>CitroMike <CitroMike@aol.com>
>Subject: Driving Curvy Roads
>Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 12:33:29 EST
>Rod & Steve,
>
>Would you all like to join me in a driving lesson experiment up and down
>Mount
>Palomar?
>
>Rod could instruct.
>
>I took off last Friday, whilst you two were debating the merits of FWD vs
>RWD,
>and drove up the mountain in the bright California sunshine. Since I have not
>yet got that old Elan finished, I took the M100. Top down, light cotton
>shirt,
>heater on, stereo stuggling. Up Highway 15, east on State Route 6 past John Z
>DeLorean's former estate, stopping for Mexican food on the Pala Indian
>Reservation, then left on Route 7 I went, up the hill, despite the CAUTION 7
>MILES TWISTY ROADS sign.
>
>Mostly 3rd gear, sometimes second, 20-60 mph hundreds of twists and turns. Up
>4500 foot vertical climb in 7 miles. When I got to the top and went over to
>the north side of the hill, there was snow on the roadsides, wet patches on
>the road, and the air had dropped into the 20's (below zero for you Celsius
>folk). I turned round and beat it out the back way to Lake Henshaw,
>completely
>disregarding the CAUTION 14 MILES TWISTING ROADS sign.
>
>Based on this experience, I can concur that the M100 is front-heavy and the
>front tires do all the work. That said, it is quite stable, responds well to
>the "Oh Shit" factor of increasingly tight mountain turns with long drop and
>no guardrail, and makes you feel like you are going pretty fast.
>
>The only other fun car I've driven on this road was a Jag XK140 -- it had
>plenty of power with minimal grip and did a lot more sliding around. It was
>just as fun but a bit scarier (not my car either, and the driver was
>following
>me).
>
>I'd like to try it again in a RWD car or with another driver or two. Any
>takers? We could look at the telescope too.
>
>CitroMike
>
>PS the next day my neck was killing me -- too much weight having to look
>around those tight bends with such high "G" forces. I applied some Guiness
>and
>the muscle soreness was eased...
Mike and Steve, This sounds interesting. I normally prefer a track or
slalom course for this but let's talk.
Home with the flu just now and only semi-communicado.
Rod
Steve Brightman wrote:
> it took a trip to Nelson Ledges to find the limits of my
> M100 were beyond where I care to go - for now at least.
And Phil Ethier wrote:
>You really need to get into autocrossing, where the limit is not such a
>fearful thing. You get to say "Oops", not "Oops and here is my
>medical-insurance card".
This is true Steve. You will find that your understanding of the M100
will be greatly enhanced. Being able to blithly track around turns in
"magic mode", renders any confidence conditional. Stay within that
protective cradle and everything's fine. And any foray into the
forbidden territory beyond grip is then left to the imagination.
Anyone, faced with high speed and that sort of question mark, would be
daunted.
Rod
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