California Coastal Road Trip

Like many people around the country, we have had little occasion to travel this year. With car shows and events like the Power Tour and Drag Week postponed and rescheduled due to the coronavirus, we’ve mostly been stuck at home. I recently had occasion to travel to Santa Rosa, California, for a photo shoot with Scott Birdsall, owner/builder of Old Smokey, the Cummins-powered Ford F1 that beat the diesel-engine record at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. Motor Trend’s William Walker was the shooter, with me serving as assistant and camera car driver. It seemed like as good excuse as any to make a trip out of it.

- John McGann

Santa Rosa is about an hour north of San Francisco and 436 miles from our offices in Los Angeles, by the most direct route. I took the more scenic route, driving north on Highway 101. The rolling hills closer to the coast are a more interesting landscape for a road trip than the relatively flat central valley traversed by Interstate 5. Highway 101 also cuts through the center of San Francisco and takes you across the Golden Gate Bridge, which is always worth a photo op with my phone.