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As usual things were crazy leading up to the departure, and grand plans of having the car repainted prior to the trip quickly became impossible. I thrashed on the car for two FULL days prior to our planned Thrusday departure, having taken Tuesday and Wednesday off before we were scheduled to leave for PPIHC. I parked the 505 because the rear axle was cluncking quite badly, and the front struts were totally blown - so at the very minimum that's what I had to do. Rear axle was replaced with a good used one, and the front struts were replaced with some low mile ones off a total loss 88' 505 GLX I bought years ago. I'll need to rebuild the original struts that came off the car and reinstall them when I do the wheel and brake upgrades. The rest of the car was in great shape with plenty of pad life on all the brakes, brake fluid was fresh from a few months back, as was the diff and tranny oil. Decided to just top up the diff and tranny, but the engine got synthetic Castrol 5W-50, and a new Purflux filter. Reset the TPS and idle switch, and confirmed timing was still spot on. Once the major known issues were corrected I attended to the electrics, and cosmetics as best I could. Front right park light wasn't working, fog lights were blowing the fuse, side skirts were off the car since being repainted, and the car was really looking neglected. Front park light was a corroded connector at the left fender park light connector, driving lights were shorting out because the left Hella driving light light was making contact inside between the bulb and the grounded bulb clip. Gave the car a VERY thorough wash, and then installed the side skirts - I just had to get new hardware to installed them. Had the car done LATE Wednesday night - like hadn't started packing yet, and didn't finish packing until well past 1AM! My friend Dan got off his night shift at 6:30AM Thursday morning, and drove straight over. My other buddy Gary lives across the back alley - so it was a convenient departure. Loaded up the car and headed for Colorado at 7AM. Once driving the car wasn't quite right - the only driving I did in the last two or so months was just back and forth for repairs at another buddy's garage the previous weekend. Brakes felt funny, and the engine just wasn't as smooth as I remembered it. Nothing to be worried about, but I was extra leary as I had two friends in the car and if the car broke down I'd never hear the end of it! Trip was planned with a very direct route, and we thought it'd be fastest to stick to secondary roads like we did on our return trip in 2004. Sadly we didn't even think that road construction would be that bad and we had a heck of a time with delays the whole trip down due to road construction. We also didn't give much thought to Saskatchewan only having a front plate, and Wyoming being pretty strict about having front plates - got stopped for doing 72 in a 65, but as we waited for the cop we noticed then everyone had front plates. Got away with a warning thankfully. As the trip progressed it was clear the only real issue was the mid to high 80's temps being in a black car with no AC! It was pretty hot in the car, but the fresh air system kept us from totally melting - that, and the stop where we tried some F'real milk shakes - they really were good, and hit the spot nicely! With three guys in the car - we made excellent time. Drove non-stop with just the odd meal breaks, and an unfortunate GPS detour when we tried to find a BBQ place listed in the GPS that was a vacant lot when we arrived... Ended up eating at a Taco John's when the Subway line-up was too long... Once the sun set, it was comfortable in the car again and we were still making decent time until we hit the interstate construction about 1 hour from Colorado Springs and our hotel. The last hour was the most delayed part of the whole trip of course, and the traffic that late at night was another big surprise. Finally arrived at the hotel at ~11:30 PM and prepared for the how to spend Friday. We knew we were going to miss Friday practice as we were just on the road for almost 18 hours, and would essentially have had to have gone immediately to the hill to line up. But sadly I had been mis-informed about there being a Saturday practice and our plan was to see that practice. Didn't find out until Friday during the day that Satureday was a rest day - D'oh! Probably a good thing in hindsight with how busy and sleep deprived we were anyway. Friday morning tried to sleep in late, grabbed a big breakfest, and find Mach2Racing's shop to check out the new car... Race team wasn't there, but chatted with the shop owner (Wagner's Prop Shop), and he advised to do the summit as early as we could to avoid traffic - so that's what we did. I hadn't heard from Marc, and I didn't have his number in the car, so we waited for contact as long as we could before deciding to do the run to the summit as early as we possible. (Found out later I gave Marc the wrong number for my buddy's cell!). Summit run was breathtaking, and the road was simply astounding. Go-Pro'd the ascent, and took some nice pics at the top. The road, and the steep grades are just not properly communicated in videos. The tight 180 corners have especially steep ascents with 1st gear and floored throttle barely being able to keep a 25 mile an hour speed limit. Spent a good hour on the summit and saw a couple cool cars - one being a 914! Really nice father and son that drove 6hrs away. Chatted to him about his car, and and took a couple pics. He admitted to taking pics of my car earlier - so I knew he was a good kid. On our way down we stopped at Devil's playground and I hung out by the car as the altituded was giving me a head ache. Kind of funny when I noticed a mini-van turned in and came straight to my 505. Driver jumped out and started taking pics of my car - Naturally I had to capture the moment. I'm used to taking good natured abuse from friends ALL the time about driving Peugeot's, but this trip was the absolute best one ever for getting waves, thumbs up, and people just walking up and checking it out. He was from France and was happy to see a 505 after so many years, and thought it was great I drove all the way from Canada to see the race in it. Coming back down we quickly had a pattern set up to pull over and let the slow cars in front to get ahead, and before the next slow car came, we'd drive out so that we could enjoy a quicker pace down the hill. Nothing crazy mind you, but some of the cars decended at speeds that meant I had to ride the brakes all the way down in 2nd, or decend in first... So it was much nicer to just get a gap so we could decend at our own pace. It was a great plan until I found out about the brake temp check at the bottom - surpise! We had a decent gap so there was some decent braking into the last corner before the check, so temps were 382F and we were asked to park and let them cool. (Wasn't really an issue with 600F fluid in the car and Ferodo pads - they felt absolutely fine) It did make it easier for the young guys in a gutted WRX wagon from pulling up and complimenting me on the car however...