Targa California 2013-Day Two Paso Robles to Monterey

Day Two of the Targa was to be my last day on the tour due to a family vacation on the docket beginning on Saturday and what a day it was.

The morning began a bit ominously when I wandered over to the Starbucks across the street from our host hotel and was greeted with the sight of six Highway Patrol pickup trucks in the parking lot. The officers manning the trucks were the dreaded commercial inspectors and they were talking about where to set up for their planned operations. I had visions of intensive full contact Vehicle Code inspections for all of us Targistas alongside one of the roads on our planned route.

However, my paranoia was completely unfounded as the trucks all took off and we began our day free of any unwanted attention. The morning’s route took us up and around Lake Nacimiento and then across Highway 101 to some back roads leading to CA-25, which is named “The Airline Highway” possibly because you can get airborne over some of the dips in the road. I fell in with a pretty quick pack of cars behind a beautiful Irish Green short wheelbase Porsche 912. We eventually caught up with a big pack of cars that slowed our progress somewhat but the road was still great fun to drive although the 912 did manage to make a wild hare on Hare Canyon Road into hasenpfeffer when it darted into the road.

From CA-25, we wound through the back roads west of Gilroy, which is the garlic capitol of the world judging from the smells wafting into the car. We eventually ended up in the suburbs west of San Jose and popped on to Highway 17 near Los Gatos. It was a quick trip up the hill that was made more entertaining by tailing a VW Thing not from our group which seemed to be packing a bit of motor.

When we reached Scotts Valley we all exited the highway to head to the world famous shop, museum, and exotic car dealership of accomplished racecar driver Bruce Canepa. The complex is located in a 70,000 square foot building that used to house Seagate Technologies but has been completely reimagined as a paradise for gearheads.

Our tour guide Lou led us around the facility and his knowledge of the cars and operations was very impressive. We began by taking a look at the detail bay where cars are finished for their final inspections and also any new cars that come in for service or restoration are thoroughly cleaned before they are allowed to enter the beyond sanitary shop work areas. One car on the lift outside was a minty ’79 Porsche 930 that honestly looked brand new and made me feel a little bashful about how grungy Dirty had gotten on this trip. Oh well, she’s a driver and not a show car.

We entered the shop and I nearly fell on the floor when I saw seven Porsche 959’s in various states of repair. I had only seen one or two in the wild before and I have been obsessed with them since they came out when I was just getting my drivers license. They were all stunning and coupled with two other cars that were elsewhere in the shop that brought the total to nine cars, which has to be a huge percentage of all the cars in the country at this point.

Lou then showed us one of the most significant projects in the shop which is the first Duesenberg ever made. It has belonged to the same family since new and is now being fully restored to hopefully grace the lawn at Pebble Beach in August. Most of the parts needed are being handmade in the fabrication shop just as they would have been when the car was new. Lou also led us through the paint and assembly area where there was a Mercedes 300SL taken down to the frame and also a very neat 23-window VW Bus that was getting treated to 911 brake and suspension bits and will be powered by a Porsche 962 motor. Watch out for a red and tan Transporter heading over Highway 17 as it will probably pass you fast enough to suck the windows clean out of their channels.

Our next stop was the dealership showroom where they had some stunning cars on offer including a lovely red 959, the world’s “most raced” Porsche 911, and a host of other beautiful cars all in a stunning state of fettle.

Lou then led us through the Canepa Museum that was full of significant cars that Bruce either raced or had a special interest in. There was a Pikes Peak hill climb monster that he nearly won the event with in the early ‘80’s as well as many other significant cars such as Mark Donohue’s Penske Javelin, one of the Tyrell Formula 1 six wheelers, Richard Petty’s NASCAR Torino, and the legendary So-Cal Speed Shop Bonneville coupe.

We finished our tour by checking out the cold storage room where there was a “Wall of Cars” racked up on one end of the building that included a Group 44 Jaguar Group C racer, another 959, and a very pristine ’66 VW Beetle.

The day at Canepa ended with an excellent Taco Fiesta that was delicious and beyond generous in its portions.

From Canepa the group headed down Highway 1 to Monterey for a hosted reception at Mohr Imports and a drive over Nacimiento Road on Saturday, but alas I had to hit the road home full of great memories and already itching for Targa California 2014.

If you have any interest in classic sports cars and seeing them in motion instead of being wiped down with a cloth diaper on the grass, you need to find a way to attend this event. Any sort of older sled will do the job, although something reasonably sporty with make it more fun as most of the roads are blessed with winding curves that might make you seasick in something that is too softly suspended. You can contact Dave Bouzaglou at TRE Motorsports for more information and tips on how to get to the event next year. The Targa was within ten entries of a sellout this year so make sure to watch the web page at www.targacalifornia.com so you can be sure to secure your spot well in advance.

Next weekend will take me to the Long Beach Grand Prix to see my friends from the Pirelli World Challenge so stay tuned and I will see you out on the road soon.

Targa California 2013-Day One Glendale to Paso Robles

Targa California 2013-Day One

When I was a kid, I used to drive my 1971 Super Beetle up Angeles Crest Highway north of Los Angeles going as fast as 60 HP would take me and then race down to the bottom pretending my Super Beetle was the latest and greatest 911 Turbo. This was about 1987 and I was so obsessed with the fat fendered force fed monster that my license plate on the Bug was “1AB911S” or for those of you not hooked on phonics, a “wanna-be” 911S.

This morning I got to drive that very same dream car (my 1987 930 “Dirty”) up those same roads but this time amongst a gallery of cars that would make the average gearhead drop to the deck in a puddle of drool.

The day began with a drivers meeting led by our Chief Disorganizer Dave Bouzaglou where we heard about the rules of the road and the proper etiquette to keep the whole lot of us out of the cooler. With that out of the way, over 110 cars hit the road cutting through Glendale and La Canada on our way to Angeles Crest Highway. The field included an amazing variety of 911’s in all flavors from mild to wild, a gaggle of beautiful Alfa Romeos, some excellent C2 generation Corvettes, a pair of gorgeous E9 chassis BMW’s and more automotive goodness than you could possible imagine.

I spent the first leg behind a “fat tire” group slicing and dicing through the Angeles National Forest at a spirited but not insane pace. We eventually wound up near the Gorman fuel stops just shy of the Tejon Pass. From there we drove around Frazier Lake and down into the oilfields near Taft and Buttonwillow. Lunch was at the Highway 58 food bazaar and then we were off again towards the Santa Margarita stretches of 58 where it cuts cross country towards the coast.

At this point, I feel in with a “skinny tire” duo consisting of a 1958 Alfa coupe and a later 356C. I could have blown past these cars at any point with my considerable horsepower edge but I found myself simply enchanted and fascinated by watching the Alfa and its driver working gently around corners at a very brisk clip. The baby blue coupe would roll towards the outside of each corner demurely cocking its inside front tire in the air and waft through the corners not losing an inch to the 356 in front of it. All of my hurry up left me and I sat back to just enjoy the Alfa’s sublime dance through nicely canted switchbacks and whoop-de-doos that sent my stiffly suspended 930 airborne for a few seconds more than once.

After some time on 58, we hit CA-229 which is best described as a paved roller coaster. It is barely a lane and a half wide and boy is it a corker. Up, down, on camber, off camber, and simply bonkers. After a long day behind the wheel that was bringing on some drowsiness, this was like shotgunning a Monster energy drink with a triple espresso on the side.

Once we got off 229, the route took us through Paso Robles’ Vineyard District and finally to our home for the evening, the Adelaide Inn off Highway 101. The day finished with a tour of the Estrella Warbird Museum and the Woodland Auto Display along with a banquet dinner where the bench racing was at a fever pitch.

Tomorrow’s route takes us up the coast to the Santa Cruz area where we will visit the world famous shop of Bruce Canepa and then the tour will head back to Monterey for the evening. If you have the slightest inkling that you might want to do an event like this, you owe it to yourself to give it a whirl. Shops like event sponsor Auto Kennel can sort you out a bought or borrowed ride and you will make memories that will keep you warm and grinning long after the garage door closes.

Getting ready for a thousand miles of fun

There is an old saying you hear quite often that “proper preparation predicts perfect performance”. The flip side of this is the warning that “poor preparation precedes pathetic performance”.

With these two thoughts in mind, I decided to get off my keester and into the garage to do a proper nut-and-bolt inspection of my 1987 Porsche 930 (the “Dirty 930”) to get ready for Targa California 2013.

The Targa California is an event “disorganized” by long time Porsche guru Dave Bouzaglou from TRE Motorsports in Van Nuys, CA. Dave was one of the miscreants roaring up and down Mulholland Drive in the 1970’s and still spends a great deal of time hooning around the back roads of the Golden State so he is a certified B-road expert. Each year he picks out a route for 100 or so of his closest friends to enjoy behind the wheels of all sorts of vintage motors with neat stops along the ways and bench racing gatherings in the evenings.

A big part of enjoying the Targa is having a reliable car that does not leave you sitting alongside a very peaceful country lane contemplating the nature of your mechanical travail. Even worse is having a mechanical problem that ends up with you performing Bikram yoga moves to extract yourself from a crunched car serenely settled in a select part of the picturesque California landscape.

So as not to end up in one of those states, I began the in-depth inspection of Ol’ Dirty to make sure all was in proper fettle. I have been driving the car almost daily for a few weeks to note any strange behavior but other than a squeaky A/C compressor (fixed by removing the belt) she ran as a properly sorted 930 of her era should. Boost was good, shifts were crisp, and the handling was its usual tricky self.

A good nut-and-bolter starts with the car in the air with its wheels removed and all the tender bits exposed to the harsh glare of an inspection light. Here you can see Dirty making like she had spent the night in a bad part of town with her Fuchs long gone.

The key systems to inspect are brakes, suspension, ignition, fuel, motor, transmission, and steering. Although the Targa does not run during the nighttime hours, you will also want to check your lamps and also ensure all the electrics that help with the weather are working well as the coastal route of the Targa can often serve up some unpredictable weather at times. I have seen rain, snow, mud, cows, and grasshopper swarms so make sure the wipers work well.

The first thing to look for while you are crawling around is any disturbance in the force, er, dirt that is usually under most cars. Do you see something that is too clean? Fluid leaking where there was nothing before? No fluid where there used to be a healthy leak? All of these things point towards something that is going to go ka-bang 15 miles south of BFE so poke, prod, and pull to see if you can figure out what might be amiss.

The next task is to put a wrench, screwdriver, or socket on everything you can see that can fit a wrench, screwdriver, or socket. Oil fittings, drain plugs, axle bolts, trans mounts, engine mounts, coolant hoses, and anything else that could loosen up and fall off should get a quick turn of the wrench to make sure all is snug. While you are touring around under bonnet you should also take a quick look at any belts to make sure they are not glazed, fraying or cracking. I failed to catch a leaky intercooler seal last year so I had an inconsistent idle and oil leaks all over the engine compartment that only stopped when I duct taped all the intercooler fittings together in the truest Ricky Bobby spirit.

 

Once all is well there, you need to pay attention to your dearest’s vital fluids. You should plan on an oil change, trans fluid refresh, coolant service, and brake and or clutch master fluid flush to get any crunky old lubricants or fluids out of there and filled with new to ensure all is well and ready for service. Dirty had just had an oil change with valve adjust and a trans rebuild within the last 300 miles so I mainly concerned myself with the brake fluid as coolant is verboten in an oil cooled ass engine Nazi slot car.

 

Once you have all that done, a nice bath and good cleaning of the inside is in order. Start the trip clean so you aren’t enjoying funky smells and grimy windows. The car will most likely come home filthy but at least you can begin the event squeaky clean and ready for fun. You should also find a stained old duffle bag than can hold some key spares like fuses, relays, oil, brake fluid, and perhaps other items that are known to crump from time to time on your particular sort of ride.

So, hopefully my prep was good and Dirty is now ready for 1,000 miles of the Targa California. Check @gearheadtourist on Twitter for updates-hopefully none involve a flatbed or pictures of me hiking along in the twilight with my thumb out…