Dino Saga 060611___Pushing it

Dino Saga 060611___Pushing it

Two lane road, double yellow line, hard left turn, 6500 in fourth, nicely balanced; and the curve tightens. No shoulders adds some spice. No problem! Haven’t been there in a while but that’s the way it was last Sunday and it was a blast.

50 years ago I had a job driving a Dodge 4WD panel truck fitted with electronics, a big antenna and a trailer with 50 gallons of gas and an APU. I was one of two shore stations navigating oil exploration boats mapping the California coast. I spent one month driving from Santa Barbara to a USGS marker at the top of Mt Pinos. Left Santa Barbara at 4:00 AM, on site at 6:30, started back 6:00 PM, dinner at 8. The Shoran equipment we used could provide an accuracy of about 10 ft, about as good as today’s GPS. This was the first time I have revisited the area and a lot has changed, a lot has not. Roads are better, we never got on the dirt, 4WD was not an issue, the scenery is just as fantastic. The only ones of our group who had a chance to enjoy the scenery were the passengers. The rest of us had our eyes on the road and on the tach. With an occasional check on the temp. Weather could not have been better. Clear, sunny, 75 and dry over 3000 feet, 95 and humid in the low valleys. Most of the fun stuff was in the high country.

We took a few pictures but nothing captured the scope of the run. I fired up Google World and did a flyover of the area. Lots of the area was in high resolution so I copied a few frames and added captions. Hope the combination of pictures gives the feeling of the area. And the camaraderie.

Had a chance to follow some good drivers and fine cars. Some of the most interesting time was tailing a 348 and a 355. I could not accelerate with them at lower speeds but could corner with about the same ease. As speeds got into 3 digits, acceleration was not such a problem. No one pushed too hard and I kept up.

Santa Barbara County covers some amazing terrain and has many good but hardly used roads threading through it. Last winter’s rains caused some problems; slides, washouts, floods, etc. The repairs are almost finished now and creek levels across roads have dropped to no more than an inch or so. Had to watch after fording. Hit it too hard and the next corner will teach you a lesson about drying tires.

Once again I marveled at the way Ferrari got the Dino so right, so long ago. It is worth fixing everything that breaks and it is a shame to not drive it to the limit every now and then. Now I only wish I could match the exhaust note of that 355 as it accelerates out of a tunnel. And it would be nice to not pop and bang so much coming down hills. I keep the idle high on the Webers and can’t keep the idle mixture as perfect as the computers and FI can. Folks following me say the occasional flame is entertaining. Oh Well!

John
.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I use the free version on a 17" monitor set to 1024 x 768 pixels. High speed DSL is fast enough. Can't tell from the site what additional you get for the $20 except better printouts and ability to enter GPS data. I save a picture and then re-work it a little. Colors are frequently artificial looking and "focus" goes soft when you look almost horizontally. Sharpening and color balance can help sometimes. Pictures are just under 800 x 600 so posting to Fchat is trivial. Takes a little practice but you can fly like a helicopter and the detail in some sectors is amazing. Looks like about half meter resolution on occasion. Then you can fly at 500 ft and really scout routes and even check single and double center lines. Other stuff is about 10 meter resolution and you can barely see that a road is there. Ground elevation points appear to be on a 10 meter or higher grid. Can't wait to see what Google does next.

John

 

Just watching this got my stomach tight and my shoulders moving. Sitting here in a swivel chair. That was the country and we were following him. Intense!

John

 

Candi saw me watching Karim's video and said "that's crazy, looks like a video game." She was right but it is a good approximation of our ride. Road was about the same width without the yellow lines we had to observe. Speed was about the same. We passed Harleys the same way, Ducattis were a little harder but not much. We did not have the nice wide over run area on the outside of the decreasing radius turns. Or the nice white inside curbs. Countryside could be the same. Car was probably not a Ferrari. Probably was drifting most of the time. Pretty much at its limits and squirrely. Driver knew the track fairly well. I would love to run it. Lets see if Karim tells us where it was and what kind of car.

John

 

Julio,

Color is early 1990s Ford Mustang color. Moonlight Blue metalic with clear overcoat. Or could have been Midnight Blue. It is a very close match to a number of Ferrari choices over the years. The first Dino I ever saw was this color and it was stunning. I wanted a color that PPG could match with no problem since the car is a driver and road rash is a common occurance. Lost seal on water pump once and coolant ruined paint on engine and trunk lids. Re painted trunk lid and match is great. Engine lid one of these days. Lots of touch up with no problem. Current paint is about 10 years old. Still looks pretty good.

John