Laguna Seca 2001

July 4 2001-  America's birthday and what a way to celebrate by flying across the country out to California. Armed with a window seat I look down and keep my eyes peeled on the ground looking for fine roads and airports.  Its sunny the whole flight out except San Diego where it is cloudy and foggy.  It is a four-hour flight, but how long would it take to travel all those cool roads down there. A lifetime I am sure. My friends pick me up, its still morning and but late enough to hit Old Town Mexican Restraurante. And the Margaritas, Boy, do they provoke laughter.  Finally, we make it up to Vista, a small town East of Oceanside, North of San Diego.  After kicking back for a while I take the VFR out of patio area and clean it up a bit.  Put the key in and it fires right up.  Head down to the gas station for some fresh fuel and air for the tires. Time for the shakedown ride. Its getting close to dinner time and sunset is near so I just take it east on California SR78 to I-15 north to California SR76 West back to Vista.  It is all freeways but still the hills and valleys are much more then anything around here in the midwest.

Thursday morning I meet up with my friend Leo who I met on the VFR list. He lives in Vista.  We take I-15 all the way North to where it splits into SR215 up through Riverside and past San Bernardino.  At first, it smells like rain and then we see evidence of it with the road drying out ahead of us.  As we hit the foothills of the San Gabriel Mts.215 turns back into I-15.  Just before, we get to SR138, which crosses the San Andres Rift, it starts to pour.  Hey Man, this California! Its not supposed to rain in the summertime. We exit at SR138 and hole up at the gas station there until the rain passes.  Take my word for it; it is no fun to ride in the rain on mountain roads.  After it quits raining, we take off north until we hit California SR2, the famous Angeles Crest Highway. State Route 2 is 66 miles of twisty mountainous road.  We start at Mountain Top Junction (SR138) at an altitude of 5,000 ft. rising up to just about 8,000ft at Dawsons Saddle. As you go around northern sides of the road you can see way down into the Great Basin and on the southern sides, you can see the Los Angeles Basin. Of course, you are trying to watch the road and all the damn rocks that fall down on it.  There are several places where you can pull off and enjoy the vistas.  SR2 empties into the city of La Canada Flintridge and we have to freeway it for a while taking I-210 and I-5 until we get up to Newhall Ranch and go west on SR126.  There some up and downs but mostly flat until we get to Santa Paula and take SR150 North. We left and right over the Sulphur Mountains.  Then all of a sudden you go around this corner and there is the beautiful valley that just goes on and on. Its called Ojai Valley.  To the north you can see the Los Padres National Forest Range.  We go through the towns of Ojai and Meiners Oaks and then past Lake Casitas, which is surrounded by several adjoining mountain ranges.  We weave through that area to get on US 101 North and hole up at the Motel 6 in Summerland. You can smell the ocean from there and the sunsets over the coastal mountains to top it all off. Its Friday morning 5:30 a.m. Tom Podette is on the phone. The good news is you are staying at the Motel 6, the bad news is, this is your wake up call.  I look outside its raining out. I can only laugh because life is great. I am waterproof as we jump on US 101 North. We were going to go up SR33 that is an awesome road that goes through the mountains but it is very wet that way.  It is cool how 101 all of a sudden turns north and rushes right up the Santa Ynez Mountains. We have moved out the rain by now and stop for breakfast in Santa Maria.  101 is not bad for freeway riding with plenty to look at.  Its still pretty cloudy/foggy out because of that weather system from the Gulf of Mexico, but as we go farther north it starts to break up a little.  At Pismo Beach, we are now on 101/SR1 right along side the ocean. Then we turn inland over the Irish Hills of California. At San Luis Obispo SR1 splits off 101 back towards the ocean and Morro Bay.  Morro Rock sticks out like a, well a big rock about 500 ft high.  SR1 just explodes in front of us with elevation  and landscape changes that are from a different world.  Its that way all the up the coast to Carmel. If you end up dying before you ride this road on a motorcycle, it is unfortunate in the least.  We finally make it up to the Monterey Bay area around 2pm. However, it takes me another hour to make it up to Santa Cruz with all the traffic.  Later that evening we meet back down at Seaside and head to Cannery Row in Monterey.  We go into Bushwackers where the VF/VFR list is having a group get-together with Honda of Milpitas sponsoring the event. Wow, what a great time and all the sport bikes lined up and down the street they were in the thousands. I was able to put some faces to the names on the mail lists.

It is Saturday morning and time to go to the races.  From Santa Cruz its about 45 miles down to Monterey on California 1. You go thru or past some small towns like Watsonville and Castroville farm communities you can see the Artichoke and Strawberry fields that go on for what seems like forever. Like usual along the coast its cool and foggy.  As you go inland from Seaside, the fog clears away and there is that California sun. I end up going into Laguna Seca from the back way.  They are just starting the practice.  One of the first things of order is that Espresso Bar with the huge muffins, and head off to the famous corkscrew.  There I run into my friends Leo and Greg, from the mailing lists.  The corkscrew is awesome. I can see why some of the racers do not like it.  Several during practice go off the track or come close to it. One thing about walking around this track, it is an exercise class and a half. The track is 3.61km long and there are seven left turns and five rights. I walk down the side of this hill it has to be about 500ft. A couple walking up, the one says to the other look out for rattlesnakes. Hmmm. I walk down to the security building and bump into John Alexander who I met at Bushwackers last night from the VFR list.  At 11 am, meet up with Dave Benson who rode all the way out from Ann Arbor. Glad to see he made it out OK. I head over to turn two (Andretti Hairpin) to see the start of the AMA Super bike race.  Standing there for the start of the race I talk with several others from all over the world.  All of a sudden, thirty something bikes coming flying into the turn, Yeahhh! For the second day in a row Eric Bostrom kicks butt.  After that was the Formula Extreme race with the winner decided on the last lap, last corner. To finish off the afternoon we watch the Superpole where the top sixteen qualifiers go at it. Each rider is allowed three laps, a warm-up, flying lap and a slow down lap. With the fastest getting the pole for both of Sundays races. Dave and I head up to Santa Cruz to get cleaned up and then head back down to Monterey for more festivities.  Even more bikes than the night before. Already I am thinking about next Year and getting on the ball with better reservations and spending the week up here, maybe renting a house or something with bunch of others.  We have dinner at Bushwackers and tour the streets looking at bikes.  The ride back up to Santa Cruz is dark and chilly.  Sunday morning we ride back down to Monterey stopping for breakfast along the way at Moss Landing.  There are over 90,000 here today for the races. As we are parking, I look around and lose Dave.  I head down to turn 2 to watch the first Superbike race.

I talk with a guy from Long Beach who goes all over to watch WSB and F1 auto racing.  Ben Bostrom winds up winning both Superbike races. It was cool to see the all the American flags waving.  I jump on the motorcycle and get out of there in a hurry. I get on G20 and take that to Carmel Valley Road (G16). The winding valley road is about 50 miles long with most of the hill sides going up from 1500ft to 2500ft. All the grass is a golden yellow with the dark green oak trees standing out.  I stop to take some pictures and this guy goes by on a 93 VFR like mine. He turns around and comes back to check to see if I am Ok. He is from Canada and lets me know that he will need painkillers for both cheeks on his ride back. He goes on his way and I finish taking pictures.

Carmel Valley Rd turns into Arroyo Seca Road that empties into the Salinas Valley and the town of Greenfield/US101. My thoughts are I would like to go around L.A. but I may not have enough time before it gets dark. Therefore, I take 101 all the way down to SR166 (Cuyama Highway). This is another awesome canyon road and it is freshly paved. I see one CHP the whole way to I-5. Just before I-5 is Maricopa and before that you cross the San Andres Rift at 3,000ft and drop down into the Great Basin at a 7 1/2 % grade. Quite the view. I make it to I-5 and I have to make the decision to head south because it is getting dark. The sun sets sooner here because they are close to the eastern part of the Pacific Time Zone. That means I have to go right through L.A.. What a pain. It is like riding into combat six lanes of traffic all the way down to San Diego. Over a hundred miles of %#$*^@^%^$$^%%^# drivers. Grapevine, Sepulveda, Van Nuys, Westwood Village, L.A., Culver City, Inglewood, Torrance, Carson, Long Beach, Fountain Valley, Irvine, El Toro, you all can go to... I get home about one in the morning with a sore ass and wide awake. A little over 500 miles.  The whole trip ended up close to 1400 miles.  The Honda 1993 VFR ran great though I wish I had the CBR. I have to replace the steering head bearings and the tires before the next trip on it. Damn, that means I have to back out there before then and get it taken care of. One of the regrets I have about life is that why did take me so long to do something this cool.  Like I said, there will be next year.

There were pictures for this page but thanks to the great computer crash of 2002, they were wiped out.

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