Happy Father’s Day! We met up with some North Bay roadster owners for a nice fun run beginning in Sausalito.

 

Weather was fantastic and we had a great mix of roadsters. Mike’s ‘67.5 SPL, Duncan’s ‘67.5 SPL, Mark’s Turbocharged ’66 SPL,  my ‘67.5 SPL,  Dana’s ’70 SRL, and Dan’s ’69 SRL:

 

Our route took us through HWY 1/Stinson Beach and meandered back inland towards Petaluma. Plenty of scenery changes and twisty roads to enjoy:

 

After a quick lunch at the Petaluma Creamery we headed out again towards Nicasio Rd and back over the Golden Gate Bridge to the South Bay. I logged about 250 miles while others extended their drive down HWY 1 for a 400mile journey!

 

Great roads, good company and beautiful weather. Thanks to everyone that came out, Datsuns Are Driven!

 

The Bay Area Z Association’s (BAYZA) 5th Annual In N’ Out and Meet was a great success with over 100 Z cars in attendance! As with past events, Z Car Garage has been a proud sponsor and helped with some prizes for their “Best Sound” competition.

Here are the 3 winners the community chose as the best sounding exhaust!

Best Non-Turbo Z sound:
– Brian D, Silver Z32 NA

Best Non-Z32 sound:
– Jason S, White Z33 NA

Best Turbo Z sound:
– Nick M, CRP Z32 TT

These winners all received a free dyno session at the shop!

We were also happy to see some familiar ZCG plates too like Kevin M’s Slicktop Z32:

 

Our friend Joe piloted the ZCG 300zx Twin Turbo for its first car show appearance in a long time!

 

You can find more pictures of the event HERE. Thank you BayZa for letting us be a part of your gathering!

 

The Three Roadsterteers are out Enjoying The Ride again! On Saturday we embarked on a much longer journey to Cambria and back home via HWY 1. It was an interesting trek with great roads and good company. We covered over 370 miles with 8hrs of driving time, see our route below:

 

We tried our best to avoid freeways and to reach Paso Robles we took HWY 25 from Hollister. This road has a mix of super long straights, sweepers and some short tight stuff. Weather was warm. Our first stop was in the small town of San Miguel, where this local 85-year old gentleman shared his knowledge of Datsuns with us. He was a riot:

 

We crossed over to the coast via HWY 46 through Paso Robles.  Lots of wineries and green rolling hills here with a hint of cooler temperatures from coastal fog. We enjoyed some pizza and desserts after fueling up in Cambria.

The Chevron gas station in Cambria was epic. Not only because of the $4.99/gal 91 octane. The owner was an avid Z-car racer back in the day and the whole lot was filled with (derelict) Z’s!

 

The salt-laden ocean spray clearly took its toll on the Datsun sheet metal. Fortunately the owner’s current project was stored inside the shop!

 

We hopped on HWY 1 to enjoy the gorgeous coastal views and smooth, twisty asphalt. I really wanted to catch the sunset with our roadsters but we were having way too much fun. We eventually stopped in front of the Point Sur Lighthouse for some pretty pictures:

 

 

After sunset it became chilly so we continued on HWY 1 to Santa Cruz and blasted down 17 to get home. Gotta love those turns on 17! Check out our last fun run HERE.  Stay tuned to see where The Three Roadsterteers venture next!

More pics in the gallery!
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Come out July 12 for the ZONC Annual Car Show! This is a great venue held at the Brisbane Marina near San Francisco. Check out pictures from last year’s show HERE.

You can fill out a Pre-registration form HERE and check the flyer below for more details. Stay tuned for caravan time/date from the shop!

Here is Ann from ZONC with a report from last weekend’s Grand Prix at Laguna Seca:

Saturday’s SportsCar Challenge race was really interesting – cars that we can all relate to. BMW M3 placed first, a Camaro Z28R placed second, and an Aston Martin Vantage finished third. The unsung heros placing 4th, 5th and 6th were all 370Z’s. And this is amazing because there was zero visible corporate support. No Nissan tent, and not even a Nissan ad in the program. At one point the #14 370Z was in second, but because of mandatory driver changes/pit stops, it finished 5th.

And also in this race in the ST class were two Altimas, placing 16th and 19th in the class and ahead of the two Hyundais, but sadly behind three Honda Civics! Mazda’s MX-5 Miatas ran away with this division, placing 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and ahead of the following BMW 128i and two 328i’s. Of course, we’re talking rear wheel drive cars competing against front wheel drive cars so things got a little funny with this division.

 

Sunday’s race was very exciting with OAK Racing in the #42 Morgan Nissan Nismo jumping to a close second with its nose on the leading #90 Corvette’s tail. There was contact between the two early on when they went side by side at the Corkscrew with the Corvette leaving a small body piece behind. Then 45 minutes into the race, #42 was hit and needed repairs to its suspension. Once back on the track, there was speculation it would be penalized for causing a serious dust-up. In Paul’s photo, you can see the blue #90 Corvette in the foreground, with the #42 Morgan Nissan next to it on the bump strips, and a Mazda and a Corvette in the swirling dirt. Looks like they just got pushed off the road at the turn. Can you imagine that? But even without a penalty, #42 was 14 laps behind at the end of the race, even though it posted a new race lap record of 1:19.747 in lap 40.

Muscle Milk was nowhere to be seen. It’s not really clear what Nissan is doing but when has it ever been?
-Ann