[M3] Road trip!!

[note: this post, like an air-cooled 911, is back-dated to when these events occurred] 

[also note: I have condensed multiple forum posts into this entry, please forgive awkward transitions]

Last weekend we ventured outdoors for the first time in 3 months to visit some friends in Kirkwood. For some people the exciting part of the trip is what you do when you get there, but I know how nice the roads and scenery are, so I was excited to take the M3!

We went out via 88, and came home the 'long way' on 4. It's always a lovely drive across the Sierras and I think we got the timing perfect in terms of weather and conditions, as you'll see.



Just a couple minutes on the road and we were cruising through the 135k milestone. Unfortunately the start of the trip was a total drag... traffic has mostly vanished with Covid but we managed to find it, sitting for the first two hours in crawling traffic all the way out to Tracy. The M3 was loaded up with road trip essentials as well as our weekend bags and a bunch of things that our friends wanted us to bring out to them (they've been in Kirkwood since shelter-in-place started). The M3 swallowed it up without any complaint.



Things started to pick up once we got past Stockton and hit 88. We stopped for fuel, Red Bull, and beef jerky in Jackson.



As the sun came down and we climbed our way toward Kirkwood, the views became irresistible. We pulled over once...





...and then again. My DSLR was buried deep in my overnight bag and we were keeping our hosts waiting for dinner, so all the photo duties were left to the iPhone.





After 4+ hours on the road, the M3 delivered us to Kirkwood safe and sound, no worse for wear except for a bug slaughter.

The M3 relaxed on Saturday while we enjoyed the great outdoors. I took a few DSLR snaps.







I love this detail on our cars: where the surfaces invert just ahead of and behind the doors.



I did step away from the car long enough to enjoy what Kirkwood has to offer. I've been around Tahoe a few times but never down to Kirkwood, and it was wonderful. There isn't much in the way of a village and it was just quiet and peaceful. There are tons of hikes, bike trails, and small lakes to enjoy.









My friend loaned me his spare mountain bike and took me around the trails, most of which cut across and along the ski runs. I am extremely amateur at mountain biking (second time out ever) but it's starting to win me over. 





I am thankful that he didn't tell me how much this bike was worth until after the ride. It's easy to geek out on all the tech these things have, and it added a layer of learning curve as I attempted to adjust my dampers, drop the seat post, and swap into the right gear all at the right times. Thankfully I didn't go over the handlebars at any point and by the end of the ride I was really learning to trust the bike. There are definite similarities with high-performance driving... keep your eyes up, look through the curve where you want to go, and the faster you go, the better the suspension works and the more you can trust the machine...

On Saturday evening we had some down-time before dinner so I went out again with the car and DSLR to try to get some nice snaps in the dusk lighting.























Sunday afternoon we hiked and then made our way home. Highway 4 was lovely, but apparently not lovely enough to stop and take photos. Both 88 and 4 were nice and smooth (88 I believe was repaved just recently), 4 cut through some nice towns and along a nice river for a bit before climbing up and over the hills via tight switchbacks with no center line. We stopped for gas at an extremely overpriced but charming old-fashioned Chevron station in Camp Connell. 



Unfortunately there was a long, straight, hot drag between Copperopolis and Stockton with nothing but wheat and corn for company. We wrapped up our California road trip in the quintessential way, at In-n-Out.



400+ miles and the car didn't skip a beat. The A/C and cruise control kept things comfortable, the motor was a bit wheezy at 8000 feet but otherwise no complaints! It has earned a bit of rest and a nice wash that it will receive this weekend.

[M3, Skyline] Mini-photoshoot

[note: this post, like an air-cooled 911, is back-dated to when these events occurred] 

The local paint shop isn't able to get custom-mixed paint during the shutdown so I'm rolling around on 15s and some 2014-coded tires.

I received a small batch of parts, nothing too wild. 15mm spring pads for the rear of the car, some new throttle body anti-tamper caps, parts to correct the turn signal mounting on the front bumper. 

Yellow and blue caps are both available new at time of writing. 
Yellow: 13-11-1-265-509 
Blue: 13-11-1-265-510

Interestingly, and you might notice in the photo above, two of the yellow caps did not match the other two (top/bottom). I don't dig the yellow anyway so I installed blue. Order 8 caps if you're going yellow to make sure you can get a matching foursome.



New front turn signal lenses because they're cheap.



My wife had the sewing machine out, making face masks, so I asked her to modify my driver-side Lloyd mat. The dead pedal extension has a tendency to fold and flop into my pedals during driving - no good. Even worse, it covers up my M-Tech dead pedal! So it had to go. She was able to recover the piping/edging from the removed section and make it look great in the end.

This weekend I was bored, and both of the cars were clean, so I drove 50 yards to the local school and took some photos. And because I'm still bored, I paid for Lightroom and spent some time tonight learning about its capabilities. I would pay good money to see a photo straight off of Larry Chen's camera and watch him take it through his editing process. Obviously you can't solve composition, vision, etc in postproduction but I would LOVE to see how much time is spent in the editing stage and if there is some secret million-dollar filter presets that really bring the magic out of these images. I also wonder how on earth he can turn images around so quickly.













This is my sixth BMW, yet the only straight-6 I've owned is a Nissan. Funny.

Next projects on deck: front fascia redux. I've got the parts to try to rectify the front turn indicator mounting, and while I'm at it I want to install my Evo bumper seal and see what I can do to secure the back of the Evo under tray, which is kind of flapping in the breeze. Stay safe everybody.

[Event] Skylines under the bridge

Last weekend the Norcal Skyline community had the honor of hosting Alex Qureitem of Q-motive photography. He shoots media campaigns for the OEMs, owns an R32 GT-R, and generally loves taking photos of Skylines around the world.

I met up with some local owners in Mountain View and we drove up to Fort Baker, just on the Marin side of the Golden Gate bridge, to meet Alex. I didn't expect such a big turnout of Skylines - 12 in all. With perfect weather, golden hour lighting, and a world-class backdrop, it was a gathering to remember. Definitely the most Skyline's I've ever seen in one place.

I guess the only good lineup photo was taken on my phone.

Alex gets 'em lined up just right.

Beautiful location, muddy lot.

Craig steals the show with his R34 M-Spec Nur. Damn.

Wish I'd gotten a little bit better exposure here. Had to crank the dials to make it come out - cool shot.

We were all feeling really cool with our R32s, and then this incredible Hakosuka showed up. If I heard correctly, the owner braved 2.5 hours of traffic to join us.

This meeting was a great warm-up for tomorrow's marquee NorCal Skyline event - the first-ever Skyline Matsuri! We will be visiting Fort Baker at sunset (again) so look forward to more photos like these, but with 3x the Skylines.