As some know I went on a Route 66 Rally from Fontana Ca to Amarillo, Tx while another group started outside of Chicago and drove to Amarillo,TX. It was a lot of fun, more than expect. It was setup as a timed rally however all but 1 car really didn’t care about the fastest time, the one car that did broke on the second day and no it wasn’t me. We also had a number of former Bullrun contestants that were on both ends of the rally. There are a lot of pictures and comments from both sides on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=226626028164
If you have not signed up on Facebook it is easy and a great tool to find old friends and communicate in general, however you can look at this w/o signing up.
An more info and pictures at
http://www.route662010.com/
Day 0- Drove to Fontana – Coming down the loop 101 I came up on a nice new Yellow Ferrari (not sure the model) with Handicap plates(what the heck), anyways I casually got past him and a then past me back rather aggressively, revving up his little engine, I ignored him, too much traffic. I got pass him again and then he was behind on the transition from the 101 to I-10 west, he tried to sandbag me on the ramp, as soon as he started hard into the throttle, I stomp on it 4th gear, pulled away from him, I got to the carpool lane, shifted to 5th and hit the brakes to get my speed down to around 75 from 105, he flew by at about 90mph with a look that someone pee’d in his cornflakes. He didn’t come back for seconds, and got off the freeway about 4 miles later. The wind in California around the windmill farms was pretty nasty and it looked like it might rain but did not. Got checked in to the Hilton Garden Inn in Fontana and met up with a number of participates at a Logan Roadhouse for dinner that night, had a great time.
Day 1 – Drive from Fontana to Flagstaff- We all met up for a 9:00am start at the AAA Auto Club Speedway, we drew numbers for the order in which we left. I was #5 which turned out to be the second car out. I left and pulled over down the road and tried looking up the first checkpoint on my GPS, found the town and started on my way. I got on to a part of Route 66 to the first checkpoint, I went from travelling around 80mph to 40mph because the road was complete garbage, I got past by 3 other contestants, 2 Mustangs and 4x4 Dodge Ram. Got to the first checkpoint and had to get gas, many other did as well. At this point a lot of said the heck with rules and traveled in a pack to the next checkpoint where most of us sat down for lunch. Back on the road again another stop for gas put me behind almost everyone, but the next check point was the Grand Canyon Caverns, know that place w/o a map. Made up a bunch of time, I had a group of 4 cars leave the Caverns about 30 sec before I did, I caught up, and then passed them, one of the girls riding in with her boyfriend told that night she about dropped her drink when I passed them, the noise was a surprise and they had their windows down. T that night every one decided to walk to dinner, we went to 3 different places, the first two basically told to go somewhere else, we were too big of a group, 18 people I guess Flagstaff wasn’t big enough for us. That night one of the cars got Post-it Notes placed all over it, another had orange safety cones placed around it and 2 were teepeed.
Day 2- Flagstaff to Albuquerque – Started with breakfast at the Galaxy Café, good food good service. Driver meeting it was decided to somewhat stay together, We left the Travel Inn and at the first light everyone turned left to take Route 66 through Flagstaff, been there done that, no thanks, I turned right and head towards the first checkpoint in Winslow, got there first and parked the car and waited for the others. The winner of the first day and one other car came took pictures of the checkpoint and left, the others showed up got out and walked around, taking it easy, the leader of our west coast group held another drivers meeting and added a bonus checkpoint to take off 2hrs off our times. We went to the bonus checkpoint the Jackrabbit Trading post and had a great time. The second checkpoint was in Holbrook at the Wigwam Village, “TeePee Room”. We call a call that the car that really wanted to win brokedown, their team name was “Team Breakdown”a Pontiac Firebird. We raced uo I-40 to help, ran into very large group of Vietnam Vets (1000+ Harleys) riding to the Wall in the D.C. Corvette Z06 and made it past and got to the off ramp where they said they were and they were gone. Then the rest of the cars showed up and we found out they got it started and were back on the road, meantime the bikers pasted us again. We finally made it past them just outside of Gallup NM, where our last checkpoint was, we took the pictures we needed and got out of there ASAP so we would not have to fight the motorcycles again. The trip from Gallup to Albuquerque was a fast one, 5 of were running over 95 most of the time and spent some time at 105, I had a new Dodge Challenger, C6 Corvette Z06, and a C5 Corvette running Radar detectors. Team Breakdown brokedown again, no one stopped, he called AAA and got a tow to the casino and had a new fuel pump set to be dropshipped in the AM. Our night was at the Route 66 Hotel & Casino, the Hotel has been there for about 3 years, as nice as most Hiltons and the rate was $66.00 for the night
Day 3- Albuquerque to Amarillo- Fairly uneventful day, still very fast driving in NM. First Checkpoint was a Car Museum in Santa Rosa NM. A couple of us missed the 2nd checkpoint, the Midpoint Café, and headed to the Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo, did a little spray painting and headed to the Big Texan Restaurant and Hotel. Two guys tried the 72oz steak dinner challenge and failed, one had talked about for about a month, the other helped Team Breakdown quite a bit in getting him back and running, so all the teams from the West coast chipped in $5 a person and brought his dinner for him. We had a awards ceremony after dinner, the ladies that drove a rental 2010 Mustang Convertible won the 3rd day and the overall West Coast side. I won a special endurance award which was a $25 gift certificate for Jegs. Had a great time.
The after days – The journey to Utah- I left the hotel Saturday Am with about 8-10 other cars, very windy day, there was some filming being done on the trip back and a stop for lunch in Santa Rosa, NM and shortly after that I headed north to Colorado. The spent the night in Colorado Springs, and was on the road by 8:30a, that was a more windy day than yesterday and the last 45min or so was cold rain, not real heavy but cold. I got to my brother’s house around 6:00pm. Woke up this AM to SNOW, glad I was not going home today. Added just over 2500 miles so far, should be home around June 1st.
2010 Route 66 Rally- Completed
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