Day 5
We were up again early and looking for coffee the next morning. Not only were our cars parked 2 blocks away from the hotel, but my car was not doing what it should and eating oil, to boot. At that point, I wasn't very pleasant to be around as you can imagine.
TwitVideo from around the same time
We were supposed to have some car wash events and a few other stop off points along the way. However, other than the photo shoot at Sears Tower, they didn't have another single thing planned other then the club events. This was not something any of us expected, and not what a lot of us paid so much money for. In our case, we had some sponsor obligations to handle. They did not have their own video or photo crew, (which we offered to bring along for the event if possible, and were turned down), and had zero plans for the group, other than to get to point B from point A.
We took matters into our own hands and made our own stop off for Colorado. It turns out one of the entrant’s parents lived in a pretty swanky gated community at the very top of the mountains, so, we headed out to see the view and get off the highway for a bit. It turned out to be a cool little respite from the interstate cruising, and a hell of a view.
After some attempted donuts from the turbo NSX, we were back on the road again, heading for Salt Lake City, Utah. We spent most of the next few hours flying along the interstate, which under normal circumstances would be a pretty nice view in itself, but on this drive, not a chance! We did triple-digit speeds along mountain passes, mixed in with varied amounts of traffic. (Traffic that, I might add, was in some cases doing half the speeds that we were). There was no time for looking around because the drive took absolute concentration in order for us to stay with the group.
While we were all gassing up at the last gas stop in Colorado, we got news that the 240sx was down the street at the NAPA store. It seems that he heard a noise just as we were coming up the exit, and by the time we had gotten there, he figured out that a c/v axle boot had come apart and the joint was dry. In the normal car world, you can typically get just about any axle from a NAPA store, but for Brian and his 240, no so much. It turns out he had a Ford axle on one side, a Nissan axle on the other, and both were obsolete parts. In addition, he did all this work on his back in a parking lot in some Podunk town in Colorado. We left the 240 boys, who would catch up after they fixed their car. When we left, they were making a boot out of duct tape. I kid you not!
We drove on the interstate for a few more miles and then exited onto some good old-fashioned two-lane highway. At that time of day, the geographic area made for a hell of a sunset. We more or less followed the railroad from the interstate, all the way northwest into Utah. We drove all along the leading edge of the Rocky Mountains, and down into the canyons. The drive was amazing for the most part, until we got hung up in traffic, as it got dark. It was way too easy to out-drive your headlights in the dark, so we scaled it back a bit, and ended up arriving about 30 minutes behind the crew in front of us.
After we handled our rooms and parking, we decided to hit the bar and grille in the hotel. We had more or less lived on takeout pizza from when we were in Chicago up until now, since we were under the impression that all that money we paid for entry included dinner at each night’s arrival.
While we were eating, the fire alarm went off, but no one did a thing, staff included. We just went about our business, and continued to eat. We decided to check out the nightclub for this stop, since it was about a block away, and once again, not including our group, there were maybe 5 other people there. It was odd watching how they pour drinks in Utah, to say the least. Never in my life have I ever seen this contraption they use for metering out alcohol? Yes, they are that strict on their drinking laws haha! After maybe 5 minutes of that, I decided to call it a night, since the next day‘s drive was the final leg into Vegas.
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