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Words to live by!
Couple this with Cory's go bag contents (posted somewhere on the site, I just don't remember where) and whatever repair manual you might have, and there's a chance you might make it to your destination in spite of a side adventure or two!
Total BS in my view. Six "intrepid" travellers in two vintage sports cars...with a film crew to boot ? Plastic as hell and easy to see thru if you've really done it. Try doing it with a newly installed 1915 engine, one Wife for backup and 9,000 miles to go.
Yeah, some hyperbole involved in it, but then we're not all as intrepid as you David!
I can vouch for every bit of David's intrepid! He does not drive a garage queen ---I'm not worthy!
I loved the PIX, David---glad to be in the dinner shot towards the end.
Let's go somewhere in our Speedsters!!!!
I hear ya, Bob but you don't have to pull off a 9,000 mile trip to have fun. We did a quickie to New England last fall and had a blast. We do a short spurt over to Chinatown in Montreal just for a day trip. The fun scale never changes whatever the distance for us. Jack...you're a highway pounder personified and when checking out this list before getting our speester, you were our main inspiration for getting into this stuff. MusbiJim's chronicles didn't hurt either. You are both to blame Amigo. It's all your fault...etc....
I just haven't had the time or the confidence in my car, and yet the thing runs great and has been pretty reliable, to organize a long trip. Can't make Carlisle this year as I'll be out of the country, but, with a chase car or a group I'd love to take a jaunt somewhere soon. Right now the car is in hibernation here in Peoria but I'm hoping to get it out soon.
Maybe what I need to do is go to Canada and visit you David!
Ok...a chase car or a group, eh? Alrighty then, don't plan on visiting me just yet. Try a twenty mile loop to some dounut shop and back and see how you feel. Then next week do it alone...no chase car. Now do that loop a couple of hundred times and write down everything that went wrong and study things. You might be pleasantly surprised. No joke, I pretty much did that on the first airplane I built. Not a kit...I built it. I put enough miles on it to go to the West Coast and back and finally realized nothing fell off. Life's short Bob...pull the trigger while you can........
(edited update)
Shoot.....I built Pearl and did a couple of runs around town and then headed to Wardsboro, Vermont to visit my favorite aunt. About 3 hours each way, all of it back roads (I was too scared to take her on an Interstate) and, apart from having ringing ears for a couple of days after (I learned, because of prior ear damage in my teens, to use ear plugs after that) and one hell of a sunburn on the tops of my legs and a few things that no longer reliably worked until I fixed 'em, it pretty much went off without a hitch - at least I made it home and nothing blew up! (edit- I just remembered that, for whatever reasons, the rear brakes didn't work all that great. Come to think of it further, the front brakes (disks) weren't all that great either, but I found that, if I pumped several times and then really stood on the brake pedal and pulled on the steering wheel at the same time, it could pretty much almost reliably stop.......If I gave it lots of room. THAT got fixed pretty quickly when I got back.)
You start it all by heading it out of the driveway and then follow the rule of Peter Pan: "First star to the left, then straight on til morning!"
I've now arrived at the point where I know I'll be able to make it home, no matter what and if I can't, then Kathy or Chris know how to hook up the trailer and come get me. I put well over 10,000 miles on Pearl this past summer all over western New England (I needed a lot of head-cleaning time) and the only thing I had to fix was a horn wire that fatigued over time (it's the part that makes a loop at the base of the steering column) and stopped working. Having Alpina air horns working is WAY better than waving my arms around like a nut.
You road warriors amaze me ! There was a 7 year point in my life when I drove 40,000 + miles per year (in New England weather ) , to get to work ....mostly in crappy cars that were on their last legs...just so I could spend my workday in a crappy truck. I developed a healthy dislike (hate) for highways, turnpikes, freeways and driving in sh!t weather.
I give you Iron Butt guys all the credit in the world for doing what you do. Maybe some day I'll join you.
For now, I enjoy driving my speedster on winding roads, nice weather and top down. If you get out this way, we can drive some roads that are scarey (and illegal) at 45. Sea y'all at Carlisle
We are still thinking about the West Coast event and could be easily convinced to make that trip again. It's two weeks after Carlisle this year which makes for a pretty quick turn around plus we are booked on a Viking River Cruise from Prague to Paris soon after the W. Coast event but if some brave souls wanted to experience the greatest trip in America in a Speedster this could be the time!
We are quite close to I40 so whoever wanted to form a caravan could stay with us in Hot Springs for a couple of days to refresh then mount up.
BTW, I'm certain this applies to David too but I have always considered myself my own chase car!
Any takers?
Actually, I drive my speedster three or four times a week in the Spring, Summer and Early fall. The drives though are usually 30 miles or less. Admittedly, those can be pretty spirited trips if I am in the countryside where I live.
I have done about 125 mile day trips and the car performed wonderfully, so given the fact that I am a maintenance fanatic, and the car has been pretty reliable, I need to step it up this year!
I can attest that he takes spritied drives and it cruises very well.
Bob - we need to get Corn-Daze 2013 on the books.
Stan:
Miss you buddy! Ready for today's snow adventure?
I'll start a dialogue up with you, Rich and Joe to get it started. Can't get to it today (School board stuff in the way) but I'll post it tomorrow.
Best to you and the family!