Twisties

I brought my car to Turnbull today.  I forgot how fun canyon running could actually be (aside from how dangerous it actually is).


View Larger Map

6:30PM - I meet up with James at his house to start our cruise down to Turnbull.  Right when we get onto the freeway, an RSX passes both our cars and catches our eye.  It was blue with a carbon fiber hood, and it had an integra badge with an HKS angled exhaust.  I wanted to race it but the traffic was pretty heavy at the junction that I couldn't really set up to instigate a race, so I let him go catch up to James and his Honda Fit.  James tries to instigate a race, but the RSX slows down, ultimately refusing to race, which is fine.

After that little ordeal, James said he wanted to see how far I can pull on him from 65mph.  We set up side by side and he initiates the 3 horn signal to start the race.  On 3rd gear, I walk on him on light throttle and shift to 4th at about 5,500 rpm and 6,000rpm.  On 4th, he tells me that I pulled hard and far from him.  James's car by the way has a greddy turbo on an SOHC motor.  On a dynapack, he hit 160whp/180wtq? I believe, which is not bad at all considering how small and light his car is.

Oh yeah, and a mustang in the carpool lane watched the whole thing.  I tried to catch him to race also, but he was too far, so me and James ended up cruising the whole way to the base of the canyon.

7:00PM - James and I arrive at the base of the mountain, and we decide to let our cars rest a little before we start our warm up cruise.  We decide that I'll lead the first round.

The cruise overall was refreshing.  Just something about cruising the "twisties" is relaxing.  I drove to the top and drove back down hardly pushing the car or my limits.  It's notably dark now and I had to toggle my high beams on and off when we went down because cars were still going up the mountain.

7:15PM - James leads and I follow.  From the first turn, he begins to push harder and I immediately follow suit.  Of course we slowed dramatically as soon as we noticed on coming traffic.

The adrenaline begins to boil but doesn't hit home.  I know that I'm pushing my car harder than I ever had, but it was fun.  I figure that I can push harder if I wanted, but I did NOT want to risk a mishap and crash the car.  I also did not want to pressure James since he has no high-beams and he said he didn't want to be pressured.  We went up and down the same face of the mountain and amped speed which gave both of us a really good rush.

7:30PM - I've had my fun and thus, am ready to go home, but not James.  James still wants to hit it again, so I hop in the passenger seat.  We make the first turn and he blasts off in his little Honda.  He tells me that his tune isn't allowing his engine to recoupe fast enough so he hits low speeds once he shifts to certain gears at certain rpm's.  I don't exactly know the problem, however, watching his driving from my car, there's still plenty of potential in that little machine of his.

7:45PM - We head home.  Both of us take a small cruise on Beverly reminiscing how fun it was to drive.  Then all of a sudden, a V6 Accord couple zooms past us.  When we catch up to him at a light, I pull up right behind him, and sure enough, as soon as the light turned green he blasts off, chirping and all.  So I follow and blast off as well.  As soon as his left clears, I change lanes and pull hard.  Again, I never hit redline, but I toy with the fool a little as we're both hitting really high speeds.  A minivan appears ahead of us in his lane, but he doesn't want to give up and attempts to push more, but I knew the race was over.  There was no way in hell I'd be willing to cause and accident.  He knows I've won and I know I won.  The Accord acknowledges this by giving me a nod when he pulls up to me at the next light while he makes a right.  What's funny about this was that James said he couldn't even see us because we went so fast and so far.

To top it off for the night, on the onramp to the freeway, I take it really fast, so fast in fact that if I hit the brakes, I would actually go out of control, so right before I hit the freeway, I shift up and blast past the car that was exiting.  Now, THAT got my heart pumping and my body shaking.

Those two hours were probably the funnest I've had in a very long time.  Not that I don't have fun staying at home with the wife and the baby.  But it's moments like those that remind me how much I use to be able to risk so much with little to lose.  Tonight, my actions were idiotic and wreckless, but very, VERY refreshing.