Rallye de Malibu, Spring 2008
I’ve been itching to hit up some canyon roads with the MX-5 ever since I got it back from the body shop. The car was finally back in a condition where it was ready for some twisties. I have a new set of BF Goodrich g-Force™ Sport tires and a realigned suspension setup. Now that the weather has been clearing up, John Wu and I have really interested in organizing a car cruise.
The last time we had one of these cruises, we headed down to Mt. Palomar in San Diego. It’s always fun to get a bunch of car people together to talk about cars and hit up some twisties. This time we wanted something closer, yet new to most of us. John came up with a great route that took us through the Malibu canyon area. These wonderful route covered everything from stretches of farmland through tight twists and turns of a challenging canyon road.
On Sunday morning, April 20th 2008, we started by our cruise by meeting up at the Santa Anita Mall. It took a while for everyone to arrive. After running 30 minutes behind schedule, we started on our trek over to Ventura County. We took the 101 and exited off South Westlake Blvd. in Westlake Village. We stopped off at a gas station to take a bathroom break and Emily switched over as pilot. After a fill up, we continued on East Potrero Rd. and encountered many road cyclists. You have to be careful driving along this road because many cyclists can be found traveling along this route. However, the view is quite scenic and you’ll enjoy long stretches of ranches and farms along with tunnels of trees that stretch for miles.
Once you pass all the farmland, you hit a decent that takes down into the lower elevations of the California coastline. At this point, we were on West Potrero Rd. and the decent comes quickly. Initially there’s a blind turn coming right before the first few turns of the descending canyon. The canyon is sharp and one should be careful through this section. It eventually drops off into a very flat stretch of agriculture that seems to be operated by California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI).
After passing the university, we took several roads that eventually placed us on to Highway 1, Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). We traveled along, enjoying the ocean breeze and the coast line. Eventually we decided to stop along PCH around Point Magu for a photo-op and some time to stretch our legs.
Following our stop, I switched back into the driver seat and was ready to take up the Mulholland Highway stretch of our road trip. I’ve always have been a fan of Mulholland Highway. Not only do you get great scenery and weather, the road also offers a variety of curves you don’t usually find in other places around Southern California. The sections I found the most fun at were the super technical/super tight sections of Mulholland. The Mazdaspeed MX-5 is setup perfectly to attack each close turn with precession and control. With my the new alignment setup, the Miata was very neutral. Oversteer wasn’t excessive and I had absolutely no understeer.
Somewhere along the middle section of Mullholland Highway, we stopped over at The Rock Store, a very popular bike hangout in Southern California. On any given Sunday, you’ll find rare and exotic motorcycles hanging out in front of the store. In our case, we happened to encounter a motorcyclist that rode in with a Ducati Desmosedici RR.
After grabbing some breakfast at The Rock Store and hanging/checking out the bikes, we decided it was time to head back home. We finished another fun filled day of canyon cruising and this will hopefully be the start of a year of some great rides. It’s definitely days like this that make me a proud owner of a Mazdaspeed Miata. Hopefully up next will be some track time.
Photos
Tags: canyon roads, malibu, mazdaspeed mx-5, pacific coast highway, pch