Mohawk Trail

I went to school at North Adams State College, now known as the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. MCLA is located out west in North Adams, a mere ten miles away from our borders with Vermont and New York. Giving friends directions to come visit me was easy: "Hop on Route 2 West. Drive for two hours. Take a left at the Dunkin Donuts in North Adams and follow the signs."

The Route 2 we know in the Boston area, a major four lane highway with some nasty rotaries and traffic tie-ups at stop lights that don't belong on a four lane highway, becomes a very different animal as you head West. Past Greenfield it's a somewhat narrow two lane road that twists and weaves its way through the Berkshire Mountains. After a break in North Adams and Williamstown, where it briefly becomes civilized again, it continues like this all the way into Troy, NY.

While I was in college, even before I discovered real cars like BMWs, I thoroughly enjoyed this drive. I even enjoyed it in my first car, the Bluesmobile - a 1982 Pontiac 6000LE with a four cylinder engine that propelled it from 0 to 60 in 7.5 billion years, and even longer than that in the mountains.

Igor (say "eye-gore"), Justin's E21.

Fast forward to spring 1999. Igor, my 320i, was in pretty good shape after the work I had done on him over the winter. But the front seats were completely shot, and caused me significant pain on any long drive. Thanks to a query I posted on the E21 Digest, I had made a deal on a pair of factory Recaros from a 320is parts car in Schenectady, NY. Rather than pay extra for shipping, I decoded to take Igor for a shakedown cruise and pick them up myself.

The drive out there was fairly boring - the Mass Pike to the New York State Thruway, which dropped me into Schenectady. We removed my original seats and installed the Recaros on the spot. I then had a choice ahead of me. Either I could go back the way I came, which was not particularly exciting and cost money for tolls, or I could seek out Route 2 and follow the Mohawk Trail its entire length back through Massachusetts. The choice was simple - with a Recaro equipped BMW, I took the Trail.

Once climbing the hill out of Troy, NY, I found myself behind three rather slow moving cars. Fortunately, two of them turned off fairly quickly. The while Cadillac that remained was a very unusual Cadillac driver. He drove well, and he actually drive pretty fast! So I simply followed him through the plains just East of Albany and then up through the mountain passes toward the Massachusetts border.

I'd traveled this portion of the Trail once or twice in various college student vehicles (my Pontiac, a friend's Ford Escort, etc.) but my BMW turned it into an entirely different road. Where the student cars wallowed through the turns and ran out of breath up the hills, Igor eagerly dove into the turns, and despite the low power of his 1.8 liter engine, the right gear selection produced more than adequate power to keep up with the far more powerful Cadillac.

It suddenly got cloudy, and I closed the windows and sunroof quickly as a heavy rain shower opened up. The Cadillac didn't slow down. After my experience on a wet skidpad at a safety skills program just weeks before, I knew I had plenty of traction available to maintain the rapid pace safely. And so I did, winding and twisting around the curves and downshifting for the steep hills. We maintained a nice brisk pace all the way to Williamstown, where we slowed down for civilization. Of course, the Cadillac was probably on automatic pilot while the driver was busy playing Nintendo with the climate controls. I was thoroughly enjoying the fully involving experience of driving my 320i, spartan by today's standards, aside from the comfort of my freshly installed Recaros.

In North Adams I made a couple of quick stops at the college and at Natural Bridge State Park, one of my favorite nature type areas around there. Then I left town, heading up through the famous hairpin turn behind a very slow SUV (you'd think with such a huge engine it could at least go up the hill as fast as my little four), and into the rather inappropriately named town of Florida.

A clear passing zone materialized, so Igor and I put the SUV into its proper place - behind us - and found nothing but clear pavement ahead. We got the road to ourselves to just before Charlemont. This part of the Trail follows alongside a river - a narrow, twisty portion of road that weaves through the valleys. I know this section well, as I drove it many times back and forth to school in the Bluesmobile. But this time it was a BMW! I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the drive before, but never as much as I did on this trip! Since the statue of limitations hasn't run out yet, I will only say that I have never traversed that portion of road in such as short period of time, nor have I ever had so much fun doing it!

If you ever have the occasion to drive through Eastern New York and Western Massachusetts, and you have some time to burn, I highly recommend skipping the thruways and turnpikes and hopping on the Trail instead. It has to be one of the most enjoyable roads I've ever driven, both for the fun of the actual driving and for the amazing scenery along the way. Roads like this are the reason BMWs exist!

June 2000 Bimmer

President's Page by Fred Beck

The Editor's Red Pen by Justin Hughes

Bimmerscopes by Lady Dixi Isetta

June 2000 New Members by Barry Tarr

Coming Attractions: Calling all Women, Calling all Threes by Maria Anggraeni

Chilling Out at Lime Rock by David McLaughlin

Chilling Out At Lime Rock Photo Gallery by Allison Feldhusen

Coming of Age by Michael Gleason

2000 Boston Chapter Autocross Series: Autocrossing 101 by Steve Hazard

Autobody Tech Session Photo Gallery by Dan Mull

Favorite Road: Mohawk Trail by Justin Hughes

2000 Charitable Contributions: In Memory of Parker Spooner by Fred Beck

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