[johnnyfive]

Well I didn't know where to put this thread so if any of the mods feel like it should be elsewhere just move it.

Anyway so as a few of you knew. This past weekend I went down to TN to experience a good bout of mountain driving.

I was there last year with my other car (last time I mention it I swear )....

s part of a meet with other people. Yea so this big gathering of 200sx's (www.club-s12.org) from all over the country drew about... 4 people counting myself.

As you can tell I used to drive a door stop with an engine and wheels.

This meet was no different in fact without the friend of one of the members it would've only been three people again counting myself.....

So it started out with me getting to the campground where everybody was supposed to meet. I left around 6am that morning and with stops for gas, food, and a quick 30 min nap I got there around 6:30pm.

I stayed at the pumpkin center motorcycle resort in maryville. About 9-10 miles from one of the best street driving experiences in the country. Which is called the dragons tail.

As I've told many of you it is a section of US 129 running through the TN/NC border which has 318 curves in 11 miles. It is a very tight road. and very fun.

So the other people coming were going to be there about 9 so I decided to head out and get some plates and a coolerand hit up the dragon at night around 7-7:30.

here a few pics of that run. I got stuck behind an SUV towing a trailer so that's how I got the chance to snap these pics

Then I went back to the campground and watched some TV at the offices outside lounge area until the rest of the folk arrived.

Here were pretty much the key players for the day.

a saturn SL2 (the guy is an avid autocrosser with a differentvehicle)
an contour SVT with a 3.0L V6 block on the stock SVT head. (has been a contributor of both info and some suspension bushings to the S12 forum for a while now and was at the meet last year).

and of course my SRT. It's lightly modified with an AGP WGA, profec B, quicktime performance cutout downpipe also with stage 1 and MM's. No suspension work.

There was also another S12 forum member there but he doesn't really come in until later on saturday. he was driving a subaru 2.2L legacy.

So they all show up in the contour and we shoot the shit until about 3am talking about various things. They were also interested in checking out my car. So I told about it what it has done, it's quirks, and it's crazy exhaust manifold. And gave them a ride.

They were impressed of how fast it moved with 4 people in but were more impressed at how fast it stopped. After a quick sprint to 70-80 on the road the campground's on I went about 90% on the brakes to a stop.

About 3-4 curves later we got back to the campground and we talked some more. Later in the meet or that night both jason (subaru and has a 200sx he's building up that he had last year) and ross (with the contour). Were saying to me that they thought i wasn't going to be able to stop in time for the intersection almost 1000ft ahead :lol: and again complemented my brakes.

Then they went off to jason's parent's house in knoxville for the night while I slept in the car.

to be continued

 

[johnnyfive]

So the next morning at 11 ross and moe (with the saturn) came back to meet me so could hit the dragon together. Hopefully he will have his full videos of both runs we taped on the dragon. (one in the morning and one at night).

I also took video from my dash with my canon powershot.

And here's mine it's technically a compilation of videos as my camera can only take 3 min of video at a time. that and some parts of the dragon were plagued by sun glare.

http://media.putfile.com/johnnyfivedragoncomp

As you can see we only got to go at quick pace for about 1/4-1/2 the dragon until the cruisers and a harley got in our way.

My camera doesn't take sound well so obviously the opened exhaust doesn't come out well. (it does on another video taken later night in passenger seat).

after the dragon we were going to hit the blue ridge parkway but a combination of me getting everyone lost and everyone getting hunrgry scrapped the idea. So we stopped to eat at a local restuarant near cherokee in NC.

It was near this very sign

how literally it describes the entire purpose of our trip

Then we decide to head back to the campground to meet with jason (who had things to take care of that day) so we go up 441 through the smokey mountain park to hit 73 to go onto the foothills parkway to get back to the campground.

It turned out to be riddled with traffic. Everybody and thier mother's brother's sister's cousin's former boyfriend's dog was looking at tree's. so it took us a while. but in the mean time moe shot a few pics of us moving along.

Then onto the foothills parkway.

No action shots here as Ross WAS leading up till this point but a wrong turn from him and moe and a quick U turn on my part put me as the pace on this road.

The foothills parkway is much more open than the dragon how open you ask. well my top speeds on the dragon was 70-75 MPH.

On the foothills moe hit 80-85, ross hit 90-95, and I decided to take it up to 120MPH

Before anyone goes OMFGZ YOU PRICK (make that plural if you don't like how any of us acted)!!! YOU COULD'VE MURDERED MY FAMILY OF COCK ROACHES. I'll say. "Yea I probably should've took it a little easier". Any e-lectures to that effect will be entirely ignored I will not even respond to acknowledge them. I don't advocate street racing or initial D competitions Thank you.

So then moe and ross had to get gas and jason ended meeting us at the gas station we stopped at.

We get back to the campground and shoot the shit for another 1hr or so and we take some more pics.

the fat guy in the black pirate shirt is me.

So then we head out to hit the dragon again at night. Jason had already hit up the dragon twice in his suby that day and wanted to have a front row seat to how a sup'ed up neon tames the dragon.

he also took a short video. http://media.putfile.com/dscf2846clipped

A 5Meg pixel nikon digital camera takes much better video than my semi decent camera.

I was leading the pack on this one as ross had done it earlier and moe didn't want to lead so I did.

After a few minutes they were too far back to see up until two cars got in our way. They both moved.

They then stuck with me pretty well until the dragon ended. After some fuel we went back to the campground to pick up jason's car to go back to his parent's house to have pizza and burn all our pictures onto CD's.

Then the trip home.

I took a slight detour onto the virginia end of the blue ridge parkway for some scenery and got some good ones.

 

[htheduck]

Nice writeup Johnny...looks fantastic for some time trials. (Oh and don't warp your rotors-just yet...)

 

[hozay09]

I'm scared to ask u how many miles u've put on that already :grim:

 

[Nolimits]

That suck so much that you got caught up behind those bikers, they should have made double lanes at some points for passing. And you guys looked so outta place at the end of the trail when you pull into that gas station with all those bikers.

Otherwise it looked like alot of fun, it makes all other "twisties" pale in comparison.

 

[htheduck]

Otherwise it looked like alot of fun, it makes all other "twisties" pale in comparison.

...just short of the Nurburgring.

 

[johnnyfive]

I'm scared to ask u how many miles u've put on that already :grim:

before

after