NorCal (Bay Area) DRIVE Chat Thread

[BPM]

Anybody here makes drives to woodside regularly?

[PMok]

Originally Posted by SLEEPER WRX

No no no, don't change anything
That's his unique writing style
Not only what he writes, but how it looks - instantly recognizable!

LOL I get what you're saying, but ... I encourage anyone to write stories and be creative and practice their expositional skills. However good writing skills are a must for many well-paying jobs these days, and if you're practicing writing I think it is a good thing to learn to write better. It will not only get you better understood by others but will get you better paid.

[PMok]

Originally Posted by BPM

Anybody here makes drives to woodside regularly?

84/La Honda is one of our favorite short drives... sometimes we even go mid-week after work or in the evenings. The MR2 club meets up at Alice's from time to time for dinner too and I always try to make it out when it's there.

[BPM]

That sounds like a blast. La Honda is the closest place for me (still a 30min drive there) so I would venture down there from time to time. Never get to meet any tuners there though, always see nice exotic cars or motorbikes.

[Clipdat]

I loved this part!

Originally Posted by Simpleviet

. I had slips in the back to see how much I can push into a corner anything above 55 – 60 got me slipping and some 45ish were like eeeeee a bit hahaha. I was having a blast! A part of the trip there’s a straight road online. I want to say I finally hit my first triple digits in this car 100 – 105 mph. The car was floating a bit? I had my windows down air going through it may have cause the effect I don’t know! There was a little slump in the road when I was driving at that speed it felt like a roller-coaster just dropped bit and that feeling in the stomach it gave me the chills.

[Simpleviet]

Originally Posted by B2FiNiTY

nice story man. throw some paragraphs in there. i'm dizzy lol

Originally Posted by SLEEPER WRX

No no no, don't change anything
That's his unique writing style
Not only what he writes, but how it looks - instantly recognizable!

Originally Posted by PMok

LOL I get what you're saying, but ... I encourage anyone to write stories and be creative and practice their expositional skills. However good writing skills are a must for many well-paying jobs these days, and if you're practicing writing I think it is a good thing to learn to write better. It will not only get you better understood by others but will get you better paid.

Lawls, I appreciate the advice. I like writing out my experience that deem appropriate to the forum. It's like an AAR --> After Action Review. A term used in the Army. Basically, a review of the experience and what can I learn from it or improve upon it. That's where sometimes the forum can pitch in and maybe help me out why the car acted that way.. The unexplained hahaha. However it isn't always there. I preferably want to share the experience for those maybe never driven there or perhaps something we could all learn from it. Who knows.

[Clipdat]

It sounded like that noise you were describing was the front tires understeering or skidding slightly as they struggled to respond to where you just told them to go in the corner.

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by Simpleviet

Lawls, I appreciate the advice. I like writing out my experience that deem appropriate to the forum. It's like an AAR --> After Action Review. A term used in the Army. Basically, a review of the experience and what can I learn from it or improve upon it. That's where sometimes the forum can pitch in and maybe help me out why the car acted that way.. The unexplained hahaha. However it isn't always there. I preferably want to share the experience for those maybe never driven there or perhaps something we could all learn from it. Who knows.

I personally like the narrative, kinda like just hearing your thoughts out loud (I always picture a "Simpleviet's log, stardate 2013..." intro, lol). Content is great, composition could use some work, I personally have a hard time reading it, being a former editor, but hey, its your self expression, so more power to you.

Originally Posted by Clipdat

It sounded like that noise you were describing was the front tires understeering or skidding slightly as they struggled to respond to where you just told them to go in the corner.

Drew beat me to it: sounds like you're under-steering into those corners (not safe), focus on slowing down ALOT on your entries and setting up your corner exit, keep those eyes up to see what's up ahead and just have fun with your exits when it looks clear. Don't mean to sound preachy, just have personal experience with friends getting hurt this way and would hate to see it happen to others

[overlookedx]

@Simpleviet I personally love your writing style, always gets a laugh out of me and the gf because of the huge block of text and stream of conscious narrative. Whenever I'm with the gf and checking the boards and come upon one of your weekend updates, I just have to show her for one second and she instantly knows it's a post from you and asks for some excerpts.

Keep it up!

[BRZkitty]

Drove 17 mile drive, Pebble beach today. It was perfect weather and less traffic/people on a weekday. I think we should invade the beautiful place with 86s and photo shoot!... What do you think @PMok? Also found a fiero on the side of the road.. too bad it was an automatic :<

[PMok]

Originally Posted by BRZkitty

Drove 17 mile drive, Pebble beach today. It was perfect weather and less traffic/people on a weekday. I think we should invade the beautiful place with 86s and photo shoot!... What do you think @PMok? Also found a fiero on the side of the road.. too bad it was an automatic :<

Looks awesome! I haven't visited 17 mile drive in years... it's not cheap to enter, but yeah we should do it at some point, the photos would be great.

[PMok]

Time for my own stream of consciousness story... with all due respect to @Simpleviet for popularizing the form.

I had lunch with some friends today at Vesta in Redwood City and afterwards stopped by Massdrop's HQ in Palo Alto to pick up the Carsmo spoiler they so generously donated for our prize raffle party this upcoming Saturday. Hung out a bit and chatted with andysaurus at Massdrop about some of the offerings for our cars they are working on. I can't really say what some of them are yet but very cool stuff and I look forward to seeing more of their drops coming soon.

After that I had nothing really going on so I decided to head up into the hills via the nearby Oregon Expwy to Page Mill Rd. Traffic sucked donkey balls through Oregon but cleared up as I approached Page Mill. Up the hill I go, traffic was fairly light but I took it easy. There is several miles stretch near the top as you near Skyline that are all super gravelly due to repaving work. Once I got to Skyline it was smooth sailing and I headed north to Alice's. A brief stop at Alice's to pump a few gallons of gas at the pump there as I was running low. God that pump is slow, I stood there for about 5 minutes and got about 3 gallons in. That was enough to cover my planned route so I stopped it and called it good.

Firing up the engine I pull out of the Alice's lot and wait. A few cars had just passed by heading W on 84 towards the coast and I wanted to give them some time to get further down before I started my attack. It's a delicate game of balance and patience, you don't want to wait too long and then more traffic comes along and you have to reset your waiting period once again. But you go too soon and you find yourself catching up to the slower traffic ahead within a few turns and that's no good either. Dammit here comes a truck towing a trailer and a sedan following it. I wait a few more minutes and as I see another car approaching, I decide it's time to go. I pull out in front of it and head west on 84.

It's a familiar road to me, 84 to La Honda. One of the best and smoothest roads in the area. I drive it every few weeks. But something is not right today. I see orange pylons at the edges of the road, one after another. And then off on the shoulder of the road, I start seeing large trucks and other construction equipment. Almost before I can curse mentally in my mind, the sound of gravel and rocks starts clattering in my wheel wells and off the body of the BRZ. I slow down and start wondering why the hell all of a sudden all my favorite roads are all being repaved, making them virtually undriveable with all the loose gravel that fills the road. Page Mill. La Honda. Stage Rd. Mines Rd. Redwood Rd. Nothing gold can stay. I enter a kind of dark mood of despair and dismay. Summer is over, it's getting colder, it's getting darker. All my favorite roads have gone to shit. I should sell my car and buy a freakin Prius. Or a Nissan Leaf. Someone shoot me.

After a few more miles of this the road clears up and the gravel is gone. I pick up the pace and within a few turns have caught up to some very slow traffic. The truck with a trailer and right behind it an Acura sedan. We continue on in formation until we reach the small town of La Honda. The 2 vehicles kept on going so I pull off into the small La Honda country market to take a break and get a drink. It's a nice little market and they don't gouge you on a bottle of water or a snapple, just reasonable prices and friendly people. As I get out of the car one of the locals is circling my car on foot and admiring it. He asks me, "isn't this one of those new Scion G37s?"

I said "no, that is the twin to this car, this one is the Subaru Skyline GTR." Of course his next question was "how much HP?" "Not much", I replied, "just about 500 at the wheels -- it's not really about the power though, this is more of a handling car." He nodded in agreement, saying "it's a beautiful car, none of those exotics I always see on these roads can beat the value of this car". We exchange the knowing looks of mutually discriminating car connoisseurs and go our separate ways.

oops time to go to bed... to be continued...

[B2FiNiTY]

Nice story!

[Clipdat]

I know exactly what you are talking about! It's great to master this trick. I like to do this where Pinehurst meets up with Redwood. There's not a lot of room to see who's coming though so I usually roll down the passenger side window and try to listen for a car that's coming before I will pull out.

Really works well to put a big gap in front of you!

I liked the part about the Subaru Skyline GTR! hahahah

Originally Posted by PMok

It's a delicate game of balance and patience, you don't want to wait too long and then more traffic comes along and you have to reset your waiting period once again. But you go too soon and you find yourself catching up to the slower traffic ahead within a few turns and that's no good either.