Street-legal time-speed-distance

One of the little enthusiast ideas I've had recently ties in well with my 10Beat idea as a way of testing the cars I buy. Of course, I want to test them against what the magazine tests have - or what they would have, if the particular type of car I have was ever tested or if the test is available. Things like 0-60 and 1/4 mile acceleration, braking, lateral-g roadholding, all of those objective tests.

One thing I thought would be fun would be to do is what I'm calling a street-legal time-speed-distance challenge. It's been bubbling up in my mind for a few years now and really began to ferment in July, 2016. I was attending a week-long class in San Luis Obispo, CA but staying with my dad and his wife Belva in Santa Maria - 25 miles south. Each day when class would let out, I'd try to use some different back roads to get back to Santa Maria as a way of exploring the area. Rather than take US 101 south - the freeway - I went over to Hwy 227, the back way through Edna and Carpenter Canyon, ending up in Arroyo Grande. It was a fun road - high-speed sweepers with a mix of straights and some sharper slow-speed corners thrown in. Although it passed through some residential areas, there wasn't too much traffic. And, of course, the weather was gorgeous, as it often in that area in the summer.

Anyway, I took to thinking I'd like to try timing myself between the intersection with Price Canyon Rd on the north and Huasna Dr at the south end. The trick was to challenge myself to do the entire thing legally - all without breaking the speed limit or traffic laws, while covering the distance in the shortest time possible. Then I thought - wouldn't it be cool to make videos of this and then to post them in a Facebook group and encourage others to make their own.

As usual, I didn't really follow up on it - until about a year later. I decided to take a few days off to visit my father (he'd had a stroke a few years earlier and is more-or-less home-bound.) I thought I'd try making a video as an experiment and also take a slightly different route to explore a little bit. Unlike previous trips when my brother came along - or trips when my wife was with me - I was master of my own time, route and speed. (To be fair, my brother wouldn't have complained - but it's still different to have a passenger.) Looking at the map, I spied CA Hwy 33 snaking north out of Ojai to New Cuyama, where it intersected with Hwy 58. A left turn there would have me in Santa Maria a little over an hour later. This looked like the perfect place to try my idea.

I own a GoPro camera and have used it once in an investigation. It would have been perfect for this, but I didn't allow myself enough time to re-learn the set-up or where best to attach it to my car - a 2003 Ford Escape XLS. 

Escape 2.0L Zetec engine compartment - 120 horses straining at the leash.
 Something like that.

I had to make a stop enroute in Pasadena for a meeting, so I went to the local Pep Boys and purchased what I thought would make a good phone mount. Once I got to Ojai, I struggled with it and discovered it really didn't work well with my phone. I did manage to jury rig it onto a windshield mount and it worked sufficiently well for proof-of-concept.

Once I had mounted the phone, I headed north out of Ojai. It was my first time on this stretch of Hwy 33, so I didn't really know what to expect and hadn't mapped out starting and ending points. Instead, I turned on the camera to video record and just let it go, figuring I'd find good starting and stopping points. I didn't, so after awhile I started narrating and then drove up the mountain until the phone started to wiggle loose and I dropped it while trying to stabilize the rig. Just as well - I had an almost 20 minute long video and, while much of the road was exactly what I was looking for, a large portion after the end of the video was too open to be of any use.

The video I made - edited to about the start and stop points on the map seen below - is here. This area burned in the recent Thomas Fire, the largest fire ever in the state at 282,000 acres as of today, so it looks considerably different today. I'm glad I got to see it before the fire.


 The distance was approximately 8.9 miles from the Los Padres National Forest sign on the south end to the turnout just past the summit on the north. If one were able to maintain the 55 mph speed limit all the way, it would take approximately 9:42. It took me 11:40 to cover the distance, an average speed of 45.77 mph. Not too bad for a road I didn't know in a car no one would describe as sporty.

There will be more of these. I need to find a good stretch of road close to home. I have a couple of ideas. I tried a couple of stretches out near Jamul - Honey Springs Rd was too open, with only a couple of tight turns. In my Escape, I did the 7.6 miles in 8:47.5 - a 51.87 mph average. A decent sports car would be able to do the entire thing with the cruise control set on 55 without breaking a sweat. No challenge there. Lyons Valley Rd (from Honey Springs to Lawson Valley Rd) was better - 5.8 miles in 8:35 for a 40.54 mph average - but there are too many residences to make a serious go without endangering people. (I did give a guy in a C6 Corvette a little competition before finding a place to pull out and let him by.)

Other ideas include Wildcat Canyon Rd between the Barona Indian Reservation and San Vicente Rd; Hwy 79 between Camp Cuyamaca and the lake; South Grade or East Grade Roads on Mt Palomar (or both - up one and down the other...hmmm...🤔); Banner Grade on Hwy 79 from Julian to the bottom of the hill and all of County Hwy S2 from the Stagecoach RV Park in Shelter Valley to Agua Caliente. And some sections of State Hwy 94 from Barrett Junction out to Jacumba.