A Nice Morning Drive

[greatbear]

It's that time of year again and I am stoked. Yep, yep, it's time once again for my trip down to The Tail Of The Dragon to commune with my fellow Mini Cooper enthusiasts and to thrash the living fuck out of my car. This time last year, mom was in the midst of her battle with cancer, in fact, upon returning from the trip the following day I took her to have surgery. This year she's joining me. Granted, she is NOT going to be able to deal with being tossed around in the car, so instead she will hang around Fontana Village where we are staying while I am out tearing up the streets and tinkering with everyone's cars. I have a couple things planned with the group (it's over 400 freaking people now!) that mom can enjoy, plus this gets her out of the house.

The MINI received a spanking new set of SSR wheels and Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 tires for the event. They havent even been broken in yet (and this is making life so far a bit dicey, the car is still a bit pushy compared to the Pirelli runflats). They will be undoubtedly smoking along with the brakes like before. Boyaaah, nothing like the smell of rubber and brake pads in the morning!

Undoubtedly there will be hundreds of pictures and tons of video shot of the event. I am hoping that the fact there is so many people attending it does not turn into an asshat fest or total gridlock. I have a feeling it wont, though.

Here's hoping I dont break anything, end up in a ditch or off a cliff, or in jail.

Pfft. Jail I can deal with. lol

Comments

[jkusters]

Your unabashed glee is horribly infectous. :-)

Thanks for the (unintentional) lift.

JOhn.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I cant wait! *squeeeeeee!*

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

sounds like it's gonna be fun!
Have a great time!
And try to stay outta jail.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

You should bring your Cali biker contingent through there one of these days.

[le-lapin.livejournal.com]

[mhkrabat.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaahoooo and yippeeeeee! You know what you're in for and that's why you can hardly contain yourself in eager anticipation. I was crewing for my 71 year old father whom my friend Mike and I took to Virginia International Raceway for a vintage race event last July. We took his motorhome and the race car (a 1963 Volvo 122) on a trailer, and escorted it with Mike's wonderfully trimmed 1967 Volvo 123GT which had just gotten rebushed, resprung, reshocked with Bilsteins and rewheeled with Panasport rims. On the way home we took a round-about way and ended up at the entrance of the Tail-of-the-Dragon. We pulled over and I climbed down from the motorhome to stretch my legs. Mike walked towards me holding the keys to the GT out to me and said "Here, you take the GT. I'll ride with your dad in the motorhome. This is my present to you". I couldn't quite process what he was getting at but since I really like driving the GT, I didn't refuse. I was told to drive on ahead and they'd catch up with me at the "end". The "end"...hmmmm. It was started to register wiht me. I was about to have fun in a car whose surrounds are lifetime familiar to me except that this example handles vastly better than the stock ones did. It was overwhelming and amazing. I'm sure I drove most of the 318 turns in 11 miles completely slack jawed.

When we met up after the 11 miles, I was pumped full of adrenalin. Mike looked a bit green. Seems Dad throttled into the corners even though he was piloting a motorhome and trailer. There's said to be a dent in the passenger front floor pan from Mike's involuntary phantom brake pedal.

Have a blast, keep the shiney side up, and I expect a full report on my desk on Monday!

[e-ticket.livejournal.com]

MY, how I wish I could join you. Riding along in the streets of Bawlimer was fun enough, I can just imagine being a passenger with you on twistier roads :)

WOOO! Have fun :)