I wanted to get a thread started to get thoughts from members on this. We would not be able to get an official rally going this year but we could do some cruises to explore possible places.

Possible roads:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Pass_(Colorado)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loveland_Pass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak_Highway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_550 (Million Dollar Highway)

The Million Dollar Highway is a great road and I would have to say the best. The problem is that it is not very close to here. Independence Pass is a close second IMO.

Thoughts?

Million Dollar Highway:

Independence Pass:

I would sponsor the event by providing T-shirts etc.for sale at a low cost (from a vendor who WILL deliver) stickers, and some marketing or commemorative materials. I could also reach out to the guys from Goopy etc. to see if they wanted to throw out some door prizes etc.
We could also incorporate a trackday, drift exhibition etc. at PPIR or HPR (PPIR is WAY easier FYI), a drag race at Bandi, and possibly hit up some of our corporate contacts to see about hotel discounts, food and bar specials, etc.

I think this is an awesome idea actually, Colorado is fairly central and has a lot to offer besides just driving around on a mountain road.

I'm down for some scouting.

RX-7 Chris wrote:Million Dollar Highway:

All those cars need to get out of the way of the motorcycles. Cars always ruin my fun when I go ride in the mtns 'cause I have to slow down.

Doesn't Independence pass have dirt sections too or am I thinking of the wrong pass (edit: I was thinking of cottonwood pass). Where is the million dollar highway (edit 2: durango to Montrose or vise versa, which is easily understood reading the link provided by Chris)?

I'd be interested in going for a drive.

D Walker wrote:I would sponsor the event by providing T-shirts etc.for sale at a low cost (from a vendor who WILL deliver) stickers, and some marketing or commemorative materials. I could also reach out to the guys from Goopy etc. to see if they wanted to throw out some door prizes etc.
We could also incorporate a trackday, drift exhibition etc. at PPIR or HPR (PPIR is WAY easier FYI), a drag race at Bandi, and possibly hit up some of our corporate contacts to see about hotel discounts, food and bar specials, etc.

I think this is an awesome idea actually, Colorado is fairly central and has a lot to offer besides just driving around on a mountain road.

All great ideas.

Colorado being fairly central was exactly what I was thinking. There are always these talks about going to rallies like DGRR. Why drive all the way across the country when we could get something going here much more easily. And like you said, we have a lot more to offer than just a road.

When I was in the Peak to Peak Miata Club, we would occasionally do an Independence Pass run. It's a loooong day from Boulder/Denver.

you. guys. suck.

.com

G-Man wrote:When I was in the Peak to Peak Miata Club, we would occasionally do an Independence Pass run. It's a loooong day from Boulder/Denver.

I'd plan on it being a weekend for my family. She would likely skipthe driving part and hang out in Aspen. I'm sure any other ladies would enjoy that part of it too. There is a lot of hiking, biking, shopping, spas, etc. in the Roaring Fork Valley. I hate to limit it to just Aspen.

Chris, I know some gym owners over there that might be able to get me in contact with people with enough land that they might be interested in letting us use for a grill out/BBQ, meet area. Depending on level of seriousness, let me know and i can get working on that. Irons hot now since I just spent a weekend with them judging the CF Regionals.

This is funny, I was just watching some show on the History Channel about the Million Dollar Highway and was thinking how fun it would be to cruise it.

Id be down for sure, and I think we should try to promote it on even a national level like the size of Deals Gap Rotary Rally, etc. Colorado obviously has great roads and a lot of other fun stuff. We also have a decent sized group here alone.

I do think I should be a multi day event, however, given most of these fun mountain pass roads are far from the metro areas, especially from me (although I feel compelled to add there are some fantastic roads up in NoCo too). We could stage it similar to DGRR where we all meet at a hotel and hang out at a group dinner the first night and the next day cruise the entire pass or whatever.

I love this idea. I've been wanting to do this for a while myself. And I realized now that Deal's Gap may have a couple roads, but we have MANY roads to offer. Chris listed only the best few. So I think that's another plus. We can also do Mt Evans. And for the other events, I think we have a lot more to offer since Denver and all the suburbs are right there. Assuming I'm reading all your posts correctly haha.

However, a couple things we need to think about is time of year and whether people have cooling upgrades. Let's be honest, we'll have to do this during the summer, likely between May and September, maybe even ending as early as August. You never know when it'll snow lol. And actually up on those roads, we might want to limit it to June and July only lol. In addition to that, because of the higher altitudes, coolant mods will need to be done. I was getting too hot on my stock system when I first moved here, but I think I'd be alright now. I guess I'll find out this summer sometime haha.

I definitely think it should be a multi-day event also. Are we looking to do events just in the Denver area or all over the front range? It might be a bit much to expect people to drive between CS and Denver, etc.

I think at least for this year we need to contact Mike B for his little black book of rotary owners up there lol.

im down i just pick up my gslse from body shop !!!

Couple of observations-

Probably should avoid a Rotary Only sort of thing, and make it open to any Mazda of any era and type. It would be sweet to have whole fleets of miatas, old school RX's, maybe a few GliC's, etc. roaming the pavement of Colorado.

I also think the idea of a mountain road run/cruise sort of thing is OK, but I would think an multi-day event with a daytime event, say an open track day, drift event, car show, etc., then an afternoon cruise to a different location, with a variety of dinner gathering options. Just charge a reasonable amount for the daily activities on an individual basis, and work with local restaurant and bars to do coupons or other discounts.

While the DGRR is cool, there is no need to copy it.

Also, I think a registration sort of thing is a great idea, but if there is money involved there needs to be a swag pack, give-aways, etc.