the Alfetta got the opportunity to step in, which was just as well since it ended up being rather cold & foggy on the early part of the run. And of course, being the scruffiest looking car I own, it fired up on the first try!

Luckily I’d had the foresight to fill it up last week, and since I hadn’t cleaned up the fuses or grounds, which has been causing some brown-outs with headlights, radio, and radar detector on, I cracked open the windows and listened to Alfa music instead. After grabbing some breakfast at our favorite coffee shop near Kim’s old place, we headed up to the Diamond Heights Safeway for the meet-up. Yup, the Bernal GT 100 started in Diamond Heights – I’m guessing because of the convenience of parking, coffee, and pastries all in one place.

Bernal GT 100 Porsche 914

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