Report!
This road is really great... except.... except.... wait for it........................ wait for it!..............
IT NEEDS NEW PAVEMENT VERY BADLY!
Here it is in a nut shell. The road heading up to the observatory is AWESOME, it is quite steep with very sharp corners, and lots of em. In fact, two corners were 1st gear uphill corners. Yeah. After a couple of mins you look over your shoulder and it's amazing at how quickly you pull out of the Silicon Valley. 4,100 vertical feet in 14 miles is no joke in this regard! But unfortunately any thing over about 20 or 25 MPH is entirely undrivable unless you have a Trophy Truck. It's awfully bad. Pot holes everywhere, wash board in mid corner, even saw pushed up asphalt I had to straddle and thought for sure would contact the bottom of my car! It was mostly a 2nd gear affair. Any thing more would result in a broken MR2 I bet.
Once up the top it's 50 miles to the next service. Having my tool box, 3 liters of water, spare radiator hoses, hose clamps, belts, etc, but no spare tire was really nerve racking. I said a prayer and set out to 50 miles of the unknown.
Unfortunately the road on the back side dropping down into San Antonio Valley was also horrible but not quite as bad. There were a bazillion jack rabbits hopping all over the place and also a ton of cattle crossing guards. They were well marked however, with warning signs a good 1/8 mile before each cattle guard. So I didn't mind them at all actually, plenty of time to slow down for them without killing your brakes.
Once I turned onto Del Puerto Canyon Road, WOW things got
very good indeed. This road is totally kick-butt! I loved it. Especially as you got about 60% of the way to Interstate 5,
man or man the road really become a jewel. Much better pavement, long right, then sharp left, then long left, then sharp right.
Lots of variety in easy sweeping corners to technical 2nd gear corners where I was just itchen to push it a bit harder and get that rear end to swing out.
And this is where I learned that the harder I forced the car through the corners, the faster my cornering speeds got. You know how they say that you are most comfortable at 75% of your maximum speed? Well after driving aggressively for 60-something-miles alone with the car I began driving deeper and deeper into that other 25% and I learned that the car is very manageable at much higher speeds. Of course the room for error diminishes quickly, but I started to really feel and become part of the car. I can't say if I've ever had this sort of intimate experience with my car. Just the fact that it was man and machine for so long without seeing a single car (only had 2 on-coming cars the entire journey!!), for sure I have never had that much continuous seat time in my car pushing it to the limit non-stop for so long. It took over 2 hours to complete the 70-something mile drive
Pics!
1st pic: Leaving Misato's Apartment
2nd pic: My starting point,
Quimby Rd and Murillo AveYou can see it is pretty steep with a lot of slow 2nd gear corners.
