It’s January 1, 2020. The place are you driving in the present day?
I ask as a result of I found greater than 20 years in the past that the primary day of the brand new 12 months was a superb day for driving, even within the snow belt, in case you wished to have the roads just about to your self.
I’m not speaking right here concerning the freeways, however about these wonderful and barely straight two-lane roads that driving lovers get pleasure from a lot, whether or not in a classic automobile or a muscular machine.
I believe I chanced on this discovery virtually by chance. I used to be dwelling in Michigan and dealing at AutoWeek journal and both learn someplace or found on a map that there was a small metropolis in Indiana named Cuba.
I knew there was California Township in Michigan and thought it may be enjoyable to put in writing about driving from California to Cuba in a single day, saving till the tip of the story the truth that this California and this Cuba had been solely about 50 miles from one another.
To reinforce such a drive, I used to be ready to attract a Mercedes-Benz, it could have been a 500E or maybe an AMG-tuned C-Class sedan, from the journal’s press fleet.
Thankfully, although it was a chilly Midwestern winter day, whereas the fields had been snow lined, many of the roads had been cleared and dry. It wasn’t till after I set off that I found two issues that make January 1 such a nice day not simply for driving, however for driving enthusiastically.
Not solely had been the roads away from snow, but additionally of different automobiles, together with police cruisers. What I spotted was that those that had been partying on New 12 months’s Eve had been house sleeping it off, and so had been the freeway patrol officers who had been on alert the earlier night time. And it appeared that everybody else was comfortable on a sofa at house, watching the faculty soccer bowl video games.
Principally, I had the roads to myself!
Now, don’t get me improper. I didn’t drive recklessly, however infrequently I could have pushed past the utmost velocity determine advised by rectangular indicators some authorities company had posted alongside the roads I traveled.
I did this type of New 12 months’s Day drive every subsequent 12 months I lived in Michigan. On the flip of the century, I accepted a new job and moved to Arizona, the place I met Bud and Stephanie Bourassa. Bud collected and restored and raced some wonderful sports activities automobiles and Stephanie was type of the den mom of the Scottsdale car-collecting group.
Bud and Stephanie additionally had found the fun of the New 12 months’s Day drive and every January 1, they invited automotive mates to their house for an early breakfast in Bud’s Automobile Room storage, adopted by a drive throughout the desert or up into the mountains with lunch at a resort restaurant earlier than heading again house.
I moved from Arizona to Nevada simply earlier than Monterey Automobile Week 2018, and spent New 12 months’s Day 2019 driving from Nevada to New Mexico en path to Florida for Mecum’s Kissimmee public sale and my Mom’s 101st (and as it could prove, her final) birthday celebration.
And now it’s New 12 months’s Day 2020, and new roads await.
