Road Trip Part One: Tail Of The Dragon
So a few week ago, dad and I decided that we both sort of… needed a vacation. A plan was hatched. We would drive northwest (generally) from Raleigh, making a few stops along our way, to our destination of Jackson Hole Wyoming for some peace and quiet in the wilderness. As we planned the trip, the question came up: “What do you want to see along the way?” Without a minute’s hesitation, I blurted out: “Tail Of The Dragon!” This was met with stares of incomprehension and confusion, and so I explained: “318 curves, 11 Miles.”
That’s really about all the Dragon boils down to: it is an absolutely INSANE road, in the middle of nowhere. Technically speaking, it’s an 11 mile-long stretch of US-129 that starts in North Carolina and ends in Tennesee. It’s nestled in the Great Smoky Mountains, just west of Cullowhee (home of Western Carolina University and a whole bunch of dirty hippies nice folks. It’s sort of a meccah for gearheads on the East coast, hidden from annoying tourists and tractor trailer trucks.
They’re not kidding about the turn count. I would say there isn’t a straight part of this road more than 50 feet long, tops. The turns come one after another, many banked, and many linked together and ending in hairpins or negative-camber decreasing-radius uphills. In other words, TONS of fun. As evidenced by the parking lot, it’s primarily an attraction for motorcyclists.
This was easily my favorite bike that was out there today (although I for some reason failed to snap pictures of the pair of matching Aprilia Tuono 1000R’s… I’m a noob, sorry!) It’s a Ducati Monster that is ridden - VERY WELL - by a rather attractive woman. I know, I know. Insert “chauvanist” comment here. Whatever. I love it.
The motorcyclists take this road very seriously. While it is technically a public road, show me another road you will see a sport bike cornering like this:
The bikers are divided (rather obviously) into two groups: sport riders, and the slow annoying Harley riders. Harley riders are so slow on this road that they are a significant obstacle for cars. Something about “Oh, I don’t want to scrape my chrome nerf bars!” I’ve never really liked Harleys and getting stuck behind one doing 17 mph really didn’t help their case. Call me biased. (That’s nothing new.) The sportbike riders will gladly overtake your car on a blind curve while winding out second gear. Like I said, there’s quite a gap.
Of course, it’s not just two-wheeled conveyances. The dominant 4-wheeled force on the Dragon is the Miata. It’s light, balanced, tiny, and handles great. They were everywhere. Here are a few of the cars that could be found on the Dragon: a brace of Miatas (all equipped with roll bars, modified suspensions and sticky tires - as it should be) as well as an E46 M3 CS.
So, how was the Dragon? Well, to be honest, while the M45 is great for eating up highway miles, it’s less than ideal for the Dragon. It’s got a kerb weight of 3995lbs, a 5-speed automatic with a traditional torque converter, and a rather long wheelbase. Still, thanks to the stiff suspension, strong brakes and abundance of torque from the VH45DE V8, it pulled out of the corners rather nicely and felt far more composed than anything just shy of a ton has any right to be. I’m sure we caused some surprised looks on people’s faces as we drove past the overlooks. Look for a more in-depth review of this car in the coming week or so. For now, enjoy some video of an expensive luxury sedan getting flogged on a tight road!
This one is dad driving, myself narrating. I was amazed how well we kept up. The car in front is a twin-turbo BMW 335i coupe. That is one impressive car - as is the Infiniti for keeping up so well, despite being 400 pounds heavier and being completely loaded to the gills with stuff.
Here’s me driving. Man, that Nissan V8 sounds gorgeous.
That’s all for today! For more information on Tail of the Dragon, visit their website at http://www.tailofthedragon.com. Have fun out there and happy driving!
-James
July 30th, 2008 at 12:51 am
you know what that means? You need to invest in a motorcycle the next time you decide to drive the Tail of the Dragon! or maybe just run the stretch of road with your arms straight out to your side yelling “VROOM VROOM VROOM!!!!” (personally i like the motorcycle idea better)
August 19th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
[...] Handling is, unsurprisingly, very neutral. The predominant characteristic is mild understeer, although with 245/45/ZR19 tires, it is quite hard to provoke. One downside on roads like these is that the stability control system is far too aggressive, cutting power in situations where it’s simply not needed, or at least to the degree that the system intervenes. Even with the program disabled, it still intervenes in some situations. While it’s better to be safe than sorry, a car designed for enthusiastic drivers like this one really should have a totally defeatable stability control system. The large four-wheel disc brakes exhibited no fade even after repeated runs down The Dragon, the temperature gauge never twitched, and it generally kicked ass and took names - so to speak. The only negative aspect shown on the Dragon was a result of the highest octane locally available being 89. With the high altitude and large engine loads placed, the VK’s knock sensor was working overtime on some tight corners. This is certainly not a fault of the car, but just an observation. For more information on The Dragon, check out this post. [...]