It's a toll road that goes up the mountain and down the other side. This road is a tourist road, or perhaps it is more commonly known as a bit of a racetrack. Any car enthusiast that visits Japan longs to drive these two roads in particular.
The drive from Mount Fuji is only about 40kms, so the distance was covered in no time. The route up to the Hakone Skyline must be the twistiest road I've ever driven on with barely any straights long enough to even think about getting out of second gear. It was only when I saw a Yaris behind me looking like they were keeping up, that I realised that first gear was the only option for the incredibly tight hairpins. The road was characterised by a gutter that would kill you should you go anywhere near it!
Suffice to say after a bit of brisk driving that Yaris was nowhere to be seen and so we drove up to the Hakone Skyline.
The famous picture that is an absolute must. This is definitely one I'd like to get framed. :)
Some way up we stopped for a picture and for me to have a breather. More on that shortly.
By a shrine (I think) on the Hakone Skyline viewing point. You could see Mount Fuji from here, but it was not easy to see in the haze.
The road up the Hakone Skyline was tight and twisty, I elected to turn off all the stability systems as it was not terribly high speed. Second gear was mostly what you needed with the odd burst in third on the occasional straight that was long enough. The climb was characterised by tight hairpins, one after the other and switchbacks which made it fun. As the ascent was reasonably steep there wasn't enough power to really push the rear of the car out, but on the chicanes where one bend flowed into another, the car would unsettlle on the rear under braking and the rear would come round a little.
The stability control lights were flashing a fair amount of the time (they do this even when everything is switched off) and the car was dancing from bend to bend. It was actually quite hard work and I had to turn the aircon up, but it was immense fun. :)
From there after a few navigational errors, as Japanese sat nav is not easy to programme, we got to the Toyo Tires Turnpike.
This road is much, much faster and we were after a little climb on a long downhill all the way to Odwara. Just like the Hakone Skyline speed limits were low though a paltry 10km/h higher at 50km/h. Just like on Hakone I elected to completely ignore this for once as the road was just too good to cruise along. Interestingly when you approach cars driving at the speed limit they generally pull over for you which is handy. I reckon that people expect it on these roads. So all good in my opinion!
We were hitting pretty high speeds, sometimes 170km/h+ and the bends though significant were not as sharp as on Hakone, the high end of third gear proving ideal for this kind of road. So there I was accelerating up to decent speeds on the straights and still flying the bends at 120km/h or so for the most part.
Upon hitting around 160km/h down one straight I braked for a third gear bend, but I felt the pedal go long and the ABS was having a bit of a fit. The car was slowing but not to the degree I expected. It was a long flowing bend so it was easy enough to balance the chassis rather than try to scrub more speed with the now non-existent brakes! The road straightened and I backed off a bit and tried the brakes, they weren't working!
I spotted a little car park on the next corner and did all I could to stop the car, it did slow, it wasn't as scary as it sounded, more that I was in danger of over shooting the entrance to the car park. I made it fine and when I stopped clouds of smoke were wafting up from each wheel arch!
I've done a similar thing in my own car on the racetrack, so I knew what was happening the moment the brakes faded.
Here is a picture though it was a couple of minutes after the event so the smoke had gone by then, so you'll have to imagine it!
Experience told me to leave the car in gear with the handbrake off and just let it cool. I checked under the bonnet too, no problems there. Ten minutes later we set off and I checked the brakes carefully on the last part of the descent. Everything was fine.
I suppose cooking the front brakes is directly proportional to how much fun I was having and I was having lots. A road like this needs to be driven hard and I knew that the 86 could take it and it did. Great car, great fun, great scenery and a fantastic morning driving roads that until now I have only dreamed of. If I hadn't gone for it down these roads, I would feel that I hadn't done them justice. Sometimes you just need to put the hammer down and soak up the experience. Brilliant and a great antidote to the relatively boring drives I've had up and down the expressways so far.
Also to celebrate I revved it in first put the steering on full lock dumped the clutch and spun the car round in the car park a few times on it's nose. We had noticed that at many little car parks and turning points there were tyre lines everywhere, so it was only fitting that we left the car park in a cloud of burnt rubber too!
Hakone Skyline and Toyo Tires Turnpike I salute you for being a rare haven to all the real drivers of the world. :)
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