NFIBMT '07
NFIBMT '07
A friend and I recently went of the 9th annual NO FRILLS IROM BOTTOM MOTOR TOUR here in SoCal. It's a 3 day 1000 mile plus road ralley that starts at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and ends up in Paso Robles at the end of day 1. This is a free event and any pre 1975 4 wheeled vehicle can enter. As it's almost ALL on poorly maintained twisty back roads, sports cars are the norm. Porsches, Fiats, MGs, Austins, Volvos, Mercedes, Audis, Citroens, a 440 V8 Jensen Interceptor (!), Triumphs, strange European cars I've never heard of, a couple of Mustangs, my friends MG/TD VW kit car.... and my 1974 Dodge W200 Powerwagon. Over 60 cars in all. Needless to say I fely a bit out of place! 3 days of pure terror foot to the floor in 3rd gear keeping the 914s and MGBs in sight as they disappeared around blind corners. I wasn't the fastest car by a long shot, but nowhere near the slowest. I think my clutch, tires, and brakes just had half their life worn away in 3 days, but it was sooooooo fun! At first the other drivers ignored me because I'm driving a truck, a 4X4 at that, and that was ok. But by the end I had everyone giving me thumbs up and telling me stories of how nervous they got looking in their mirrors just before diving into a 25mph turn at 60mph and seeing my front bumper. I was so busy trying to not run over the Fiat 600, getting out of the way for the pack of fast cars who would run up behind me before I could react, range cattle, deer, single lane roads 18 inches wider then my truck, and trying to read the route book as I had no co-pilot, that I only managed to get a few pics. One of my friends red MG/TD kit car the night before the ralley at the send off dinner with my almost 4 year old son being a ham, and a couple of my truck somewhere along the route when I had to stop and read the route book/pee/cry/take a bunch of deep breaths/wait for the feeling to come back into my hands/ or all of the above. Luckily I have 2 big fuel tanks, averaged 7mpg, and cost over $120 a day in gas. Next year I'll drive something else, anyone have a 1974 Plymouth Cricket for sale?
He gets quite upset when we need to go somewhere and start walking towards "mommy's car" (Izusu Rodeo) and will run over to the truck and latch on to the door handle saying "Please daddy take your truck, pleeeeaaaaase!" How can you say no to that?Snowdogg wrote:With the BIG OL'GRIN, Has your son stoped talkin' about it yet? Bet you can't keep him from missin' out on anything that involves old cars anymore!
I was following my friend with the red fiberglass body MG/TD most of the route.... untill he missed a sign that said RANGE CATTLE and continued into a large farming area at 60mph. Well I saw the sign, and saw the 1000+ pound cows at the side of the road with no fence between them and I, and pushed the truck to overtake them before they went around a corner and found Bessy waiting for them. Of course as I tried to pass they thought I wanted to "race" and sped up. When I was finally able to get them to stop we had a long talk about what a cow would do to a lowered fiberglass car compared to a lifted 4X4 truck... I would live, they wouldn't. After that I got to lead for awhile.
