Special Car, auto, cars, vehicles

Rain greeted us as we departed San Diego for the twisting roads northeast of the city. As we climbed Highway 79 toward the small town of Julian, the rain transformed into sleet. By the time we'd reached Warner Springs (elevation: 3130 feet), it was snowing. Hard. We'd barely dug into lunch when it became evident the snow wasn't abating; in fact it was getting worse. Change of plans. Stop lunch. Get in cars. Back to sea level. Now.

I can hear the vast number of you laughing. Snow? Big deal. Get on with it. And you're right: The snowfall wasn't any worse that what I regularly encountered back when I lived through Michigan winters. But Michiganders are accustomed to driving through the white stuff. Most San Diego locals are used to . . . blue skies and 72 degrees. How are they supposed to know that snow and ice are, you know, cold and slippery?

We'd barely departed our lunch stop when we ran into our first accident. Or should I say, when it almost ran into us. Crawling along in a line of cars going 20 mph, I looked up to see two sheriff's Expeditions approaching rapidly in my rear-view mirror, sirens and lights ablaze. I pulled over. Just as I did, the lead Expedition suddenly skidded under power, rocketed up the opposite embankment, and flipped with a huge crash! back onto the highway -- landing on its side. Just as the first Ford stopped sliding, the second black-and-white Expedition flashed past doing more than 50 mph . . . the sheriff just managed to squeeze between me and her wrecked partner (another foot to the right, and she'd have wadded up my poor little TSX and me like a chewing-gum wrapper).

I carefully climbed out of the car, tip-toeing across the icy surface to the crashed Expedition. It looked like a wounded T-Rex: feet in the air, broken wipers flailing wildly like miniature claws, massive bulk cast cruelly across the road. I peered in the windshield, fearing the worst. The cop was sitting on the passenger window -- now the floor -- his foot hooked in the steering wheel and his expression dazed. "Are you okay?" I pounded on the windshield. He yelled back, "I'm fine!" As in, "leave me alone." He was in shock, but seemed coherent and more or less intact. By now his partner had stopped her Expedition and was running toward us, frantic. "He's okay," I yelled. "Did you call it in already?" She nodded. "Backup is on the way." By now the crashed sheriff had unwound himself and was standing on the passenger door, his head poking out the driver's window. "Boy, was than an E-ticket ride," he said, looking more sheepish than hurt.

With help already arriving, our caravan pressed on. Not fifteen minutes later we reached another wreck. This time, a car had spun across the two-lane mountain road, blocking both the northbound and our southbound lanes. We had to park and wait for an hour before a tow truck cleared our lane; the northbounders remained struck in the rapidly accumulating snow. We pressed on at a crawl.

Soon we reached yet another crash -- and another road blockage. After waiting about ten minutes, a few of us had had enough. We turned around, detoured onto a nearby side road, and headed downhill. Within 20 minutes, after we'd descended about 1000 feet, the snow had turned back into rain, and the road cleared. Ninety minutes later we reached base camp -- er, our hotel -- in San Diego.

I'm happy to report that all the TSX test cars arrived back safely and in one piece. Many on the mountain weren't so fortunate, though: In addition to the crashes we witnessed, news reports the next day confirmed that hundreds of motorists had been stranded on the mountain overnight.