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Tow vehicle is
a 1992 Chevrolet 3500 Dually (“The Little Truck That Could”) with the
7.4L (454) gas engine with 128,000 miles on the odometer.
Trailer is a
1995 44’ United gooseneck set up for two racecars and spares.
The Shelby
vehicles to be transported are #038 and #069.
The journey
started on Aug. 22, 2006 at 0600 with a brief stop at the local weigh
station to see what type of abuse the truck was going to be subjected
to. The rig tipped the scales at 22,105 lbs. >>>
The first test
of this trip was a pull over the Tehachapi mountains on California’s
highway 58 with a crest of 4004’ from the Bakersfield valley floor of
500’. No problem for the 454 in L1 at 3000 rpm and 25 mph. From there
it was a right turn on highway 395 to connect with Interstate 10 in
the Palm Springs area where the temperature in the desert was 102, but
again, no problem for the 454 that was using 27 gallons of fuel every
180 miles. We crossed the Colorado River into Arizona and continued on
to Phoenix, Tucson and ultimately stopped at Willcox, AZ. At 9:30PM
with a total distance of 700 miles that day. The highest elevation we
traveled that day was 4600’ just before Willcox. |
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Day two we left the hotel at
0600 and continued toward New Mexico and west Texas. It was during
this leg we saw the highest elevation of our journey of 4965’ as
(photo #001.jpg with co-driver Captain Tom Grove, American Airlines)
verified by our Lowrance GPS and Garmin 396 GPS with the XM weather
radar option. Actually, we had several elevations in excess of 4600’
on this leg and it was on this leg we crossed the continental divide
(photo #007). We crossed into Texas at El Paso mid-afternoon and
picked up Interstate 20 near Van Horn, Texas and continued to Big
Spring, Texas to spend the remainder of the night. |
| Day three started at 0630 with a
relatively short 275 mile drive to the Motor Sport Ranch in Cresson
(Ft. Worth), TX. Where we unloaded my Chevrolet DP powered #038 and
turned the car over to two former SCA owner/drivers, Tim Magrath
(#048) and Shane Millhouser (#057) for a few laps at MSR (photo #94,
l-r Millhouser, Johnston, Magrath). Both drivers exited the car with
huge grins on their respective faces and comments of praise for the
car’s handling and performance. On hand was another former SCA
owner/driver R. David Jones (#025). David was satisfied with just
being seated in the “saddle” of the old SCA once again (photo #103). |
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It was here in the Dallas/Ft.Worth
area that we had a change in co-drivers. Another friend, Rick Kirby,
flew in from West Palm Beach to assist on the final legs to Daytona.
After spending the night at Tom’s home, day four started again at 0610
with our departure from the Dallas area on I-20 toward Shreveport,
Louisiana. About 20 miles out of Dallas, on a particularly rough
section of road, we heard a loud bang followed shortly by a metallic
sound of something exiting the rig on the left side as witnessed in my
left mirror. Since we had no handling problems or other directional
control issues, I simply eased off the gas and let it coast to the
right side of the road into a safe area to begin determining what had
happened. I walked around the truck and trailer to inspect the 12
wheels and tires and did not see anything out of place so I began
looking at the suspension on the truck. Nothing was out of place on
the right side so I crawled underneath the left rear and discovered
the aft half of the “helper” spring missing. That accounted for the
bang and sounds we had heard. We called a local suspension shop and
after being told to “bring it in next week” we inquired about the
safety issue if we continued our journey at a greatly reduced speed of
40-45 mph. Personally, I felt it safe to continue at the slower speed
because the spring that broke was only effective for 400 lbs of load.
I did not tell the mechanic about my thoughts but he suggested we
could safely continue at a slower speed. About 3 miles down the road
we came upon a big rig with a 53’ trailer that had broken in the
middle of the trailer and was actually dragging the ground as a result
of the same rough road. Apparently we were not the first victims of
this road. |
At Shreveport we turned south on a new highway, I-49, and were able to
resume our original modest speed of 60 mph to re-intercept I-10 at
Baton Rouge, LA. and continue across Louisiana to Biloxi, Mississippi
where we spent the night. An interesting side note on this leg was the
use of Rick’s Panasonic laptop computer with a wireless modem that
accesses the internet from cellular sites along our route. Rick is
doing an evaluation of the technology for his employer, BellSouth, and
he was heads down in the cockpit for most of the day trying to
diagnose, via the internet, a pesky stumbling of the engine during
light load driving and watching a potential hurricane Ernesto approach
our homes in South Florida and searching Hotels.com for a hotel that
night. The storm never did threaten above 45 mph and tropical storm
category but the amazing thing was the continuous internet connection
that entire day. We think the engine problem is in either the map
sensor or the knock sensor, either/both easily repaired at home. |
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The final day
started at 0700 where we continued on a Hurricane Katrina (2005)
damaged I-10 through Mississippi and Alabama where we crossed Mobile
Bay (AL.) on a temporary steel mesh bridge (photo #112). Now THAT was
exciting to drive across at 25 mph with 12 tires squirming in
different directions! We crossed in Florida a few minutes later and
departed I-10 for the last time at Jacksonville where we picked up
I-95 for the final 115 miles to Daytona. We pulled into the shop at
6:30 pm, unloaded the cars, parked the trailer and drove the final 200
miles to West Palm Beach, arriving at 0100 local time.
Total towing
miles = 3002.
Fuel
cost =$1243
Gallons
used = 415 |
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| Another interesting
note is this little truck traveled over 13,000 miles pulling over some
of the most famous grades in the United States, The Grapevine between
Los Angeles and Bakersfield, The Baker Grade between Baker, CA. and
Las Vegas, The Cajon Pass between San Bernadino, CA. and Victorville
(part of the old Route 66), The Tehachapi Pass, Chiriaco Summit
between Palm Springs and Blythe, CA., The Texas Canyon near Benson and
Willcox, AZ, the Continental Divide near Deming, NM. all since March,
2005. With these miles we visited the California Speedway for three
separate events, one trip each to Sears Point Raceway (Infineon),
Laguna Seca Raceway (Mazda), (SCCA) Cal Club’s Buttonwillow Raceway,
Las Vegas Motor Speedway and finally MSR in Texas.
We only had one guy honk at us the
entire 3000 mile trip and that was just north of Daytona on a rough
two lane section of I-95, in a construction zone, where I elected to
stay in the left lane for safety reasons. We were doing about 55 mph,
which is the speed limit in the zone, and the guy zooms past us on the
right (the rougher part) laying on his VW Jetta’s horn.
We just laughed and didn’t even
acknowledge his lack of consideration. |
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I want to thank
Tom Grove and Rick Kirby for all their valued assistance and all the
considerate drivers that didn’t honk at us during our adventure. Also,
a big “THANK YOU” to the Chevrolet Division of General Motors for
building such a rugged old truck that performed way beyond the
original design limits and capacities, Pete Collins of Pete’s Wheel
and Brake, Bakersfield, CA. for giving us good brakes and finally,
Atlas Transmission, Lake Worth, FL. for the great transmission
overhaul they did before our journey west-bound last year. Since the
same truck and trailer made the reverse journey from Florida to
California in March of 2005 with Marv Quinn (Mission Viejo, CA.) as my
co-driver, we knew the truck was capable with some TLC.
Bob Johnston
www.shelbycanam.com
561-357-8553
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