1st annual
Protege 5 Mountain Drive

The day started off with a beautiful clear sunny sky. The plan was to meet behind Denny's in Prescott Valley at 10:00 Am. About 9:45 everybody that was going to be there was there. We did wait until 10:30 just in case there were some stragglers lagging behind.

Those that attended our rolling car show were, Scott from Chandler, AZ in his orange 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege, Eli from Chandler in his Black 2002 Protege'5, Patrick came from San Diego, Ca in his 2003.5 dark blue mica Protege'5, we were in our 2003 laser blue Protege'5 and Nikolaus from Prescott Valley arrived in his silver/tan 1994 Protege sedan.

We left Denny's and headed towards the mining town of Jerome. Highway 89A is a curvacious mountain road with some tight corners. Five compact sport cars enjoyed it greatly UNTIL..........

Until we came upon a newer Mustang GT convertible. This guy couldn't drive this car if his life depended on it. The road is a two lane road with blind curves. He used both lanes and rode his brakes all the way. There were times that he was completely left of the double yellows to take a left curve. He rode the yellows during right curves too.

We stopped at a lookout point to get some pictures. The mustang had stopped too. He had ridden his brakes so much that there was actually smoke billowing out from the rear tires.

We waited for the Mustang to go away then we continued onto Jerome enjoying the rest of the twisties. We had lunch at the Jerome Palace.

After lunch we headed through Clarkdale and Cottonwood on the way to Sedona.

The views of the red mountains were exceptional under the clear blue sky.
Once in Sedona we attempted to stop and check out the shops but we couldn't find adequate parking for our pack of Proteges.

We continued on Highway 89A and headed through the tree covered road of Oak Creek Canyon. There were tons of people out today along that stretch of canyon curves. We would have to slow down to allow traffic ahead of us to pull away so we could enjoy our sporty suspension as it was designed.

At the end of Highway 89A we took I-17 north into Flagstaff. We all got to stretch our engines a little.

Once into Flagstaff we pulled into a parking lot on the main drag and enjoyed the cool air and partly cloudy skys.
Then we all went our separate ways.

Christy & I left Flagstaff at sunset.

The 2nd annual Protege 5 Mountain Drive
will be held on the first Sunday of June in 2004.

See you there.