Closer Than Blood

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If Kitsap County’s road engineers had wanted to seek careers as Disney Imagineers, they might have served up Banner Road as proof positive that their designs could deliver the requisite thrill. The ups and downs of the Bactrian-camel-on-’roids roadway were only matched by its highs and lows. The stomach-in-throat feeling that came with motion and speed was delivered there every day without fail. Truth be told, the roller-coaster effect owed more to the topography of that stretch of the south county, which chases up and down the hills as it careens along a nine-mile path just east of Colvos Passage from Sedgwick Road to the Olalla Bay Bridge. At about its midpoint, near the intersection with Fragaria Road, was a spot locals had long dubbed the Banner Jump. The Jump was a patch of asphalt that eggs on the lead-footed, as it literally begs those who traverse it to fly. A quick descent down the hill is followed by a slight rise, and then another drop. Even at the posted speed of 40 miles per hour, a driver and passengers can feel that tickle in the tummy that makes some people queasy and little kids cry for more. For as long as there have been teenagers with something to prove or fathers yearning to give their kids what they’ve wanted, there has been the invitation to push the pedal to the floor. Those with a ’70s TV or film reference flash on the opening moments of Starsky and Hutch or possibly the famed chase sequence of The French Connection. Kids called it “going airborne.” The Banner Jump was a buzz that required no alcohol to deliver the goods. No amusement park fee. Just a not-so-lazy drive past modest homes, equestrian estates with sprawling pastures, and mobiles, to and from Port Orchard.

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