Whew! What a weekend.
The CCA "Rush to Gold Bridge" was our first stab at a mixed gravel and tarmac event for classic cars up here in Canada. The formula works well in California, where the events are well attended and popular. Up here, however, we have some work to do! A total of 6 cars made the start, but that was just fine by us. We modified the route throughout the weekend to suit the guests we had. Saturday was shortened due to heat, and Sunday we split into two groups with some cars going for the smooth gravel route, while others braved goat-path-like sections of road to claim they conquered a famous 4x4 only mountain pass. For this particular event, I left the gravel tires at home so that our guests wouldn't feel like their cars were about to die on the event. I could keep the sliding controlled enough for street tires, right?
We began in Hope BC, and after about an hour of paved twisties and canyon views, turned off to catch a ferry. This ferry, though, wasn't like your normal car ferry. This one is a reaction ferry, it has no motors and uses the current of the river to move back and forth between the two banks. An overhead cable holds the ferry and the two guys working the boat simply tilt it one way or another in the current to push across. At least if it sunk, I would have a chance of floating!
From there it was incredibly twisty gravel all the way to Lillooet. I have never driven a road which required so much steering movement, without a pause in between for straight sections. Toss in a little sliding action, and my hands never stopped moving. Rarely do I find myself happy we're stopping to regroup, but on this road I was thankful for the break and the reminder not to get too carried away! I was running without a co-driver, and more then a few turns were marked "Triple Caution!!! hairpin, exposure with large drop to the outside". I think one of the instructions for a corner we wrote was "Large drop with certain death straight ahead". Have I mentioned it was a blast!?! One of the straight sections:
It was 40.3 deg Celsius as we were doing this road, and for the time I saw 240F on the oil temperature gauge. It didn't go any further (the whole weekend) and once I determined that my oil cooler fan relay failed, the temps were brought back down to 220F for the rest of the day. Warwick, in the Mini, wasn't so lucky. A couple of overheats had him finishing this leg on the tow strap. Once it was cooled down, refilled with water and an expansion tank jimmy rigged, it ran like a top.
Having spent a lot of time with Warwick, we eventually decided that I should probably head to the rest of the group and tell them to carry on. The throttle pedal was dropped, and I went from casually enjoying a few corners here and there to fully setting up and linking slide after slide to try and make up time. I was in a left hand drift when I felt a wiggle...but was already pitching right. Upon returning back to the left, however, I instantly knew what had happened. 'Tis a wee bit flat back there!
Let that be a lesson to you: 165/R15's of unknown age, showing lots of cracking in the tread, are probably not the best tires for sliding around on gravel :P Normally I'd have had this fixed up quick and been on my way, but it would seem that I have neglected to purchase and install an important road-side repair tool. And, really, sweep and
every other car is carry a jack. Why would I want to? I stood sheepishly by the side of the road waiting for Warwick and sweep to arrive so that
they could now go and deliver the 'carry on' message.
With the flat fixed, it was off again. I met the group in Lillooet and proceeded to pay $50 for a used tire, of completely useless dimensions, to ease my fear of driving 300km home on a steel wheel. For the afternoon we ventured the 2.5 hours into Gold Bridge, via the Carpenter Lake Road. The road is mix of billiard-table-smooth gravel and paved sections. It winds up and down the side of the mountain sometimes mere inches from the river, while at other times so high you'd have time to count your mistakes before impact.
We arrived at the Chilcotin Holidays Ranch tired, dusty and hungry.
...Tomorrow, I'll recount Sunday. Then the cleanup begins!
-Dave