172kmph

Last time I wrote about 151kmph in my Palio on NH4, I had promised myself I was going to take the car on the express-way some day. The revv-happy car begged for a high revv, high adrenaline drive on the wiiiide and loooooong empty stretches on probably the best road in Maharashtra.

I didn't get an opportunity till March-2011 though. Every time I took the car on express-way before March, every time I had some or the other issues in taking the car all the way up on gas. Sometimes it was dark on the expressway, sometimes there was just too much traffic to allow for the risk, and sometimes it was the age of people in the car that prevented me from even thinking about it.

Then came March 8, 2011. I had bought a 21" Wacom Cintiq pressure sensitive tablet from a friend in Goregaon Film-city, and since he was leaving Mumbai in couple of days since, I thought of a plan to make a dash for Mumbai early in the morning, and get back to Pune before office hours. It was a wicked plan, but if successful, it would allow me absolutely ideal conditions on the expressway while coming back - early morning, low road temperature, low traffic, warmed up engine, and most importantly - nobody else in the car whose life would be my responsibility. The expressway and the car would be all to myself. I realized that I may not get such an opportunity to strike 2 birds in a single stone, again.

That day, I left Pune early in the morning, 3:45am, if I remember correctly. I could barely contain my excitement, and could hardly sleep the night before. Even though alarm was set, I got up on instinct, before the alarm went off, and got ready quickly. In no time, my car was on expressway. I had decided to keep it steady while going towards Mumbai, since it was a dark night, and visibility obviously was poor. I was going to cut lose while coming back anyway, so I rather concentrated on getting to the destination, picking up the tablet and then getting back on expressway as quickly as possible, before the Mumbai traffic could bite me.

I reached Filmcity by 6:15am - 2 hours 30 mins door-to-door from Kothrud to Goregaon Fimcity. This was largely thanks to the sometimes-awesome-sometimes-horrible-but-this-time-awesome GPS navigator - Motonav in my Moto Milestone. The maps are probably from MapMyIndia, and the app routed like a charm. That app has been my guiding light in quite a few occasions now, and it has faithfully got me out every time.

After completing the transaction and picking up the tablet, I left Filmcity by 7:15am, took a wrong-turn earlier than the GPS suggested, and then wasted 5-10 minutes further till it got me back on the right route. By the time I reached Vashi toll booth, the sun had already risen up, and it was neither hot, nor chilled - just a pleasant morning with a cool breeze flirting shyly across the face. I was taking in all that while driving in the high speed lane, when I noticed an Innova honking behind me. Before I realized the reason, he changed his lane, cut me in, and then started choking me behind him, as a revenge. That was the kind of provocation I needed when I was all propped up for a high speed blast on expressway in few minutes. I cut in 2 lanes to my left in a wild single swoop, like the auto drivers recklessly do in Pune. Unlike the auto drivers though, I wasn't reckless, but had my eyes on both the rear view mirrors. Again switched one more lane to the left to avoid a bus in front, and was racing parallel to the Innova in no time while cutting through the traffic. But my Palio's 2nd and 3rd gear proved too much for the Innova guy. In a few moments, he was in my rear view mirror, and though he tried a lot to race me, he could never see anything but my car's tail-lights after that.

First it was the cool breeze, and then the pleasure of comprehensively beating a highway bully on his provocation, that set the tone for the expressway for me. I was hyper excited since the plan had worked well and I was on schedule. I was in right frame of mind, with all conditions favorable, to take the final plunge.

I joined the expressway by around 8:15am. Cut through the initial "slow-moving" traffic and once the stretch was long and inviting enough, I cut lose. This was the moment I was waiting for. I built up the speed right from 2nd gear; flirting with the red mark on the RPM gauge. Soon I was racing with the wind. A Swift Desire (VDI if I remember correctly) tried to race with me, in vain. He never made it to the front and gave up trying around 140kmph mark. I kept on building the speed. I literally whizzed past a lot of cars, which were probably doing a respectable 120-130kmph. I bet they would have wondered if Audi/BMW had started building a hatchback, and since when. ;)

I was comfortably past 160kmph mark now and the car was stable. I kept the peddle floored. 165 - 166 - 167 - 168 ... the progress was a little slow in this band, despite the gas. 170kmph - 171 - 172 ... and I noticed the car was a little wobbly now. The same car which was rock steady in 160s, was noticeably wobbly during the 170s. I had a pair of Bridgestone Turanza ER-60 in the front, which are rated for high speed till 190kmph. But in the rear, I had a pair of old Good-Year Assurance, which I was not very confident about. The wobbliness of the car, added to the lack of trust on the rear tires, created doubt in my mind, and in a flash I took my foot off the gas.

I kept it around 145kmph till I again got a psyche and went till 165kmph just for the fun of it. But in the back of my mind, I had accepted 172kmph as the tops for the day, and felt there was no point in going any further till I get something like Micheline PP2 or Yoko S-Drives on. I had already breached 160kmph, which is the psychological 100mph (miles-per-hour) mark. I had already breached 165kmph which the manual mentions as the top-speed (bollocks!) of Palio Stile 1.6 Sport. And besides, this was an accurate 172kmph speed, since it was measured on the GPS. I am sure if the speedometer in the dashboard was working, it would have hovered somewhere around 180kmph mark, due to inherent measurement errors in the mechanical speedos.

Not a single car overtook me on expressway that day.

I reached home at 9:30am - 1 hour 15 minutes after I took to the expressway, and 2 hours 15 minutes after I left filmcity. In all, I left pune at around 4am in the morning, and came back from the heart of Mumbai on the same day by 9:30am in the same morning. Many didn't trust me on that, but the Cintiq stands a tall witness to the fact.

For a driver who had learned driving 8-months back, achieving 172kmph in a stock car, without any mods, is a booster to be cherished for long time. And cherish it I will. But equally true, it doesn't stand anywhere in comparison with those who have scaled 200kmph and higher in their cars, modified or else, on the same expressway. John Krakauer maps this emotion to words well, when he gets fascinated with the life in Chamonix, in his Eiger Dreams, and muses -

"It's a luminous fall afternoon in downtown Cham,
and I am sitting on the terrace of Brasserie L'M,
loitering over a strawberry crêpes and café au lait,
wondering whether I might, given my limited talents,
ever rise above the life of terminally banal."