[urq] West Side UPG-more report [LONG]

[Brandon Rogers]

Hey guys-
Well I've finally caught my breath enough to sit down and think about the kick arse weekend we just had.  Ed, Charlie, Dennis and I were supposed to meet at 9 AM but I was running late and so was Charlie, who was literally waiting at the dealer parts counter in Boulder for a spare part.  How fitting!  About 9:50 we tell Charlie we're going to mosy up to Vail where we were to pick up Jim, and he can catch up.  Despite starting probably 20 - 30 mins behind us I think he got there less than 10 minutes after us.  Up in Vail we spent a good hour in the beautifual Wal Mart parking lot shooting the $hit while Ed found and fixed a boost leak.  I find it somewhat humorous that Ed's car came back from this road trip not just no worse for the wear, but actually running the best ever!  That's great.  So the five of us left and hit some great two-lane roads on the way to Steamboat.  Perfect roads.  Curvy.  Climbing. Descending.    Just what you wnat when you are driving an ur quattro.  Jim wins The Fiddler award when he is messing with hsi adjustable wastegate and drops a nut into the black hole known as the right side of the engine comaprtment.  Tink tink tink.....nothing.  Never hit ground.  Never found it.  But we looked for 45 minutes.  So we went to Kremmling (backtracking) where the FLAPS there were no help.  But those greasy burgers sure did.  We rolle dinto Steamboat at about 4 pm.  4PM!  It's really a 3 1/2 hour drive from Denver!  Oh well.  The we had a spectacular lightning show and torrential downpour that lasted maybe 15 minutes, but that was enough.  After that we seemed to skirt the storm and we opened it up.  We spent ceratinly a couple hours at near triple digit, and then some, speeds. It was pretty barren and there were very few cars.  Occasionally we had some fun getting around more, ahem, conservative motorists.   As ed said, we discovered the coolant leak in Vernal UT and seeing as how it was about to get dark there, we eased up.  I, with my 400W Euros took the lead through the Utah darkness and we only had to pull over twice to top off Ed's coolant.  We finally pulled into the Marriott round 10:30.  What a ride!  Took forever but we really didn't care because the journey was definitely half the fun.

It was great to meet up with the other guys.  Although we had I think the longest (time-wise) drive, Tony and Andrew covered a lot more ground.  Paul already covered the weekends events but suffice to say, Park City is a beautiful place.  The passes we drove up were gorgeous, even if tough on the machinery.  The grade was deceiving, but coupled with the altiude the temp gauges told the tale.  And then coming down - that's also when we realized just how steep the roads were.  Was pretty funny how on Saturday whenever we stopped, there were always several urq hoods popped trying to assist the cooling.... 

Great trivia quiz Saturday night at dinner.  Damn that K-Jetronic (with Lambda!) !!!

Sunday was fun again.  Another fun drive with some rain mixed in.. The intercoolers sure liked that!  Paul set up a great slot track where we mastered the A2 rally quattro slot car.  Great fun for all.

Unfortunately Dennis got real sick and lef the aprty ealry on Sunday morning so we missed him on the return drive.  luckily he made it back fine despite his car giving him grief twice.  Jim, our dule award winner, the other being Bat Out of Hell Leader also had to leave early to make work by 10AM Monday.  It's safe to say Jim's K24 turbo swap was a success-his car sounded great and looked great from behind...far behind.  That whole conversion is tale in itself - let's just say that the person/company who sold him the parts grossly overcharged for parts if they were in great condition - and these were in what I consider to be barely sellable condition - rust city!  Lame.  Anyway.....back to the fun.

Come Monday morning Charlie, Ed along with his wife Mickey and dog Leo, and myself hit the road about 9:30. It was a great drive back across 40 to Steamboat.  Speeds were slower with fewer stops.  And luckily the weather was great - pretty cool - BIG relief considering Charlie and I don't have A/C in our cars right now.

So overall it was a GREAT trip, GREAT weekend, GREAT company, and a GREAT venue.  Park City was beautiful and the temps were perfect.  I don't of another place that is a good mid point between the CA and CO crews.  Maybe Vegas if we can do it when it's not 110F..but not in winter 'cuz who wants to road trip on snow tires....

hopefully Charlie will have pics up soon- if you took digital pics- send them to Charlie.

Brandon
'84 ur quattro with another 1250 miles in 4 days