Drive: Denver to Denver via Albuquerque, 3200km
Car: 2009 Dodge Charger V6
Photos: Barry & Dawn Green
NEW MEXICO, 2009: Show me the way to Amarillo and I’ll show you the way to Tucumcari. Both destinations are sign-posted directly in front of me – right to Amarillo, Texas; left to Tucumcari, New Mexico. And while it would be nice to help Tony Christie out with directions, the beat we’re driving to is Tucumcari Tonite.
In retrospect, it’s the right we should have taken. Just down the road (unbeknown at the time) is the Cadillac Ranch, 10 Caddies buried up to the windscreen, nose-first, in a line and grossly graffiti-ed, a bizarre tribute to the most extroverted tailfin in automotive history.
Route 66 original business at Moriarty.
As it is, we’re a little behind schedule – by more than a day. Our plans unfortunately went into pause after arriving overnight in Denver, Colorado. It would appear the difference is altitude between our home town of Brisbane (28.4m above sea level) and Colorado’s ‘Mile-High City’ was too much for my wife, who woke during the night with a debilitating migraine. Despite spending the following day and night in bed, some 36-hours later she’s still barely able to travel.
Our motel at Tucumcari can’t come quick enough. Not just any motel, mind. With its signature neon sign aglow out front, The Blue Swallow is a veritable Route 66 landmark, dispensing an old-style welcome to weary travellers continuously since 1940.
The façade, its pink stucco walls decorated with a stepped parapet and funky shell designs, reflects modest use of the Southwest Vernacular style of architecture, so I’ve read. It’s big on character and atmosphere, small on tariff; our overnight stay costs a mere $70.
Tucumcari mural, one of many.
Route 66 and its studding of iconic landmarks like The Blue Swallow are central to our road trip itinerary: start and finish in Denver, driving down the eastern side of the Rockies into New Mexico, taking in the stretch of Mother Road from Vegas to Albuquerque (time there with family), then heading north briefly along US Highway 550 from Bernalillo, overnighting at Santa Fe, Taos, Durango, Telluride and Edwards before catching up with more of the Page family clan in Denver.
As well as Route 66, we intend to motor more of the (US550) San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway – specifically the fabled Million Dollar Highway, between Silverton and Ouray – and soar like the US national emblem to the 14,000ft summit of Pikes Peak, widely regarded as the most celebrated mountain in world motor sport.
Unfortunately, we don’t quite have a hunk of appropriate American iron as our wheels, a first-preference Mustang or Camaro convertible having failed to materialise (thank you, Hertz). Instead, we’ve been assigned a base-model Dodge Charger. The model line-up ranged from 2.7-litre SE to the high-performance 425hp (317kW) SRT-8, with a 3.5-litre V6 and 5.7-litre V8 in between. Before anyone gets too excited, our mount is not the SRT-8. Unfortunately.
After a solid night’s sleep, the wife awakes still with the migraine, albeit the dull ache kind rather than seismic throb. We tuck into a typically American big breakfast at Denny’s and then set off west along 66 towards Albuquerque. First stop, Route 66 Auto Museum at Santa Rosa.
Route 66 Auto Museum, Santa Rosa.
With a canary yellow hot rod mounted high up on a pole out the front, it’s impossible to drive past. Inside are some 30 rods, drag and muscle cars and stacks of American Graffiti-era automobilia, all deserving of close inspection. My pick – an immaculate late-60s ’Tang in Highland Green, a la Lootenant Frank Bullitt.
Then on to Albuquerque, following directions conveyed over the phone and following road signs and a simple map. Passing through tiny Moriarty, JR’s Tire Store – once Greene Evans garage, circa 1940 – makes a great backdrop for a pic, as indeed does much of Albuquerque. The latter is, of course, home to the Unser family and it’s at 1776 Montaño Road, NW Los Ranchos, where stands the Unser Racing Museum.
1962 Novi Offy Indy roadster, Unser Racing Museum, Albuequerque.
An all-new annex displays many of the cars that Louis, Al Sr, Bobby and Al Jr etc. drove to Indy 500 fame and a multitude of other championships and major race victories. There’s also a trophy room filled with thousands of items, a complete library spanning the history of racing, original artwork and much more. A veritable must-see.
And no visit to New Mexico’s largest city is complete without an ascent by aerial tramway to one of America’s most stunning urban peaks, reaching the 3163m crest of the Sandia Mountains where awaits a panoramic view across nearly three million hectares. The optimum time to do it is coming on sunset, where you can wine and dine watching the shadows at play as the cityscape begins to twinkle below.
Time to hit the road, Jack, a mix of Tex-Mex and West Coast classic rock on KIOT-FM (Coyote 102.5) providing a befitting soundtrack for our drive through Bernalillo and along the quiet back roads to Jemez Springs and lunch at the Los Ojos Bar. This real-deal saloon has been in operation since the 19th century. Bullet holes decorate the pressed-metal ceiling and antique firearms and other western paraphernalia adorn the adobe walls.
From Wild West, to the splitting of the atom. Just an hour’s drive north-east lies Los Alamos, the once top-secret company town where scientists and the US military conceived and built the nuclear bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Los Alamos is not the most direct route to our overnighter at Santa Fe, but we drive through as a matter of record, albeit without stopping.
That night, we encounter the largest crowds of our trip so far, having to wait for a table at the Coyote Café (worth it, though) and joining the throng dancing to a salsa band in the park. But then, that’s really the story of Santa Fe – too many visitors spoiling the very intrinsical charm that brought them there in the first place.
Taos, just 150km away, is what I’d imagine Santa Fe once was. Much smaller in size and population (in 2009, 7000 compared with 77,000), Taos has been attracting the artistically talented and free-thinking since early last century; luminaries such as Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence.
In the 1960s and 70s, hippies and other alternative life-stylers added to the lively cultural scene, maverick actor/artist Dennis Hopper among them. A couple of months before we arrived, on the 40th anniversary of Easy Rider, Hopper was made Honorary Mayor for his contribution to the Taos community.
Just getting to Taos is an event if you take the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway, a 90km, mostly mountainous drive through tiny adobe pueblos, artist communities and frontier outposts dating to Spanish colonial times; Nambé, Chimayo, Cordova, Truchas and Las Trampas, culminating at the San Francisco de Asis Church at Ranchos de Taos. And then there’s Taos Pueblo. To stroll among its well-preserved 1000-1450 AD buildings is to walk in the footsteps of the first Spanish explorers, who believed the Pueblo to be one of the fabled golden cities of Cibola.
Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.
Leaving Taos on the way to Durango, via Chama and Pagosa Springs, we cross the Rio Grande on the second-highest suspension bridge in the U.S. highway system – appropriately-named the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Built in 1965, it was called the “bridge to nowhere” while being built, because funding did not exist to continue the road on the other side.
Durango pays homage to its Wild West past in the everyday – wooden boardwalk upon which spurs would have once jangled, and saloons where a moustachioed bartender no doubt kept a scatter gun within reach under the counter. It seems entirely appropriate, then, to patronise a bar where the hard stuff is flowing and blue-grass band playing a medley of The Band’s hits.
The owner overhears our Aussie accents and welcomes us with a round on the house. “What’ll it be?” he asks, to which my wife replies, “A glass of chardonnay, please.” Mine host looks more than a little shocked and splutters, “Ah ma’am, ah do apologise – this is a beer and shot bar.” I’m half-expecting him to add, “We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.”
Back on the road, and what a road – the San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway. Within the byway, the section from Silverton to Ouray is frequently called the Million Dollar Highway, which stretches for about 40km. But the Big Kahuna is the 19km passage through the Uncompahgre Gorge to the summit of Red Mountain Pass. Defined by steep cliffs, narrow roadway, hairpin turns and a lack of guardrail; it’s as challenging as it is ruggedly beautiful. Oh, for that SRT-8 now.
We push further north through Montrose, Cimarron, Crawford and on to Edwards before winding up our 3200km road trip at Denver, just 176km along Highway 70. Like Albuquerque, we get to enjoy the hospitality and friendship of family above and beyond all that this fine city of more than 580,000 has to offer.
We socialise extensively (as you do), take a guided tour through Coors brewery in Golden, the largest single-site brewery in the world, and check out American automobilia of the grandest kind (think Cord, Duesenberg, Tucker, et al) at the Cussler Museum. This collection of more than 100 significant vehicles, ranging in years from 1906 Stanley Steamer to 1965 Corvette Stingray, is the passion and property of best-selling novelist/underwater explorer Clive Cussler.
Umpteen boxes ticked, that left just one more thing to do – a drive up and down Pikes Peak.
Sebastien Loeb takes the win and record at Pikes Peak, 2012. Image Peugeot Australia.
Long Way to the Top
To fully appreciate the immensity of Pikes Peak you should watch Climb Dance, drive up it, or, better still, do both.
The award-winning short film vividly documents Ari Vatanen’s record-breaking 10m47.77sec. run at the 1988 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Created by Jean Louis Mourey, this action-brimmed, celluloid clip captures the Finnish rally ace soaring to the summit in a bespoke four-wheel drive, four-wheel-steer Peugeot 405 T16.
Cameras inside, front, underneath and above the car, take you along for a white-knuckled, heart-pounding ride, underscored with full-blooded slides through hairpins, flat-chat along straights and tail hanging out within a metre of plunging to infinity from 4267m (14,000ft) up. One of the most viewed and talked about car films ever, Climb Dance is right up there with that other French cult classic, Rendezvous.
Records, of course, are there to be broken and, in 2012, all-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb set a scorching 8m 13.878sec. in another Peugeot, a 208 T16 Pikes Peak, the flying Frenchman consuming the 156 corners at an average speed of 145km/h. The outright record currently stands at 7m 7.148sec., a time set by Romain Dumas in the Volkswagen all-electric I. D. R Pikes Peak in 2018. It should be said that the ever-increasing pace of the race has not all been because of technology, skill or derring-do, but also improvements to the road surface.
Back when you could still kick up a little dust.
In late 2011, final sealing of what had been historically a decomposed granite surface – salted with magnesium chloride and/or calcium chloride to bind the dirt and keep the dust down – was completed. Stage-by-stage, the sealing started in 2003 in response to environmental concerns that damage to watercourses and forest floor was being caused primarily by some 70,000 tonnes of gravel that washed away annually. To race purists, it wasn’t quite “paving paradise and putting in a parking lot”, but close.
The official course comprises the final 20km of Pikes Peak Highway, a 30.6km toll-road from Cascade to the 4302m summit. The fun begins at the start line, alongside a telegraph pole at the 11.3km marker. To get the most out of your drive, you’ll probably want to use launch control and push on as hard as you’re prepared to risk.
But, first, a few tempering facts. The speed limit is 25mph (40km/h), so hitting 200km/h like the fastest of the fearless on race day is a little unrealistic. And, while uphill traffic has right of way at all times, best don’t take it for granted and use any more than your side of the road.
Of course, in the days of part-dirt – back when I drove it, in 2009 – which did not facilitate any kind of road marking, differentiating what was your side proved something of a challenge. There were others. Even allowing for such constraints, this was a cracking strip of dirt; well-packed down in the interests of safety but accommodating a little slippage to engage and entertain.
Very little guard rail in 2009.
Pikes Peak plays a full hand – blind crests, corners and curves of all radii and degree of difficulty, places you go ridge-rimming, and where it’s possible to fall 600m to earth and barrel-roll halfway to Colorado Springs. The tree line ends abruptly beyond Glen Cove, then comes the evocatively-named Devil’s Playground, Double Cut and Bottomless Pit, where it’s easy to trip up.
But the single, most amazing feature is the ‘W’s, a series of no less than eight switchbacks on the north-west side of the peak. Of course, higher altitude means thinner air. For every 350m above sea level, a rule of thumb is you can expect to lose around three percent of engine power. Which explains why, the closer to the summit, the Charger with its underdone 2.7-litre V6 fell well short of living up to its name. But we made it.
Coming down means driving on the side closest to the edge. Wonder how many right-side passengers close their eyes? There have been instances where people have ridden the brake pedal – with often predictable consequences. So, at the ranger’s booth near the 13km mark, it’s mandatory to stop and have the temperature of your stoppers read with a pyrometer. Anything above 150-degrees C and you’re required to pull over.
Keep Pikes Peak near the top of your drive bucket list. You won’t get to go fast enough to threaten Vatanen or Loeb’s times, but the sheer scale of the place and sense of occasion and history should suffice.
Car specs
Price new: $US23,895
Engine: 2.7-litre DOHC 24v V6
Power: 133kW @ 5500rpm
Torque: 258Nm @ 4000rpm
Transmission: 4-speed auto
Weight: 1716kg
Drive: Rear-wheel
0-100km/h: 9.6secs
Barry Green will be well-known to many of you and a welcome discovery for those of you who haven’t been reading his words for years.
He has had an illustrious five-decade-long career writing for such titles as Racing Car News, Sports Car World as well as holding professional journalist roles with Australian Provincial Newspapers and News Limited and motoring writer and editor of the RACQ’s Road Ahead magazine. Along the way he found time to write and self-publish a trilogy of retro motor sport narratives – Driven to Succeed (the biography of Alec Mildren), Longford: Fast Track Back and Glory Days (the Albert Park story from 1953 to 1958).
Now you can revel in his recollections of more than 80 drives of an eclectic mix of machinery on some of the world’s finest roads and racing circuits.