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In past NGs, we used to just trek out individually to the gathering. This year we got to talking and realized some of the best roads in the country reside between the easy coast and south eastern Kentucky. This gave us an idea.
So the producers told us to gather our best non-3/S cars to bring to the 3SNG and meet up at Jason's place in Milton, DE.
Dave was the first to arrive in the brand new Focus ST. It's the fully loaded ST3 model sporting all the new features of the 2015 cars. Surprised at how many little changes were made both interior and exterior-wise. At its core, it's still the great ST we love.
Jason just picked his car up from NJ after several upgrades including a 4.40 rear end, new bushings, Ohlin coil overs, new catback, new tires and a tune.
The 94 FD R2 also sported a beautiful new carbon fiber hood with vents to allow better airflow thru the radiator and IC which kept temps under control. The fit and finish were perfect!! (No not really... I made that part up, it looks and fit like Hillary Clinton at a Miss America pageant.)
Soon after Kenny arrived in the mighty Nemesis GTI. Fresh built motor broken in and properly tested at an auto X event in Philly that same morning. Kenny came in second place in that event if I recall correctly.
Knowing that we'd be up against some of the best touring cars in the world, we spent all day Sunday prepping them for the race events in Bowling Green. Dave swap in some track pads, Kenny swapped brakes and wheels, Jason spent all day trying to find hood pins. Oh and just so I didn't feel left out, Jason brought me a 99 SOHC to work on. All that needed to be done was swap out the plugs and wires.
Ruby Tuesdays was designated the eatery of choice after working on cars that night. Somehow we didn't get kicked out...
Our journey began promptly around 9am Monday morning. We treked down route 1 into Dewey Beach where we had breakfast at Jason's Moms restaurant. There we had some great sandwiches and got to experience for the first time what it's like being the creepy old guys staring at hot under-agers. Jason's mom also did a great job of embarrassing him in that typical mommy fashion. Guess grumpy cat doesn't like hugs.
Next we venture out on highway 13 which passes thru Maryland and to the Chesapeake bay bridge.
This bridge is 24 miles long which connects Virginia Beach to the Maryland peninsula with two tunnels which allow for passing freight ships to travel over.
First tunnel unfortunately I missed the first pull but got a glimpse of the second one. Here's some rotary noises to make your juggly jiggly. I'd imagine if Godzilla and the Incredible Hulk had a kid together, the roar would sound something like this.
Second tunnel brought us a new noise. This time from the Nemesis GTI.... Light knock under load....
We spent a couple hours figuring out what to do, where to find parts and where to repair the GTI. Virginia Beach apparently is the place to get rare German automotive parts. Some random store happened to have one set of rod bearings in stock.
We found an abandoned gas station and commenced with Operation - Das Auto Und-kaputen.
Rod bearing swap in a record 1 hour 15 minutes. Beat that 6G72!
In maintaining tradition, we were off to Ruby Tuesdays again for dinner and drove off into the sunset.
That concluded day 1 of our journey. Day 2 continued on next post.
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