Tail of the Dragon Trip
 

Here is my review to my Trip for the Tail of the Dragon


So i have a good friend who has a mini cooper and every year they have this big event called Mini's on the Dragon.

Basically 600+ mini's and 300+ other cars get together for a lot of fun events.


I will concentrate on the experience over all


Lets start with the road there, from my area and back including miles traveled around fontana village down to Bryson City and Robinsonville over the period of 5 days I put 1650 Miles on the car.

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Out of those 1650 miles I did about 160 of those miles on the dragon and roads near by at WOT shifting most shifts around the 7 to 8k rpm range. Top Oil temps according to data logs were 129c


My first run on the dragon was at 11pm at night so it was definitely trial by fire, good thing the only thing that was on fire by the end were my brakes. I tackled it the first time at night with out any course knowledge so I was happy about that at least. On the way back I did slow things down a little bit just to be sure I made it back to base in 1 piece.

Over the next few days my buddy and I (who I trust and I know will not crash the car haha) tackled it a total of 8 times (Each time is a back and fourth trip so a total of 16 single runs).


0 Hiccups on the car and the turbo kit. I did find it hard to manage the hairpin turns as 2nd gear is a bit short while 3rd gear was a bit to sluggish for spooling up on those switchbacks that go right up hill but I did manage after a few laps of practice.

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All in all I kept traction control on because this was a grip run and I wanted to stay in my lane and not swing anything out in order to avoid accidents. Traction came on about 3 to 4 times at the most thru out the whole trip so I definitely was staying within the lanes and technical grip I had which was immense.

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I did manage to meet and see a few other FRS's and brz's there and got a chance to talk to one of the folks who is on the forum. While I am bad at names and forgot his he was definitely a cool person to talk with and I hope to meet more folks next time I go down.

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The scenery out there is insanely gorgeous so in addition to driving the tail a few times I did want to enjoy the surroundings so on my last day there before tackling the dragon one last time I took it easy and drove around for some nice photo ops.

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Other than that the dragon is extremely technical and over the few days I was there there were several accidents from people not staying in their lane. One of them happened to my good friend with the mini who originally invited me where he was driving at a very slow/normal pace outside of the dragon on the hell bender and a car came into his lane and side swiped him. The danger is real but so is the reward. All in all it was a great experience and I will be making my way back to the area when ever I can.

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Big Thanks to @ptuning @Mrc@ptuning for helping me track down a vacuum leak before the trip happened.

Video of some runs of the dragon put together:

[ame]http://youtu.be/E4NfLquZopA[/ame]

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What roads did you take while you were there?? Was up there with a S2ki about a month ago such a fun place to go

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Took 28 and a few other roads that would go to robinsonville and the cherhalla way etc. Its a total blast up there

Yeah friend of mine was telling me about the back of the dragon Def gonna check that out when I'm down there next time..Also gotta hit up skyway on the way down there

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What brakes are you running? Looks like you definitely put them to the test.

Thanks! Stock Everything except for HPS Pads. I will be switching to HP Plus this week for a track event this weekend.

Is this road side fenced? Asking as all videos I see of this pass I never have seen an animal is all.

No fence really it is mountainess region so any animals that are there either get run over or probably eaten by bobcats lol

We saw you :). The blue frs you posted a pic of is James. I was in my raven and my buddy was in a silver frs. What kind of turbo kit you have? It sounded MEAN leaving the store at the bottom of the tail

Hey! Yes I talked to james, I am not sure his username here but I wanted to tag him. Sorry we missed each other and by Saturday when james and I were both driving together I was driving for an emergency and didn't want to drive fast. My buddy had just gotten hit by an on coming car.

I forget his username on here. If you go to the southeast section I believe he posted last on the atl thread. Me and my buddy left Friday night. I only saw your car at the store.

Sorry to hear about your friend, is he ok?

On a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed the dragon in the frs. Mines still stock - an axle back. And it held up perfectly. Brakes definitely took a beating though. Had so much brake dust on the rotors it was almost scary.

Yea he is fine it was a side swipe but if he didn't turn in time it would have been head on, they came into his lane.

In terms of Turbo kit I am running the Ptuning Turbo Kit. Its Center Low Mount keeps all the heat out of the engine bay. It ran flawlessly!

I did manage to set my brakes a little on fire (saw a small flame that quickly went out) lol as well as they were smoking for 20 minutes after my first run on the dragon which was at midnight! Only stock brakes with HPS pads haha

Good to hear he's ok.

And yea, all 3 of us were up at the BBQ truck and heard you pull out of the gas station. Turbo sounded amazing headed up to the gate at the bottom. We also saw another blue brz with a cf hood and trunk. He stopped and talked with us a bit at one of the pull offs.

I also thought the gearing of the FR-S was tricky on the dragon and not as enjoyable.

With that being said, the car was absolutely fucking amazing on the hellbender.

:cheers:

What part are ya'll calling the hellbender?

In my factory frs, I had no problems with the gearing. Ran 2-3 stayin above 4k with my vsc button pressed. I will say, 90% of people will like the skyway more than the actual tail. And once you get to the top, it's absolutely beautiful at 5700ft

The Part that leads up to the dragon from Fontana village is called the hellbender. Thats actually where my friend was hit, it has more accidents than the dragon it self.

I also had a gearing issue but it was mainly because of my Turbo. 2nd would be too much power while 3rd would be too little. I finally got the hand of it and kept 2nd for the switchbacks and 3rd for everything else to get the high speed. I was changing gear a lot and one handing the turn entry but it wasnt as bad as I thought it would be

Ah I got ya now. That road was fun. We went down it once to help James set up his tent.

Yeah, ive been to the dragon numerous times and Hellbender is the most dangerous. The asphalt they use differs greatly from what they use on the dragon, and running the dragon a few times builds a healthy amount of false confidence. Once we got to Fontana right after a Miata had slid into the trashcans, flipped, landed upside down and killed both occupants. Right at the storefront corner.
Ive been there with s2ki group a couple times as well, but I found them to be arrogant, reckless, and downright hazardous at times. Its saddening to see someone smoke a bunch of pot and then go tearing down the road to attempt the dragon. I won't return with that group again. I will however return back for the hill climb challenge though I think ill want a turbo FF for that.

Awesome pics and your car look nicee. You got the carbon fiber lip and tail setup I thought about going For. Glad to see them in better pics!. The turbo does sounds good going through those bends. Looks like you had a whole lot of fun haha And thanks for a new wallpaper!

Thanks!

A group of 12 of us were down there with our MR2 Spyders in mid-April. It was a good time and was the 14th annual trip. My avatar picture is from the trip last year. Next Spring, we celebrate the 15th anniversary and hope to rival the turn-out of 38 Spyders that made the 10th anniversary. With any luck, my son will make the trip with us in his FR-S. We were there the same weekend as the s2000s and there were over 100 of those plus a few FR-S and BRZs.

I was going to ask about the LEO presence while you were there then I saw you catch that one in your video. Good thing he was moving and not sitting on the side of the road with his radar gun.

I feel for your friend. I had a motorcyclist come around the corner in my lane in a 90 degree corner on the downhill from the Crossroads of Time towards Robbinsville. It scared the hell out of me. I thought he was a goner. I got hard on the brakes and he swerved back into his lane. I thought he was going over the side of the mountain but he managed to save it right on the white line.

Anyone on the east half of the country that wants to know what the FR-S or BRZ is all about should get out of the cities and suburbs and make the trip to the Dragon at least once. It is a trip to remember and one you will talk about and share with others for a long time afterwards.

Zdayz is this weekend on the Tail and after our lil Blood Mountain run(further south of the Tail on 129, in Ga.) I'm heading up to see the Zdayz show. Z cars galore. Hoping to see a GT-R in action.

I passed you a couple times while you were there.

Minis on the Dragon is one of the worst times to go to Deals Gap. Hundreds of Minis and their crappy drivers everywhere. I wonder how many of them wrecked this year.

id imagine that weekend would be one perpetual Benny Hill skit...

Hmmm, I do not remember seeing a Whiteout that weekend. There was an Asphalt, and a Silver Ignition 10 series plus a WRB BRZ that I remember. Maybe you saw one of the other two Super White MR-S that were there that weekend. Or I just missed seeing you.

Took a Trip up from MD to PA with all backroads, definitely makes me miss the dragon and the tons of friendly drivers who will pull over to let you go! LOL.