If you look at a map of Utah, you might notice the northwestern corner of the state has few roads, few towns, and no attractions. No scenic byways, and you can probably guess what kind of town can be found at the end of a twenty-mile dirt road. No reason for any sane person to purposely take this route to Nevada, then come back to Salt Lake City on I-80, one of the more uninspiring stretches of four-lane blacktop in Utah. Unless, of course, you are fond of looking out across hundreds of miles of salt while driving 110 miles in a straight line.
But owning a Porsche is reason enough to drive 400 miles. Deserted roads have much to recommend them, and blue sky on a winter day is a Siren call to get the car out of the garage and on the road. This is the reason for the IRPCA Sun Runs, to find roads free of snow and ice where our Porsches can play for a few hours while we wait for our spectacular mountain roads to open after the spring thaw.
The drive did have a spot of interest, the Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory Summit, Utah. The steam engines were out for the Olympics, and it was truly worthwhile seeing these gaudy beasts rolling across the snowy landscape that surrounds the historic site. The pictures capture the desolation well, but they cannot do justice to the booming chugging and puffing of the steam engines getting under way, or the piercing shriek of the whistles warning of their approach. These machines are a marvel to behold, the workhorses of the American economy at the turn of the century.
Just up the road, we made a quick stop at Morton Thiokol to look at the rockets on display, including a massive shuttle booster rocket. Another set of awesome machines, and an incredible contrast to the steam engines that were so recently the state of the art equipment for massive moving and transportation jobs.
One of the things we learned from the Golden Spike ranger was that 19th century passengers of the railroads feared the consequences of travel over 30 mph. It was widely believed that people could not breathe when traveling more than 30 mph. What would they have thought of the shuttle booster rocket with its 2.26 million pounds of thrust? Even more stunning is the realization that the steam engine and the rocket motor were engines of the same century, the 20th Century.
And what would our observer at the dawn of the 20th Century think about our Porsche automobiles? We certainly were able to prove that human beings can breathe at speeds well in excess of 30 mph.
The drive from Golden Spike Historic Site to Wendover, Nevada, where we stopped for lunch, was a spirited run. The two actual curves in the road were quite exciting, and the elevation changes were welcome variations in the otherwise unending stretches of snow-covered desert. But we were out, the sky was mostly blue, and the cars were a joy.
As we headed into Nevada, a blue 911 approached from the opposite direction. We duly flashed, and then the sweep driver announced over our radios, “He had turned around and joined the tour.” We later discovered it was John Bates, who had headed in the opposite direction of the tour in hopes of catching us before we stopped for lunch. In Wendover Michael VanTyne also joined us for lunch, giving us a chance to regale the uninitiated with tales of a desert blanketed in snow and a landscape broken only by the occasional four legs of a steer sticking straight up out of a snow bank. It gave a whole new meaning to “watch for cattle ahead.”
After a leisurely lunch, and a quick group photo, it was a quick drive back to Salt Lake City on I-80. The salt was flat, the road was straight, and the sky had grown cloudy with an approaching storm. I must admit, however, that the reflections of the mountains in the water beside the road were quite beautiful. And who else can claim to have driven the roads of northwestern Utah with three other Porsches? It is, I suspect, a very short list.
l-r: Bill Robertson, Michael VanTyne, John Bates,
Tim Adams, Lisa Adams, Adam King, Jan King
(click on photo to enlarge)
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
