Pilgrim

I just made my first medium-long road trip in Zoomie, an '05 GT.

Yakima (central) Washington to Boulder City, NV via Portland, OR, then I-5 to the cutoff to Bakersfield, CA , then to Barstow, Vegas, and Boulder City. Reassemble in reverse order.

Rain, lots of hard rain, from central Oregon all the way to Fresno, but no snow or ice, even in the Siskiyou Mountains of NorCal. Running stock summer tires in the rain it did just fine, even at 75 to 80 on the wet curves of the Interstate in those mountains.

Barstow to Vegas at 90+ (Damn, but they drive fast on I-15; you'd get your *** run over at 80! Hooray!!), including fifteen or twenty miles at over 100. The car is wonderfully stable.

Dry all the way back, and average northbound speed reflects it.

Overall distance: 2,968 miles (including a bit of local, town driving down there)
Approximate Driving Time: 41 hours
Approximate Avg Speed: 72mph

Gas Mileage:

It was good to see that the difference between a slow cruise (60 - 70 mph) and a fast cruise (90+) only amounts to about 3.5 mpg. But who's counting, anyway?

Oil: added a shot at about 2,000 miles into the trip. Also premixing at a low level.

This is a terrific GT car. It has adequate acceleration; it's fast, with what I call "ease of speed", it feels like it's loafing even at 100mph; it handles exceptionally well, and it's very comfortable to sit in for long periods. I ran off one tank to 300 miles with no stops, and only had a slightly stiff right knee to show for it. That's natural; I'm 60 years old, so aches and pains come easy.

I'd leave again in the morning without a second thought.

8s Forever!

Pilgrim

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

Nice ! I always want to do a road trip. From NYC to anywhere in Cali. never had a chance to do that.

Anything special happend on the way ?

StewyRX8

Nice and Green! This car does make for great road trips...

Winfree

Hey Coolblue - are you really up in my neck of the woods (great time for driving right now) or did your Avatar get hijacked by the local trolls?)

Pilgrim

Nope, nothing special happened except miles and miles of fast, fun cruise. I-5 through the Siskiyou Mountains is one of the few really fun, pretty parts of the Interstate system. Now, I almost, sorta plan on taking the back roads from here to Denver this summer. That'll be a hoot, what with all the curves and twisties and scenery.

The purpose was to attend the funeral of a friend who was killed on his motorcycle by a stop-sign runner. I picked up another guy near Roseburg, OR on the way. At 6'2" and 300 lbs he filled the right seat up pretty full, and his weight had a noticeable impact on acceleration, but he didn't have any comfort complaints, which surprised me. The seat stood up to his presence just fine, but I'm sure ten thousand miles of that weight would, uh, "reshape" it.

C-B-D, I have a nephew who is in the wine industry over in the Sonoma country. He has a bumper sticker that says " Sonoma make wine; Napa makes auto parts". I like it.

Pilgrim