Pebble Beach Classic Rally – August 2014 – Day 2

We have just finished day 2 of the 1500 mile Pebble Beach Classic Rally from Seattle to Monterey.
It takes 8 days and goes through the Cascades Mountain Range . Tonight we are staying at the fabulous Timberline Lodge , which is on Mt Hood and is at about 7000 feet. The roads and scenery are quite wonderful.

There are 25 cars on the Rally , a combination of American and European. The Americans are mainly Packards and Cords with a Kaiser Darrin and a fabulous 1930 Studebaker Hearse with stained glass rear windows.

The Europeans comprise Hispano Suiza, Mercedes, Maserati(2), Delahaye, Riley MPH, Ferrari and Bentley(2). Allen Reid from Melbourne joined me as the Aussie contingent in his beautiful Delage D8 S and I am here in the mighty aero engined Sunbeam with Reg Kenny riding Shotgun.

Our first day covered nearly 300 miles, a lot of which was in the mountains. We passed Mt.Ranier and then had a twisting 30 mile climb to view the devastation which resulted when Mt St Helens blew it’s top in 1980. A severe test of cooling systems and hard going with jetlag kicking in savagely.

The American owned cars are pretty well all what we think of as American Concours. But they all go very well and are driven enthusiastically. No one is being precious about their car.
Today we started from our overnight stop at Bonneville Hot Springs and spent most of our fairly short day following the mighty Columbia River until our 26 mile climb to the Lodge. The road was wide and open and the Sunbeam just ate it up.

More tomorrow. Regards.

- Fitz