NorCal (Bay Area) DRIVE Chat Thread

[TheMedakaBox]

Reporting in from Elk Grove. Topped off on E85 last night and heading out to Alameda! See you guys soon!

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[TheMedakaBox]

For those of you that didn't come out to the Alameda Drive you guys missed out. Stoping for a quick break in Castro Village

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[nimble]

@TheMedakaBox Super bummed! Looks like a great turn out! Woke up at 6:45am and realized I wouldn't be able to make the drive out from SJ to Alameda in time (45 min drive, not including a gas pitstop).

When is the next one?

[TheMedakaBox]

More images of today!

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[undefindedt]

It was tons of fun.
My apologies for my shitty driving and my shitty bald stock tires held you up and your experience was displeasing. I owe you.
I also owe you Drew for the lunch, thanks for that.

Thank you for all the fun everyone!!

Till next time

[funwheeldrive]

It was good driving with you guys. I wish I could have stayed for the whole trip. Hopefully I can head down again soon.

[Clipdat]

What a great day of driving! I've had a minor case of writer's block in regards to figuring out how I wanted to type this post, just because there's a lot to express but yet difficult to find the best words to do so.

First of all, I didn't expect 6 cars to roll out to Alameda by 7:45am to join me today. Especially coming all the way from San Jose, Napa, Stockton, and Tracy. Your excitement and dedication to come drive these cars like they're meant to be driven is really awesome. THANK YOU for coming out!

We had an extremely foggy, misty, and wet start as we climbed and navigated through Grizzly Peak at 8am. I was thinking to myself "No! It's going to rain again!", but then as we dropped into Pinehurst it cleared up and the roads were mostly dry. Although thanks to the recent rain, there was a good amount of dried mud, gravel, and tree matter on the road. Perhaps the dreary conditions convinced everyone to sleep in, as it was completely free of any slow cars.

Redwood Road conditions were good, with zero gravel and a nice dry tarmac to attack. A few cyclists coming the other direction, but nothing major. I saw a wild turkey posing on a mound of dirt with it's tail feathers fluffed out! Always fun to see wildlife on these drives. Redwood continues to be one of the best driving roads in the bay area, with a nice mix of technical corners and high speed S curves. I was so thankful that the road was clear of other traffic!

After a short break and car discussion behind Peets Coffee in Castro Valley, I was happy to see that the passion for our cars is still palpable after ~3 years. Love talking current and future mods with fellow drivers. As we pulled out for Palomares, I saw a number of expensive looking Porsche coupes pulling into the lot. I was worried that this meant there was going to be traffic on Palomares but fortunately I was wrong as it was completely free of slow traffic in our lane. As a small bonus, Niles Canyon was also completely open - how nice to be able to ease on and off the accelerator at my leisure on this road without being impeded. Spectacular.

We stopped at Sunol Super Stop for a quick fuel up and continued on to our final destination of Mines Rd. Since it was so late in the day at this point I didn't have high expectations of Mines since it's a fairly popular road. However, it turned out to be completely clear of other cars in my lane on both the way down and back up. Special props to @TheMedakaBox (you'll have to let me know what your forum name means sometime) as he was staying right with me even on stock tires. Loved the comments as we arrived at The Junction: "Do you ever brake?" and "You're so FAST!"

Had a nice leisurely chat outside The Junction and enjoyed the eye candy when a group of Audi owners showed up! We were all hanging out near our cars and they near theirs, and eventually they walked up to us and said "Mind if we check out your cars??" and immediately we said "Go ahead - and we'll go check out yours!" and we traded places. Very cool exchange and nice to see some fellow enthusiasts on Mines.

Headed back up Mines with a slammed silver BRZ @SLEEPER WRX (bonus pic of your tire tread - is it weird that have a very strong and visceral positive reaction to this tread pattern? I need these tires in my life.) chasing me and then had a nice sushi lunch at Wasabi Bistro. Hope everyone enjoyed the food!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: We're really lucky to have such an enthusiastic, friendly, respectful, and fun group of enthusiasts in our bay area 86 community. So awesome to see some new faces as well as established regulars make it out today. It's hard to describe how it feels leading a caravan of 6 other twins as you go canyon carving down a great road. Maybe someone else can lead next time and then they'll be able to have the same experience that I had today.

[GenRuleAThumb]

Sad i missed it, excited for the next!

[BigFatFlip]

Looks like you had a good turn out, I had to miss it due to daddy duties, I did however get to do redwood this morning, it was overcast and got a little sprinkly, but fun none the less.

Originally Posted by Clipdat

Headed back up Mines with a slammed silver BRZ @SLEEPER WRX (bonus pic of your tire tread - is it weird that have a very strong and visceral positive reaction to this tread pattern? I need these tires in my life.) chasing me and then had a nice sushi lunch at Wasabi Bistro. Hope everyone enjoyed the food!

What's up with those colored stripes? Are those supposed to be wear indicators?

[PMok]

Originally Posted by Clipdat

It's hard to describe how it feels leading a caravan of 6 other twins as you go canyon carving down a great road. Maybe someone else can lead next time and then they'll be able to have the same experience that I had today.

Thanks for everything yesterday Drew... the drive, the food, the conversation. Fantastic day for all of it.

Hope I don't embarrass you too much by saying this, but you've really come a long way since our early drives together... from being hesitant and asking to be all the way in the back of the line, to being leader of the wolf pack! You might try to credit the tires, or the suspension, or the exhaust... I know it's the DRIVER.

[PMok]

Here's my hastily thrown together video edit from yesterday... you'll see that the lens got too fogged up on Grizzly Peak, but I left a little of the footage in to enjoy haha.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y8URFse2fk"]NorCal 86 DRIVE: East Bay Drive - YouTube[/ame]

[Clipdat]

Thank you Plato for the kind words and thanks again to everyone who came out to make yesterday such a special day. "Leader of the wolf pack" - I like how that sounds.

Interesting perspective regarding how I've matured as a driver over the course of the last ~2.5 years! As one of the original members, I sincerely appreciate your insight and feedback. Yes, tires do matter, but what matters more is seat time. I picked up my car in the first week of December 2012, and now in late March 2016, I'm a few hundred miles away from hitting 15k miles. So, even though I've technically had the car for a long time, I'm still relatively new to it and still learning.

Definitely had a few moments yesterday where the car and the driver became one and everything felt "right". Specifically on Palomares and then on some of the single lane sections of Mines. I was pushing the car and feeling the limits of having zero degree camber up front. I can't wait to get my coilovers installed so I can finally dial in some useful negative camber up front.

Thanks for posting up your video, it's inspired me to order this (and a GoPro) and start making my own videos of drives: http://www.raceseng.com/tugless-view...ubaru-brz-2013brz-2013

Originally Posted by PMok

Thanks for everything yesterday Drew... the drive, the food, the conversation. Fantastic day for all of it.

Hope I don't embarrass you too much by saying this, but you've really come a long way since our early drives together... from being hesitant and asking to be all the way in the back of the line, to being leader of the wolf pack! You might try to credit the tires, or the suspension, or the exhaust... I know it's the DRIVER.

I don't think those strips are wear indicators but I could be wrong. I think they're just part of the manufacturing process.

Originally Posted by BigFatFlip

What's up with those colored stripes? Are those supposed to be wear indicators?

[PMok]

Originally Posted by BigFatFlip

What's up with those colored stripes? Are those supposed to be wear indicators?

I think they are simply stripes painted or otherwise laid on new tires. So you can tell quickly whether a set of tires is truly brand new, or have been used. Within the tread though the stripes can last a long time, I had a set of tires like 9 years old and still had them haha.

[finch1750]

Soooo whos down for a drive this Sunday? Not sure where yet. Maybe La Honda is in the rotation again? Or something headed towards Santa Cruz?