The April 10th drive & meet afterparty thread

[TheJANG]

(Mods/admins, if y'all would rather keep this discussion in the original thread, no prob, let me know & lock this one up, and I'll repost.)

DISCLAIMER: The following is the personal opinion of Bamidele "The JANG" Shangobunmi and does not reflect the views of NorCalEvo.net, UltimateRC.com, or anyone or anything else BLAH blah blah :lol:

The Highs:

Meeting up with a bunch of Evo folks in Cupertino. Cool cars, cool people.

The route chosen for the drive. Truly A+, even though we did get held up by slow vehicles. I got to try the Scandanavian twist on one of the turns in the wooded section and got my first half-drift (outside tires at high slip angle but still gripping, inside tires overdriven & screachin'). Fun stuff.

Count 'em, 37 Evos at Works Rally. Yee-uh!

The Lows:

Ok, first stint on the freeway, tearing it up at very excessive speeds on the freeway, trying to keep up. NOT COOL!

Getting off at Sand Hill about 50ft before a parked CHP after travelling at very excessive speeds. Having my g/f very observantly point out that the CHP started BACKING UP to follow us up the offramp. Taking the rest of the lead group a quick detour back onto the freeway, up an exit and then back to try to lose the guy.

More very excessive speed on the final freeway stint in to Works with weaving & hard braking in traffic, folks broken up in 4 or 5 little groups, almost missing exits, etc. Big thanks to Tyler@Works for charging up to the front of the main pack & slowing everybody down to collect us together the way we should have been the whole time.

My incident at the lookout point :oops: To anyone who doesn't know, PM me, there are reasons not to talk about in the public forum. (Btw thanks again <insert other person's name here> for being so cool about it.)

All in all...

The freeway madness really stressed me out and I hope in the future we bring that in check. I was looking forward to driving in a long, solid column of Evos at least once and didn't quite get to that point until the last exit, but I seriously enjoyed the backroads and hope to take that drive again, many times :twisted:

Big thanks to all of the folks who planned the event, to the speed shops for sponsoring giveaways (and Works especially for hosting us). Thanks yet again to nebolic for hooking up these awesome shirts, too.

See y'all next time!

P.S.: I'll post some photos up later or tomorrow.

[vtluu]

Thanks for the feedback Jang. I agree with you, I don't personally care what speed people drive at when they're on their own, but if you're trying to "caravan" then you really need to be going at a fairly moderate pace in order to keep the group together and avoid any trouble with the police, etc. The burden and responsibility falls on the lead car to set a reasonable pace and do their best not to lose people behind them at a traffic light or by doing sudden lane changes without leaving enough room for the cars following them to make the same lane change, (etc.).

Anyway I'm glad to hear the meet went well! :D

[warpspeed]

You guys should do what we do (Sac/Fairfield caravan), we have radios so we can talk to each other so we know where everbody is. Just a suggestion.

[jstockdale]

Since I was leading the drive, and the freeway portion in particular, the pace setting comment is definitely a complaint against me (which is fine, but next time go ahead and just name who you're complaining about, ok?).

Anyway ... first of all, let me apologize about losing part of the pack. Keeping everyone together was my responsibility and I accept that I failed in some degree here. That said, a large part of the problem was that we (the lead cars) were planning on waiting at the Highway 1 / 280 junction (I assumed that Hwy 1 would stay small up to that point, and I could pull over easily). In reality, there was no place to pull over after that last little town we passed through, without illegally parking on the side of a freeway. Not cool.

I should have known better than to change the drive while we were going. It only caused problems, and a significant portion of your complaints come from the section of road that I hadn't driven before; however, please remember that several people, including you, wanted to have a longer drive, and have some more fun since we were going so slow on 84 and skyline. The 92 to 1 to 280 drive extension was the only realistic extra drive that we could do from that point (while staying in an area that I'm even remotely familiar with).


Getting off at Sand Hill about 50ft before a parked CHP after travelling at very excessive speeds. Having my g/f very observantly point out that the CHP started BACKING UP to follow us up the offramp.

Anyone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but according to my speedo we were running 280 between 85 and 90 mph for the majority of the trip. This is the section of road that I drive _all_the_time_ and know very well. 85-90 is neither excessive (as long as you watch for CHP, which we were doing) nor "very excessive" for this stretch of road.

Also, the 280 stretch was done at the same speed as the freeway stretch of our meet and drive for GB/MPJ with i-zone: EXCEPT it didn't include the weeving in and out of heavy traffic going significantly slower than us.


More very excessive speed on the final freeway stint in to Works with weaving & hard braking in traffic, folks broken up in 4 or 5 little groups, almost missing exits, etc.

Well I don't know how much I can speak for this section, because I lost everyone _before_ I started travelling significanly faster than the group.


Just to close on some overall comments ... the drive we took (up to the lookout point) was one of the roads I drive on a very regular basis and know very well. I know where the passing straits are, how much speed you need as an individual and as a group to make it by a car in each passing section, the max cornering speed of every turn (which is incidentally 5-10 mph lower on my car than most of the other Evo's who were on the drive), etc. I tried my best to lead the group well, waiting for everyone to line up behind me, and then trying to get by the slower moving vehicles that we encountered (safely and effectively). Every time we came to a passing zone, I passed first and early in the zone only to watch the other cars either pass late in the passing area, or not at all.

We ended up driving that entire section of road at one of the slowest paces I've ever driven it. Not only was it very safe (since we never came close to maxing out any corners) it was excrutiatingly boring for the local people on the drive (myself, the friend I had driving with me, and the maroon WRX). I actually had one of my friends comment on how bad everyone sucked in their inablilty to effectivly pass cars.

Based on the GB/MPJ + i-zone meet that we had (and the insanely fast driving through the countryside and on the freeways) I know that we can drive better than that, and how much fun it can be. So when we hit Hwy 1 I figured I'd pick it up just a little bit, and try to pass some of the traffic and get into open road. After one pass, there were 3-4 cars in front. After 2 passes, there were 3 cars in front. Since that was 1/5th of the group, and we couldn't see the rest of the group anymore, I decided to wait at the 280/Hwy 1 isection.

The other Evo that was driving with us took a break, and since I was all alone out in front with my friend in the WRX, we picked up the pace until we hit 280.

Ok, so moral of the story: I never pushed 100 while with the group, and I only lost the group after I got sick of going 50 on Hwy 1 and started to pass a couple cars (and assumed that the people behind would pass as well). I fail to see how this was excessive and dangerous ... especially compared to other meets that I've been at where under slightly lighter traffic, there were columns of cars travelling at speeds ranging between 100 and 125, passing across double lines, etc.

I don't by any means want our drives to be dangerous, but I want them to be fun. There was no time yesterday when I tried to take the group on anything remotely close to dangerous, and I feel that the negative comments you have on how the drive was led could be just as easily turned around and used to complain about how the group should have easily been able to stick together given the reasonable pace I set for the entire time I was in sight of the rest of the group.

-S ...

[TheJANG]

Thanks for the response. I didn't name you in particular because I didn't feel you were solely responsible, and names weren't necessary. I spoke to you in person on the spot about what I had to say to you personally. I had no idea who was leading at any point after we left the lookout point.

I had no complaints about the Sand Hill-Portola-Skyline-92-1 sections, other than the slow cars that held us up (and that didn't really bother me, I mean, public roads, what can ya do).

As for what makes "excessive" speeds, I guess that's a matter of interpretation. To me, there's no reason to go over 75 on freeways on the way *to* a fun driving route, racetrack, meet, or anything. If CHP was running a chopper or plane in our area and they busted every last one of us for doing 85-90, then what? Also, comparing this to other meets where folks have gone 100-125 is completely irrelevant.

Perhaps I'm just a bit of a granny. Perhaps I've already been pulled over once (one too many times) for doing 85 and almost gotten my license revoked on the spot for wreckless driving (though in my mind I was in total control of my car). Perhaps I've completely wrecked a car once before in my life. Perhaps I've also been pulled over for doing 75 in a 65 zone, looking out for CHP's... busted by guess what, a PLANE who radioed down to the ground. I'm sure these things taint my view!

All I'm saying is, again, speeding on the freeways seemed completely unnecessary and it had me trippin'. Also, I was disappointed to not be able to be in a column with my Evo brothas!

If I'm too much of a granny for the group though (and some folks who saw me take off & burn some turns in the hills as well as on 1 would disagree), maye I'm just not cut out for it, and should go on drives alone. Sorry to be negative.

[jstockdale]

I didn't name you in particular because I didn't feel you were solely responsible, and names weren't necessary. I spoke to you in person on the spot about what I had to say to you personally. I had no idea who was leading at any point after we left the lookout point.

Thanks for clearing that up. I understand the comments better now. Sorry about any harsh areas in my response ... I originally interpreted it incorrectly as a little bit of a personal attack.



I had no complaints about the Sand Hill-Portola-Skyline-92-1 sections, other than the slow cars that held us up (and that didn't really bother me, I mean, public roads, what can ya do).

True! It's such a fun drive, in fact one of my favorite (except the 92-1 section ... which I really liked even though it was my first time on it). I'm thinking it would be a fun drive to do again sometime when there won't be as much traffic :)



Perhaps I'm just a bit of a granny. Perhaps I've already been pulled over once (one too many times) for doing 85 and almost gotten my license revoked on the spot for wreckless driving (though in my mind I was in total control of my car). Perhaps I've completely wrecked a car once before in my life. Perhaps I've also been pulled over for doing 75 in a 65 zone, looking out for CHP's... busted by guess what, a PLANE who radioed down to the ground. I'm sure these things taint my view!

I'll agree that given that perspective, I understand your comments much better now :) Thanks for clearing up where you were coming from. I didn't realize that they could use planes in CA ... VASCAR is illegal (the white strips that you see in some states that mark out distances so they can time cars) and I thought that would rule out all aerial estimation (but I guess it doesn't :( ).


If I'm too much of a granny for the group though (and some folks who saw me take off & burn some turns in the hills as well as on 1 would disagree), maye I'm just not cut out for it, and should go on drives alone. Sorry to be negative.
Definitely not! I remember driving with you on the GB/MPJ meet and that was awesome! I just was bummed about all the traffic that prevented us from having more fun on the main part of the drive.

The other thing, I took the comments a bit personal because this is the first time I've done anything larger than scout routes for NorCalEvo ... and I really want to stay more involved in the group ... didn't want anyone not letting me work on the drives again because I messed up and lost the group my first time around :)

Live and learn right!

Thanks again for the reply.

-S ...

[kimmievo]

Nice meeting everyone on Saturday...the drive was fun, although I am a slowpoke. If I didnt have 3 other passengers, that might have been a different story. :)

Hope to see all of you soon at another meet!!

[nebolic]

they can't use planes to speed trap you "calculate your speed by going from point a to point b" but they can use planes to calculate how fast you're going and then call in a CHP patrol car to pace you and give you a ticket for it. They'll use all avaible tools to get you. sucks but yeah if they want to get you, they'll get you no matter what.

[Black_EVO]

That's where my sun roof come in handy :birdie: ha ha!!

[TheJANG]

Glad that cleared up any misunderstanding, jstockdale. Looks like we're on the same page, except I wasn't on the GB/MPJ run. Wrong black Evo :))

Speaking of which, Black_EVO, I tried using my sunroof to scan the sky once when I was on 680 and had seen a chopper up ahead. Got to the area they were covering and the chopper went right by me and I didn't see him until he was in view high in my windshield. They know the angles to fly at!

[Black_EVO]

I know, they've usually got you before you even see them. The birdy is an after thought. JK

[vtluu]

What's why you need to poke one of these (http://www.nisat.org/weapons%20pages%20linked/US/stinger_missile_system.htm) out of your sunroof. :lol:

[TheJANG]

http://www.humor-land.com/files/picture/53344285.jpg

:tears:

[Black_EVO]

What's why you need to poke one of these (http://www.nisat.org/weapons%20pages%20linked/US/stinger_missile_system.htm) out of your sunroof. :lol:

Yeh, that would work..... In Iraq :ahnold:

[evo_dadi]

http://www.humor-land.com/files/picture/53344285.jpg

:tears:

aww man forget speeding around with that thing around :yikes: :yikes:

[r6bruin]

It's all cool. I think the only minor issue here is communication between drivers before the drive. As we have a group of ppl with different expectation and/or cayon driving experience, it might be better to break the group into a couple subgroups in the future drive.

This is actually not a new idea, there's a motorcycle riding group which organize ride every month in Skyline/Hwy 1/etc, and they break the bikers into 10 different groups that ride with different speed, and riders join at their will and ride in the group where they feel most comfortable with. The groups then meet somewhere in between, and riders have a chance to move up to a faster group or move down to a slower group. That way the slower rider won't have much pressure on catching up the faster biker and the fast biker won't need to slow down to wait for the slower one.

That said, I don't think there's anything wrong, especially for beginner, to join the slower group first and then move up. It is much easier to learn the route when driving without pressure. Also some ppl would prefer to take it slow and enjoy the scene as well.

Just my 0.02.

[EvoKach]

they can't use planes to speed trap you "calculate your speed by going from point a to point b" but they can use planes to calculate how fast you're going and then call in a CHP patrol car to pace you and give you a ticket for it. They'll use all avaible tools to get you. sucks but yeah if they want to get you, they'll get you no matter what.

They do track your speed from the air. What is the point of having a plane in the sky then? Read through the release from www.kcra.com below:

Results Of Highway 50 Speeding Crackdown Released
Tickets More Than Doubled From Same Time Last Year

POSTED: 4:11 pm PDT April 14, 2004
UPDATED: 5:20 pm PDT April 14, 2004

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The results of a month-long crackdown of speeders along Highway 50, within Sacramento and Placer counties, were released Wednesday.

When Greg Arroyo was ticketed for speeding Wednesday, he said he had no idea he had been spotted going 91 mph, long before California Highway Patrol Officer Kevin Peirce pulled him over.

"I felt like my decision at the speed I was going was a right decision. I felt that it was safe. So, I don't feel like I deserve a ticket," Arroyo said.

Unfortunately for Arroyo, Peirce says he has heard that excuse before. So, Arroyo received the ticket.

The program that caught Arroyo is a team approach, according to CHP officials. It starts from the air, with a CHP pilot clocking the speeders and pointing them out to the officers on the roadway, many of which are in special stealth CHP Chevrolet Camaros.

Highway 50, from Watt Avenue to the city of Placerville, was targeted with the increased patrol, and the statistics are in for the Sacramento County side of the crackdown.

During March of 2003, between Watt Avenue and Bidwell Street, CHP officers wrote 635 speeding tickets. During March of 2004, they wrote 1,360 speeding tickets, according to the statistics.

Authorities say it's too soon to know whether this program has reduced accidents, but a similar crackdown on Interstate 5 last year reduced truck accidents by 34 percent, according to investigators.

And some speeders have even raced to the defense of the program.

"I think it's good. I want to be safe for the kids and myself. If I was speeding, I need to slow down," said Kevin McGuigan, who was clocked going 84 mph.

"I know nobody enjoys getting a ticket, but if the tickets we issue to that driver and to the passing-by motorists, if that'll make them aware of their driving behavior and make our roads safer, then I am doing my job," Peirce said.

The CHP is also cracking down on people driving alone in the carpool lane on the same stretch of Highway 50. In March of 2003, the CHP wrote one ticket for a carpool lane violation. Last month, they wrote 46 citations.

[CollinsT]

ok im back, good meet, I enjoyed being the cook of the party, if only we had a bigger grill. When is next meet gonna be?