600 miles, four states and the best diversion ever!
After a perfectly agreeable flight to Los Angeles aboard one of British Airway’s new Airbus A380s there was just time for the usual jet lagged fitful sleep before popping along to the delightfully named ‘Wally Park’, wonder how bored they get with people asking “Where’s Wally Park?”
That said the place was absolutely brilliant and the pre-arranged Nissan Nismo 370Z was delivered on the dot of 9am for an epic voyage over the next 10 days.
First a confession – I don’t like white cars – I don’t know why but I just don’t!
That said, it has to be said that this is a car that looks absolutely right in eye searingly glacial white, complete with the now essential black wheels and bright red brake callipers. This is a car that announced its presence!
Another thing I don’t like is the current vogue for keyless ignition, time will tell over the next few days whether I ever get less anxious about whether I actually have the key in my pocket or not but, luddite that I am, I prefer the satisfyingly secure process of actually mating key with car.
The NISMO version of the really very agreeable 370Z has a package of upgrades aimed at improving its already very impressive performance, sadly for me that means no sat nav! (That’s GPS in American!) After a mild panic, and a quick trip back to the hotel to grab the wifi and an online map it was on the road for a near 700 mile drive solo to Salt Lake City for this weekend’s Pirelli World Challenge finale.
Thereafter we’ll be taking in a number of interesting stops on the way down to Austin for Lone Star Le Mans the following weekend, four major sportscar races in 8 days, and a hell of a road trip in between – I’ve had worse weeks!!
The drive from LA to Las vegas is one I have done before, a holiday some years back courtesy of the late and much lamented Jack Cunningham saw myself and my lovely wife Trudie, plus Malcolm Cracknell and his lady Sue spend time at Jack’s beach house but plagued by poor weather we opted to go for a couple of days to Vegas, Jack loaned us his Jaguar and away we went. It’s a great drive, particularly as the scenery is just so different to anything we have in the UK.
I was happy to be doing it again, less happy that Trudie and our little one weren’t there to share it.
There was only one way to fend off the looming depression – I’d have to find a way to annoy somebody – The answer to that enigma came almost immediately.
Now those of you that have been DSC readers for a while will likely know that our North American Editor Gary Horrocks has a guilty secret. When away for West Coast racing weekends from the loving embrace of his fabulous wife Gary finds succour in his other love!
No it’s not some brazen hussey (even husseys have some standards!) it’s the In n’Out Burger franchise! Seriously I challenge you to find a West Coast weekend that Gary attended that doesn’t have those damned burgers mentioned!
Anyway, if there’s one thing that REALLY winds Gary up it’s knowing that one of the other DSCers has been to an In n’Out when he hasn’t. I guarantee that by the time this piece is posted Gary will have responded to a deliberately provocative Tweet I posted on this very issue (I just checked – He has!)
I had never sampled an In n’Out before so popped by for one of the infamous ‘Double Doubles’ It was very, very good, and the Vanilla Shake was perfect too! Horrocks is already sulking!!
Oh and I bottled it and bought a sat nav!
On the road and the run over the mountains was familiarly dramatic – I’m a huge fan of big boys toys and there was a double whammy as we came over the range, the Cajon Pass treats you to a close up view of the astonishing Union Pacific transcontinental freight trains winding their way up the grades with immense power on tap courtesy of several 4,000 bhp rated diesel electric power units front and rear.
Also making its way up the grade was a car I was hoping to see in action this weekend but am clearly now not going to – The Challenger 2 LSR car was being trailered home, it’s record run for this weekend at Bonneville stymied by a clutch failure – The car is a beauty, this picture courtesy of Holly Martin/Peter Vincent.
If you don’t know the story of Danny Thompson and his Dad Mickey then take the time and Google it, but here’s a brief summary from the team’s website:-
Racing is full of unfinished business. For Mickey Thompson, the famed driver and innovator, it was breaking the piston driven world land speed record. He came achingly close in 1960 with the Challenger I, but broke down on the return run. He struck back in 1968 with the Challenger II, but was foiled by a rainstorm which turned the track at the Bonneville Salt Flats into a lake. After his retirement from racing in 1988, he partnered with his son Danny Thompson to make another attempt. Their collaboration was tragically cut short when Mickey and his wife were murdered.
On the 50th anniversary of his father’s original 406mph run, Danny removed the Challenger II from storage and brought it to his Huntington Beach shop. Untouched for more than 40 years, he began the extensive process of restoring, retrofitting, and updating the vehicle. Danny wants to lay his father’s business to rest. For him, that means using the Challenger II, a vehicle that hasn’t run since 1968, to break a world land speed record.
The car ran 419mph earlier yesterday before a clutch failed on the return run – the spirit of the Land Speed Record heroes runs very deep indeed in this team.
Onwards on the seemingly never ending I15, past the simply enormous Marine logistics depot in the middle of the Mojave desert and on towards Las Vegas, 30 miles or so before then there’s another of the extraordinary sights on this journey.
The Nevada State line is well remembered from that first trip because of the extraordinary sight of a number of resort casinos seemingly jostling for position to be the first in line to scoop up willing Californian punters within the first few feet of legalised gambling with the darkness of a desert at dusk illuminated in neon!
Now though there’s an even more extraordinary sight, and an even more astonishing light show. As the Interstate straightens out on the run down to the State Line over to the left is the most amazingly bright blue lake, it’s a sight you simply can’t miss with three huge towers on the lakeside, but then you realise that something doesn’t add up – the water is sitting on an uphill grade!
It’s only when you get a side view that you can see clearly that it isn’t water at all, instead it is a huge $2,2 billion solar power facility, the blue ‘lake’ is actually three separate fields of solar panels (heliostats), 173,000 in total over 3,500 acres, all feeding into one of the three towers which ‘collect’s the energy and uses it to generate steam, which in turn powers turbine generators – the three towers combined produce 392 Megawatts of power!
On to Las Vegas itself, a town that many loath, I love it, it’s a big boys (and girls) playground, and if you’re smart enough to leave the gambling to the suckers there’s plenty to entertain. After a drive down the main drag (it runs roughly parallel to the interstate) and on out the other side, through the old town and out towards the Las Vegas Speedway and Nellis AFB.
Nellis is home to the infamous USAF Thunderbirds formation flying team and the hub for much of the low level training that the US Forces conduct into the adjacent desert. Photography is never welcome at an operational base, though at Nellis there is always a steady stream of aircraft arriving and departing – A four ship formation of F16s was leaving for training as I passed by – stopping just briefly to take a picture of the really rather splendid Thunderbirds sculpture that acts as a ‘Gate Guard’.
On past the Speedway and coming the other way, too fast for me to grab a picture were nine Jaguars F Types, a mix of coupes and droptops – Press junket or development work?
Back onto the Interstate and there were worrying signs predicting a closure and detour after a flash flood on Monday destroyed a section of the Interstate. My heavy sigh was probably repeated all day up and down the road, a detour is usually the portent of a miserable experience!
The heavy truck traffic was filtered off first before the lighter vehicles were sent off around a long detour rout starting with the charmingly named ‘Valley of Fire Road’
The scenery is stunning throughout this region, and I liked the road too, until that was we rounded a tight turn and …….WOW!!!
THAT”s why it’s called the Valley of Fire! 42.000 acres of stunning red sandstone hills and formations, quite astonishingly beautiful. Park toll were waived as the highway through was the diversionary route – What a treat, any though of making Salt lake City today were abandoned there and then – Instead I spent a happy hour in the company of similarly delighted delayed travellers discovering this amazing place – I will be back, and I’ll bring friends, family, and/ or both!
Onwards though and back onto I15, the huge damage clear to see, and through the hills, spectacularly rising from the very kerbside of the road, there is something about the drama of a hill or mountain that stirs the soul!
Into Arizona and almost immediately something else that mountains do with predictable regularity hit home – They bring sunset more quickly, and as the sun went down then tiredness descended rapidly – Time for bed, any motel will do and Utah came just in time – State number four for the day and it turns out that the motel I picked had a restaurant with its entire clientele obsessing about the horrors of the I15 closure – aided and abetted by a coupe of truck drivers with tales of woe about their apparently horrendous detour.
I grabbed my laptop, told my tale, and a dozen or more fellow travellers went to bed looking forward to a morning trip to the Valley of Fire rather than dreading a delay – Travel does that doesn’t it, it humanises and socialises our experiences – I’ll stop short of a slide show though!
Oh and the car, much more of this as we go along but it was the perfect travelling companion, great on the windy roads on the diversion, Perfectly fine on the Interstate – The proof of the pudding is always measured on the ‘sore back’ scale by this ageing observer – The NISMO 370Z is currently right up there with the very, very best of them – I can’t wait for tomorrow!
More tomorrow.
GG
