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and he either didn’t know much about
the cars or wanted to stir people up
just to start up a conversation on
Jalopnik.
I stayed in Thousand Oaks on
Thursday night and in the morning
headed south to Malibu to get on the
Pacific Coast Highway. My daughter
used to live out here so I was familiar
with the area.When I visited her I had
rented a Shelby GT to drive around
when they were available from Hertz.
Southern California really is the
center of the car culture and I was on
top of the world. It seemed like every-
one was paying attention to the Shelby
now. I drove down to the beach so I
could walk in the ocean and then
stopped to watch the elephant seals
sleeping in the sand and fighting in
the surf. I had reached a point where I
was no longer worried about some-
thing happening to the car. Getting to
this point was priceless. I was feeling
really confident about driving north to
Monterey.
I continued driving up Highway 1,
loving the drive more with every mile.
In the Shelby, it was indescribable. By
Saturday afternoon I was at the Baja
Cantina in Carmel Valley, having an
early dinner. It’s a wonderful car
cruise place, especially during the his-
torics. Leslie had booked me into a
nice hotel in Morgan Hill for the next
three days, about halfway between
Monterey and San Francisco. The
hotel was full of Australians and New
Zealanders who were bicycle manufac-
turers or shop owners. My nephew is
married to an Aussie, so I talked them
up and one of the guys from New
Zealand had a real Rally Falcon. He
admitted that he was one of the ones
who doesn’t drive his cars. He only put
200km on his Falcon last year.
THEMININATS
Sunday I was trying to decide if I
should go to the Pre-Historics at
Mazda Raceway or the 30th NorCal
Mini-Nats up in Sonoma. I was feeling
great at this point so I figured the 30th
Mini-Nats was the place to go. I drove
up there and had a great time.
After I had parked at the track,
one of the drivers was coming back
from the restroom and noticed my Vir-
ginia plates. He looked at me and I an-
swered before he could ask. “
Yes. I just
drove it from Virginia.
” He said they
would want that in their newsletter
and told me where to find the editor.
He took a couple of pictures of me with
6S336. They were really surprised to
find that someone had driven a GT350
all the way from Virginia. I hadn’t
been to Infineon Raceway before so I
wandered all around the track, taking
pictures. It wasn’t like what I had seen
on television during NASCAR races. It
was a much more challenging track.
On the way back to Morgan Hill I
stopped for dinner and was ap-
proached by a couple in the parking
lot. He saw me coming in behind him
and dragged his girlfriend over to ask
about the Shelby. They were very in-
terested in the car because he owned
some collector Fords.When they found
out I’d driven it from Virginia they re-
ally wanted to talk.We ended up going
to dinner together and talked cars like
old school buddies. His girlfriend was
very understanding and even joined
in. He admitted that he needed to get
started on his cars because most of
them needed work. He was energized
by talking to me about driving my car.
One of his cars was a K-code Falcon
Hi-Po.
Back in Morgan Hill, I tried to
relax. I cleaned up the car and
planned on picking up Leslie at the
airport on Tuesday. It was all slowly
sinking in that I was in California.
That I’d made it. I was feeling invinci-
ble at this point. I would be picking up
Leslie and driving 6S336 to the Mon-
terey Motorsports Reunion’s 50th An-
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Fall 2015 299