Its not often that I make road trips in the winter. Doing so can be fraught with difficulty and even danger. At times, though, the weather in Colorado gets so warm and sunny, even in the dead of winter, that I will take the risk. I decided to do so recently when I had not one but two of my best friends visiting me from out of town.
Part of the urge was the desire to break in a new set of wheels and tires on my 1:1 ride: shortly before X-mas, I spent a fortune on an upgrade to The Cylon, finally replacing the stock wheels and crappy “dealer tires” she was shod with when I bought her. The car’s original wheels were staggered, with 18×8’s up front and 18×8.5’s in back. When it finally came time to replace the tires, I balked at the idea of not being able to rotate them, and decided to “correct” the factory design with a set of 18×8.5’s all around. After weeks of research, I opted for type DS-08 by Aodhan, which I wrapped with a superb set of Continental ExtremeContact DWS radials. Putting this amount of high-quality rubber on the ground totally transformed the car, making a night and day different in both the ride quality and the sound; the experience on the road was transformed into what a Lexus should be! And yet, immediately after making this investment, I left for X-mas vacation and left the car locked in the garage for almost 2 weeks. In the weeks since, all I’ve done has been to drive it back and forth to the office, since I’ve been busy enough that most of my business trips have been site visits driving company trucks. I thought it was time to put some real mileage on these tires and see what they could do on the open road, and I got the perfect opportunity with a rare convergence of events.
One such event was an annual visit from my oldest friend John, who decided to fly in from The Peoples’s Republic of California for a long weekend. John and I grew up together, we’ve known each other since grade school. At the same time, Patrick, my man in the northern mountains, came down to Denver for business of his own and had a free day on Saturday morning to join us for a jaunt across the plains. This provided the perfect excuse to make another excursion to points south and bring my friends along for the ride.
It was spotty going at times, with patches of ice and blowing snow on the plains, but we made it to beautiful Buena Vista, where I picked up some awesome new additions for my collection! In addition, we had lunch at a beautiful little place, walked around the town, and did some additional site seeing on the way back. And with the swiftness of The Cylon rolling on that new rubber, we made it back home before sundown to relax in the evening.
As for what I got to add to my ever growing fleets of cars…well, you can bet that all that is coming up soon! There are several vintage pieces that need quite a bit of repair or restoration work so I’m not able to reveal them yet, but once I start that work I’ll make sure to showcase every one of them! Because you know, fellow slot-heads, the fun never stops @ Drag City Raceway!
This looks like a great time and I know it was fantastic to see Jon! Buena Vista is a lovely area and I used to love to take that drive myself. Those new tires make a big difference and look terrific. I’m really looking forward to see what wonders you have procured now! 🙂