Vic passes through Rockville, MD, en route a personal best for point-to-point transit from The Little Village By the Bay,MI to Arlington, VA. Photo courtesy Maryland State Patrol.
It was an awesome drive, and I managed a personal best for elapsed time over the route from The Little Village By the Bay to Arlington.
The Caddy covered the 776 miles in 12:03:34. Legal speed limit estimates on the GPS indicated a baseline of 13 hours, 13 minutes, without allowance for Brief Stops for Fuel (BSF). My rough calculations suggested slightly better than a mile-a-minute (776 miles in 773 minutes), but that will be subject to official notification from that irritating traffic camera in Rockville.
The previous personal record for the transit was under gray skies and dry pavement under winter air mass conditions, and totaled 12:37:23 hours in the now-discontinued classic GM Panther body-on-frame V-8 powered P-71 Police Interceptor-equipped Bluesmobile.
The rental Caddy knocked the stuffing out of that. They used to say that the best off-road car was a rental car, but this vehicle was one of the better choices I have made in personal travel. The peppy new 3.6L V-6 – the luxury market segment’s most powerful standard engine – headlined the package, which I was still figuring out on the fly. There were features I did not understand, and some that I only figured out after I was back.
I defeated the Ogemaw County Traffic Revenue Enhancement program by slowing down to something near the posted limit, and left it on cruise control until I was clear of the jurisdiction before ramping back up to 80 mph.
The car combined performance, technology and refinement. I could not tell it was only a V-6: the new 3.6 liter “LFX” engine provides a power boost of 16 percent-plus (308 horsepower / 230 kW) over the previous engine and the caddy comes off the line nicely, delivering higher torque at low rpms to help blow away the competition.
I am happy to report that responsiveness of the vehicle is dramatically improved in all operating conditions. Off the line, overtaking, passing, banana lane shifting, and idiot passing in full-throttle acceleration were all superb.
I can’t say enough about the ten-speaker Bose sound system, hooked to Sirius satellite radio. But aside from the amusement value, I am a purest.
I was on a full-out car Jones, having been combing through Raven’s automotive history down in the office, I was immersed in his drafting tools from his days as a stylist, and the concept designs of really cool cars he worked on as a young man starting out in Detroit.
Getting ready to launch yesterday morning, I stood and looked at the Caddy’s bold chiseled lines. It is more than a bold pretty face, though, and one thing I have to assert: the powertrain is what made me a believer.
The LFX engine is harnessed to the Hydra-Matic 6T70 six-speed automatic transmission, a joint development with Ford, which features a driver-selectable Eco feature. You can amend the shift points and throttle progression to optimize fuel economy. There is a gauge to help you out on that, but I only found out about that by inadvertently shifting to sport mode coming off the line at theUS-131-US-31 intersection at the south end of town.
I had time to think on the drive. I had managed to get some stuff done this trip, mostly at the end of the visit. It was frustrating, maddening, sad and rewarding all at the same time.
There was not enough daylight this close to the autumnal equinox to make the whole distance in daylight, and I can’t see crap at night anymore, and the highest danger is approaching the Capital and its maniacal drivers in darkness.
As the light came up, I buttoned up the house, hoping I had not missed any doors or windows, and drove out in light rain.
It was Lake-Effect moisture, thank God, and by Grayling I passed into sunshine for the diagonal length of Michigan. I let the tank draw down to nearly empty, stopping outside of Flint for gas and six White Castle sliders procured from the last outpost of the fabled franchise adjacent to the interstate before passing through the ruins of the Motor City.
Next stop was for a vente Starbucks somewhere east of Sandusky, OH. Otherwise, a straight shot, quickest route, pedal to the metal.
After the Big Left Turn out of Michigan, the flat farmland of Ohio whizzed under the wheels of the SRX, Cleveland passing abeam, the Lordstown Assembly Plant, and finally Youngstown, last exit in Ohio.
I assaulted the hills and construction zones leading up to the Pennsylvania plateau, Pittsburgh passing to the south. I thought for about the hundredth time of stopping at Shanksville to visit the crash site of United Flight 93, but did the calculations with the onboard processing in the Caddy, and saw that if I did not stop to pee, I could make the Beltway just as the sun went down.
I pressed the accelerator and flew down the big hill at Breezewood, PA, the Village of Motels. Then Hagarstown and Frederick and Rockville.
Approaching latter, after Father Hurley Boulevard and the beginning of the express lanes on I-270, brake lights winked on across the broad swath of concrete.
Damn! The record attempt was going to be shot if I had to creep into the city, and it would be pitch black when I arrived. Double Damn!
It had been a pretty good day up to then, and I groaned, thinking that it would be an hour or more in some idiotic DC traffic jam. We crept along for a couple minutes, and I saw a Maryland Trooper coming up on the shoulder in the rear-view of the SRX.
I was pondering on the appropriate protocol was to get out of his way when my attention was drawn to a man standing in the middle of the Interstate, attempting to gather what looked like the contents of several suitcases in his arms. Bright fabric colors were strewn all around him, mangled by the wheels of hurtling autos and his face was screwed up with anxiety and fear as traffic veered and crawled around him.
He was not having a personal best sort of day. Traffic picked up, and the merge onto the Beltway went smoothly, and the Legion Bridge into the Olde Dominion was where the light finally faded, and I was flying blind.
I hit I-66 and flew into the city. I pulled into the garage at the office to transfer materiel from Caddy to the cavernous trunk of the Bluesmobile by 1930 in the evening. Then I walked over to Willow to let the adrenaline evaporate out of my jeans and shirt.
It is a different crowd on Saturdays, mostly the date-night dinner trade. I was happy to see Old Jim, our buddy Holly and Liz-with-an-S holding down the bar, and it was a thoroughly good end to a long day with several thousand minor tactical decisions conducted to a background of Sirius Satellite Radio channeled through the ten Bose speakers.
I don’t know how many of these I have left in me, but one key contributing factor in the speed of the trip was a requirement for only 1 1/2 fuel stops- the Caddy is amazing.
If we win the big contract re-compete, I will buy one. If we don’t, I will have to start looking for likely highway overpasses to live under, and just watch the Caddies go by from there.
I thought, sipping a Happy Hour White next to Jim, that if I had some bad days in the last week with Raven and Big Mama, none of them featured me standing facing traffic, trying to get my shit together in the through lanes of the busiest freeway in America.
Poor bastard. I wonder how he made out?
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com