Tuesday, September 25, 2007

ItaliaAuto Grand Trip 2007 Field Report

Field Report as posted by Redd @ ItaliaAuto.net:

It was raining. No, that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Rain would imply droplets of water falling from the sky. This wasn’t so much rain as it was the great big river in the sky breaking its banks. The heavens were flooding and I had nowhere to run.

This was clearly four-wheel drive territory. Twenty inch rollers with big, chunky rubber would have been handy in traversing that last mini-river I had just crossed. As much as I hated SUVs, I dearly wished I had one right then. Instead, I was stuck in my Alfa 156, its wipers painfully outmatched by the torrent of water from the heavens, praying that all those myths I had heard about Italian reliability didn’t decide to become facts just then. How do I get myself into these situations, I asked myself for the hundredth time that day.

As far as beginnings go, the day started innocuously enough. I had joined the Italia Auto Car Club for their first Grand Trip of the year. Italia Auto is well known for its driving excursions, and this trip would take us over the northern half of Peninsular Malaysia. The event, jointly sponsored by car distributors Torino Motors (Fiat) and Sime Darby Auto Italia (Alfa Romeo), was going to be huge – forty cars, sixty members, and a thousand kilometres, in a three-day test of driving endurance. We would be transiting through larger towns like Grik and Cameron Highlands as well as long forgotten smaller ones, with a mix of both highway and trunk road driving. There probably are better ways to see rural Malaysia but I’d be hard-pressed to tell you what they were right now.

The main contingent of twenty-two Fiats and Alfas took off from Kuala Lumpur and made its way north to Penang to meet up with the northern chapter. At Juru, we were joined by another eighteen cars from Penang and Perak. After a quick drivers briefing and a stop to top up the tanks, we were back on the road heading south towards Bukit Merah.

Which was where I found myself in the middle of the largest downpour I had ever experienced in my thirty odd years on this rock. As we got off the highway and headed into the old trunk roads, the sky turned a threatening grey. Undeterred, we went on, thoroughly enjoying the back road drive. I was told later that the scenery was quite fascinating but all I remember is a green blur. Then, the skies opened up and instead of dodging roadkill and potholes, we were dodging fallen trees and small lakes which had formed on the roads.

That was when it happened; as it has happened since the beginning of human history. Despite our best preparations, detailed pace notes, and handheld GPS units, we got lost. Whenever a group of men get together and try to go somewhere they will, inevitably, lose their way. It happens to even the greatest of expeditions – Columbus got horribly lost on his voyage to find Asia. The fact that he discovered America only made it less embarrassing, but it didn’t hide the fact that he was half a universe away from the Orient. Now, if someone like Chris – who has more than a few nautical miles under his belt – couldn’t avoid it, we were doomed from the get-go.

I blame it on the rain and poor visibility. Yup. That, and the horribly inaccurate Malaysian road signs. I think there was a full moon out that night, too. This was bigger than any of us – it was masculine destiny. Still, through the frequent U-turns and stops to check crumpled roadmaps, spirits remained high. These Italia Auto boys were clearly used to not knowing where they were going. As we tried to find our bearings in the boondocks of Perak I was entertained by the chatter on the walkie-talkie. Cow warnings interspersed with jokes crackled across the network as we finally found our way to a recognisable landmark.

When the sun finally came back out, we found ourselves between Bukit Merah and Grik on the loveliest bit of mountain road I had ever seen. It was the sky on one side, the mountain on the other, and perfectly curved tarmac as far as the eye could see. As it turns out, driving in good weather with this bunch was even more stressful. As the roads opened up, the lead cars quickly disappeared around the bend. I worked the wheel furiously, hell-bent on keeping up. The cars behind me were a constant reminder that if we got lost again, it would be entirely my fault this time. Before long, we arrived in Grik, and from there it was just a short hop to Banding Island Resort and a warm bed.

Day Two dawned to the burble of engines warming up in anticipation of the day’s adventure. As I rubbed my bleary eyes waiting for the breakfast caffeine to kick in, I was given the day’s pace notes – directions to our next destination – and reminders to drive safe. It was going to be pure B-roads today – over three hundred kliks of trunk roads – taking us from Banding to Jeli, on to Gua Musang, and finally to Cameron Highlands where we would stop for the night. I should have had that third cup of coffee.

The sight of forty Alfa Romeos and Fiats snaking out of the resort carpark was breathtaking, but it didn’t last long. As soon as each car cleared the last speed bump, the throttle was firmly mashed to the floorboard and it disappeared in a howl of metallic frenzy. The noise was addictive, and soon I found myself trying to coax the same cacophony from the six pots in front of me. Cocooned in the cabin of my Alfa, the roar of the engine in my ears, and twisty roads in front of me, it wasn’t difficult to picture myself as a driver in the Italian Mille Miglia (One Thousand Miles) road rally of the early-20th Century. Truly, if that famed endurance race had existed this day; it would be run on roads like these with cars like the ones we were driving today.

The atmosphere of being in a road race somehow filtered over to the places we passed by as well. As we shot through each small village, the local kids would line up by the road side to wave and cheer us on. Some of us honked appreciatively as we drove by – I waved back a few times – and this seemed to elicit even more passionate displays from the gathered spectators. It was an eye opening experience and racing fuel for the ego.

After a quick lunch in Gua Musang town, we proceeded on the last leg for the day, heading up towards the hill-resort town of Cameron Highlands. Fifteen minutes away from town, we turned off the wheel-killing Gua Musang road and onto this beautiful stretch of motoring nirvana. If any road could be called gorgeous this one certainly was. The surface was racetrack smooth, nearly a hundred kilometres of flowing sweepers disappearing into the hills. I was gobsmacked. Here was the evidence that our road tax money wasn’t just being wasted on toll booths. We were two minutes from nowhere, and here was this exquisite highway just begging to be driven hard. So, drive hard we did! When we finally arrived at the Strawberry Park Resort in Cameron Highlands I was flushed with the afterglow of the motoring equivalent of great sex.

The third day started lazily with a late breakfast followed by Ferrari announcing its early dominance of this year’s Formula 1 season by neatly trouncing rivals McLaren in the Australian Grand Prix. Elated by the Italian victory, passions were high as we made our way down Cameron Highlands towards Simpang Pulai. In hindsight, that was probably not the best condition in which to be driving. Passion, Italian cars and downhill roads seem to mix with explosive results. Somehow, on this particular leg of the journey, I found myself as the lead car of the convoy with the two very determined club presidents hot on my heels. For some reason, despite my usually mild character, I decided that today, damn it, I was going to stay in front!

Thus began what I would consider the most exciting drive for me on this trip. In every holiday, every trip you make, there is always that one moment that you remember best. For me, this was that moment. I used every trick I knew to stay in front of these two maniacs as we quickly outdistanced the rest of the pack. Hours spent at the racetrack were condensed into the forty short kilometres between Kampung Raja and Simpang Pulai as I utilised my collective driving experience to stay ahead. Corners were eaten up in heartbeats, slower traffic dispatched with brutal efficiency. My temperature, as well as that of my V6, rose as the car went into a small tail slide when the outer rear tire went a little wide onto the dusty outside of the road. Control was quickly recovered but the lead was lost as the pearlescent Fiat Coupe grabbed the opportunity and passed me on the inside. Damn, it was a good scrap while it lasted.

We – my Alfa and I – survived a thousand kilometre drive at speeds too illegal to print. We drove through scorching days, pitch black nights and storms of biblical proportions. The car was covered in three day’s worth of road grime, and I doubt I looked much better. My hands are shaking as I type this, but I’m not sure if it was from exhaustion or the leftover adrenaline in my system. This drive has been one of the most grueling tasks I’ve ever undertaken. I can’t wait for the next Italia Auto trip.

You can find out more about the Italia Auto Car Club at http://www.italiaauto.net