Now For The Fun

I just spent 8 days driving the 330 up in Canada.  The first three days were in conjunction with the NW Region of the FCA.  The event was a trip to Harrison Hot Springs in British Columbia.

I left on Friday, meeting up with several other cars for lunch north of Seattle in Snohomish.  After a pleasant lunch, we headed north up highway 9, a road that parallels I-5 going clear to the US-Canadian border.  The first part of highway 9 is pretty straight with quite a bit of traffic (Friday leave work early type), but as we went further, the road became clearer and curvier.  I caused an emergency stop as I could hear the left tire rubbing on the heater vent hose running from the heater fan to the heater box.  I stuffed it back in place, but couldn't get it reattached properly.  More on that later.

After some nice somewhat fast driving, we arrived at the Abbotsford border crossing, with most of us gassing up on the US side as fuel is quite a bit more expensive in Canada.  Prior to 9/11, a lot of Canadians living near the border would pop across just for fuel.  The border crossing was uneventful except that the Canadian border guard was very carefully checking the picture IDs.  As we have a place in Whistler, BC, we cross the border quite often (at least once a month) and I was surprised at the diligence.  Not even right after 9/11 has the Canadian side been that careful at the border crossing we usually use.

Everybody waited until each car had made it through.  Then it was off to a wine and cheese party hosted by the parents of Keith Anderson, a Canadian FCA member that met us there.  I eschewed the party as I had some Canadian banking business to attend to.  After the party, it was off to the Harrison Hot Springs Resort.  I arrived before everybody else, but the valet attendants were prepared for us.  They had me park right in front and when I told them that there would be seven other Ferraris, they moved several cars so we could all park in in group.

Here's a different view of my car taken from my fifth floor balcony.

Harrison Lake is about 45 miles long with the northern end nestled right up in the mountains.  It's difficult to see in the thumbnail, but there's snow on the far peak.

The next day I went out early and removed the offending heater vent hose relegating it to the trunk for the rest of the trip.  Then we went on a drive, first taking highway 3 to Princeton and then 5A onto Merritt.  From there we came back down the Coquiholla Connector toll road (highway 5) to Hope and then back to Harrison. 

The total distance was about 240 miles.  In the first chunk on highway 3, the lead cars almost ran over a RCMP patrol car before noticing it.  However, the RCMP officer was also napping and quick action on the brakes got their speed down just about the time he got the radar gun working.  A nice long stop at the rest area where the Hope slide occurred let him go on his way.  The next stop was to look into why the clutch on one of the member's TR wasn't working well.  It turned out to be a heat problem and the clutch would come back after more reasonable driving at slower speeds cooled the engine down.  So a flat bed tow was averted and the TR was able to continue.

The two lead foot drivers always left the rest of the pack to catch up.  On the way to Princeton, they caught up with a couple on Ninja motorcycles who were driving fast, but not as fast as they could.  However they were taking up both lanes of the 4 lane road and wouldn't move over.  Finally they did, but decided to follow the Ferraris.  The driver of the 355 decided to see how fast they really would go.  He took off and they hunkered down to minimize wind resistance, but never had a chance as he took the 355 up to about 150 mph.  When I arrived in Princeton, they were on the side with a RCMP car behind.  I drove by slowly, pretending that I didn't know them from Adam.  It turns out that they had stopped to let the others catch up and decide where to have lunch.  The RCMP officer was of Italian descent, drove by, flipped a U-turn and pulled in behind.  Since the two cars were parked on the side of the highway where there were no parking signs posted, they were worried that he was going to write a ticket.  Far from that, he would have loved to take a ride or drive one of the cars.  The only offer was a drive in the patrol car for one in the 355.  He couldn't figure out how to get away with that and it probably would have been his job if caught, so no trading of vehicles occurred.  There was a discussion of what route we were taking and we politely declined as we didn't want him to radio ahead.  Of course, all of the cars that had been passed at high speeds came by, all laughing since the Ferraris were getting their just dessert.

After lunch, we headed off on 5A toward Merritt.  Since the Coquiholla Connector was built, 5A gets little use.  It's a good road, lots of 40-70 kph marked curves and almost no traffic.  I can only remember passing about 10 cars in the 50 or so miles.  Most of the straight sections were at 80-90 mph with the curves being taken at 2x the marked speeds.

Here are a couple of pictures taken by one of other cars.  I'm being followed by a 308 GTS.  The person taking the pictures was one of the lead foot drivers.  He had pulled over to take some pictures and ended up with his camera in movie mode.  Click here to view the movie.  He then followed, passing each car after taking several pictures.  When he passed me, he had the 456 at 7000 rpm in third gear.  As it was hot, I had the window open and it really screamed as he passed.

We stopped at a rest area near the Coquiholla Connector entrance.  I'm convinced that the modern Ferraris have a hood release that automatically opens when stopped while the engine is hot.  As you can see, every car in the picture except mine is that way.

The run back down the Coquiholla Connector was interesting.  The Canadian member lives up north in Kamloops and his parents live in Abbotsford, so he travels that road quite often.  So some tips on where the RCMP like to hang out and where they can't due to the road structure left us all prepared for some fast driving.  It was a fast trip back, with 90 mph being about normal.  I took the 330 up to about 100 for about 20 miles and was quite satisfied with the stability and performance.

Back at the resort, our reserved places were ready for us and I, among others, was ready for a dip in the hot springs.

Saturday night was a nice dinner at the Rowena Inn, about 20 miles away in Harrison Mills.  On the way into the restaurant, one of the chefs asked for a ride which was promised.  Toward the end of the meal, our waitress mentioned (several times) that there were these three chefs in the kitchen that were just dying for a ride.  So we accommodated them (and the cute waitress too).

On Sunday, most people left independently for Seattle, but I went west and then north to our place in Whistler.  We had had a roof leak with some sheetrock damage so I was to meet the contractor and be there while it was repaired.  The drive to Whistler from Vancouver is a narrow and windy road in some places.  As I know it well, I was looking forward driving it in the Ferrari, however the Sunday traffic was heavy and then two motorcycles managed to collide head-on (difficult!) which closed the road for an hour or so.  The following Saturday I drove back to Seattle, leaving Whistler before 7AM.  So the road was deserted and I could drive it as it should be driven.  It made for the fastest trip to or from Whistler ever, a little less than 4 hours door to door.  So I told my wife that we needed to drive the Ferrari from now on, but she was skeptical on how well it would do in the snow compared to our all-wheel drive van.  So maybe just during the summer months.