There were supposed to be more people and cars doing this, but it turned out that only 3 of us could go. Me in my M3, Dickson had his GLI and Casper drove his Shelby Mustang. Had to take the requisite pics of the cars in front of HQ since that’s where we started. Too bad we didn’t have a bigger crew, but it was a little easier to organize I suppose.
Here’s a map of the whole trip. We didn’t actually make it down to Lake Henshaw since we decided to do a couple runs up and down Palomar Mountain Road instead. (Google Map Link).
First leg, Live Oak Canyon Road. It’s just in our backyard, so we had to do it.
Second leg, Ortega Highway towards Lake Elsinore. You can hear music during the first few seconds of the clip, but I turned it off so the engine could be heard better. I stopped recording after we got stuck behind some slow cars.
We ended up pulling off the road shortly after turning off the 76 to Palomar Mountain Road since there was a large RV driving pretty slow in front of us. We wanted to get a good drive up the mountain so we decided to wait it out. First few pics below are from where we waited.
Of course, after we took off again, we got stuck behind more slow cars. Guess that’s inevitable. I turned off my video after we got stuck again, but couldn't turn it back on when the slower cars pulled over and let us pass. The first run up was great...if only I had some video of it.
The next stop was Mother’s Kitchen at the top of the run. We stopped for some food and just hung out for a bit.
Casper knew of a lookout point where he had visited before so we drove there after brunch and took a few pics of the cars. Not the best backdrop, but at least there was a lot of open area.
Like an idiot, I forgot to turn on the mic during a couple portions of the drive...and they both happened to be when I was following Casper. Here’s two videos of his Shelby Mustang GT500...driving in silence :(
And here's the final run down the mountain. This time I followed Dickson in his GLI. That thing is pretty fast. It felt like he was going faster than the other runs we did, but I realized after the fact that I forgot to hi the M button on this run. Because of how many twists and turns there are, I didn't get much opportunity to get past 2nd gear, and the regular mode (without M) has harder engine braking so it definitely slowed me down a little.
There was a photographer who had set up on one of the hairpins, taking pics of all the cars and motorcyclists going by. We saw him in the first 3 passes and decided to stop on the final run down the mountain so we could get his contact info. Caper saw him tracking with my M3 on the first run, and I saw him shooting Casper on the second run so he must have had some pics. Unfortunately, he had already packed up and left on our last run down. Dickson saw his name on some sign so I was able to look up the website and found the gallery. Thanks, Rick Clemson, for shooting that day! I'll be putting my order in soon. Hopefully he shot in RAW. We have pics on page 3 and page 6.
Here’s a funny picture from his gallery. We saw these two Mitsubishi's at Mother’s Kitchen, but apparently they were clocked along the way. Just glad it was them and not us.
All in all, a fun day of driving. Must do it again.