Another 'Bomber' Run on December 17th - SoCal

[bdw18_123]

I know this run may be too close to Christmas for some of you, but I'll post it here anyway in case any of you Z guys in SoCal want to go for a drive.

Sounds like Mike100 is going to try to go and even though I'm 6 hours away from the meeting spot, I'm planning on going also.

This is copied from what Pete (PLRX) posted on the 'other' forum:

Originally Posted by PLRX

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Where?: San Diego

Rally Point: Chevron Gas Station, Chula Vista

Departure Time: 8:00 AM

Ensure you have a full tank of gas.

Heavy CHP and SDPD activity on this route, we dont need to donate any more money to Uncle Ed.

I drove this route today (12-1-11), would be great to do this on a weekday. There was NO TRAFFIC .

[bdw18_123]

C'mon guys, you know you wanna go!

[mike100]

Still planning on it. Anybody adventurous enough to bring your passport for a run south of the border? The highway we will be running on is practically in Mexico already.

[bdw18_123]

I don't have a passport, so I can't go south of the border.

And I don't want to shell out $200 for one either.

Plus, I don't think Mexico is the safest place in the world anyway...

[bdw18_123]

I'm leaving tomorrow at 2pm at the latest. Don't want to get to the hotel too late. Weather looks good so far.

[mike100]

Give me a holler if you run into technical issues since you'll be a day early. Hopefully you are staying somewhere nice along the coast???

[bdw18_123]

Yeah, I'm staying at a hotel about 8 miles west of the meeting spot, somewhat close to the beach, but it'll be dark when I get there, so doesn't really matter. It isn't luxury, but it isn't Motel 6 either, I think it's pretty decent from what I can tell on the internet. I'm going for the run anyway, not for the hotel, that is just for sleeping really.

After the run, I'm going to my sister's house in Long Beach and staying the night there (Saturday night) and then leave for home probably sometime Sunday late afternoon.

[mike100]

The run was good and the weather was fine! Of course there were only two of us (Riverside Co guys that were to join us had wind damage overnight and had to take care of their homesteads), but we had 8 cams and 64 valves to make it seem like more cars. The weather held out the whole day.

We started late, but made it to Campo before we departed hwy 94.

weather was A-ok at the Eastlake Chevron:


heading down telegraph canyon road- no cars got in our way at all here:



Drove the 94 past sneaky CHP plus a lot of traffic which kept us slow anyways. Then we jumped on I-8 for about 2 miles west and got off on CA S1-Sunrise highway. We had to go through the border patrol checkpoint...funny thing they had a hard time seeing our mugs through the ZR-1 solar ray windshields- you could see them twisting their gaze lower to get a better angle.

We thought we would be slick and take S1 over the 6000 ft pass:

Hmmm...







No way Jose!
315's and ice, slush, and grit. We turned back.


Went a few miles down the way through Pine Valley as the pass is only about 4500 ft there. Made it to Julian and Santa Ysabel. Drove Mesa Grande (not a soul on it!) and then hung out at the establishment at the bottom of that road. Corvettes of SD were there, so we added to the Vette collection out front. They were impressed to actually see two LT5 cars- that doesn't happen a lot. Came back into town and headed to Vista, Ca to cap off the day with a visit to Shawn at CorvetteNutz.



shot the bull and perused some spares potential- Shawn was way cool.


Ben is still driving to Long Beach, he'll have to post his pics later.

Drove about 160 mi from the start point-car is pretty filthy.

[BigBlock 72]

Looks like a great drive. Did you know the SD Corvette club was going to be there? That would have been fun to pull in and and find them there and see their reactions. I BET they were surprised to see 2 ZR-1's out and about together.

[mike100]

Originally Posted by BigBlock 72

Looks like a great drive. Did you know the SD Corvette club was going to be there? That would have been fun to pull in and and find them there and see their reactions. I BET they were surprised to see 2 ZR-1's out and about together.

It wasn't planned at all- that road house and nearby country road is real popular place to let er rip and is not used by the public as much because it doesn't go anywhere. A lot of m/c guys ride out there too.

One of their members went outside to grab a club card to give us and said something like- 'whoa, I didn't realize those were ZR-1's'. I think I said something like it was rare to even see more than one at a time. One of the other guys actually had a brand spankin' new ZR1- I had actually spotted his car in town a few days earlier, but couldn't keep up in my DD.

Ben had a long ride home back to Fresno, I suspect he may have a few pics to add later this week. Usually the organizer of the 'bomber' runs does most of the picture taking- we were a bit remiss and left a bunch of good photo ops in favor of covering some miles. The weather will probably be unfavorable until March to be driving around in the coastal hills so it was a good year-ender for me, personally.

Got a chance to see Ben's car up close and talk about his adventure rescuing it. I would consider buying a project like his after his inspiration- it ran all day, looked good, and acted like a normal car that had never blown up.