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Road Trip!

M

MAZDASPEED

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Jul 19, 2000
Messages
1,126
Location
MA
Well, looks like Sue and I might be hitting the infamous Tail of the Dragon in the Mazdaspeed at the end of the month. My parents relocated to SC and my grand parents live in KY. We're going to SC first, then in the last few days of our trip we're going to run out to KY, visit for a few days and make the trip back to MA. We'll run the dragon 1 or 3 times on our way from SC to KY. I'm hoping that my parents follow me out to KY in their Miata. I'd like to geta www.killboy.com photo of my car and his humming thru the dragon! All tolled it will be approximately 2,300mi and nearly 40 hours of driving.

The MSM got all cleaned up, clayed and Zainoed in preparation for the trip. It's been sitting in the garage for about 2 weeks every other night or so it gets a fresh layer that sitts over night. 6 layers of Zaino so far. I have the front nose bra and mirror bras for protection if it's dry weather. I'm nervous about the trip but this is what we bought it for. Should be quite the adventure! And we're going to try and drive as much as possible with the top down. We'll be snapping pics of the trip and I'm hoping to get a real good summary from the GPS system.

For those that aren't spacially inclined heres a map of our trip:

Trip.jpg
 
You'll be going past Carlisle. I-81 is fun between Scranton and Harrisburg. We were able to ride most of the way with all the windows and the roof open.
 
Should be a fun trip. Your going to have to pack light with that amount of trunk space! I know half of that will be car cleaning supplies!!!
 
cruises8 said:
Should be a fun trip. Your going to have to pack light with that amount of trunk space! I know half of that will be car cleaning supplies!!!
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Hahaha, it will be basically cleaning supplies, Sue's suitcase and 5 pair of underwear for Ryan....

We have the space saver bags that you vacuum the air out and seal which will reduce the size of the cleaning towels and supplies, and most of our clothes. I'm hoping that it doesn't rain at all so I can leave the bra on the car and I don't have to worry about stone chips and where in the car I can put it if it has to come off. If the weather gets bad we can also put the top up and pack the parcel shelf behind the seats.

We're getting pretty excited for the trip.
 
We made it to South Carolina unscathed! We left at 3:45am in MA, temp was 51 degrees and clear. Arrived in SC and it was 93 degrees. We got a lot of sun. GPS indicates we traveled 950+mi in under 14 hours with two gas stops, lunch and one stop for water and suntan lotion and still maintained an average speed of 69mph!

Thursday we are heading to KY and we'll hit the Tail of the Dragon, can't wait to make a run. We'll post some pics from our adventures when we get back.
 
you made awesome time!!
right about now i wish i was cruising around the country in a drop top...work sucks
 
MAZDASPEED said:
...average speed of 69mph...
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Speeding speeding speeding BAN! :p lol just messin. This boosts my confidence in maybe making a haul out to my grandmother's house in Ohio, although everyone in my family keeps telling me I don't have a dependable enough car :nonono:
 
Well...... West Virginia and North Carolina Have 70mph speed limits so technically could drive around this state enough to justify the average speed....actually, no.....

Today we went to the BMW plant in Spartansburg and walked thru their Museum. The factory tours were closed due to factory retooling. I'll need to wait another year before it's open again. But they had some nice vehicles on display. We also went and looked at the BMW Performance driving school. They have a fantastic test track and a really cool looking offroad driving track.

I think tomorrow we are going to the Kitten rescue league and getting some cats for my parents house...then my dad and I may go cart racing.
 
The Dragon is amazing!! We just made it back to MA last night. 2,400mi and boy did the car get messy! We had clear sailing for most of the trip but for the 100mi or so that we hit rain, it was stright downpour. Luckily the Toyos held their own in the water and we were able to keep pace despite the weather. Spent the day putting the car up on jack stands, pulling the wheels, washing the wheel wells and insides of the rims, then wash/dry, detail of engine bay/trunk drains/door jams. One layer of Zaino, tire gloss and an interior vac and she's back to normal. I added one tiny little stone chip to the passenger rear wheel and two very tiny little stone chips to the driver side of the front Mazda symbol (probably received when the bra was off in the rain in KY).
 
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Heres a few pics from the trip:

Dowtown Greenville SC, curved suspension bridge:
DSCN2534.jpg


DSCN2519.jpg


The Greenville Zoo:
DSCN2629.jpg


Spartansburg BMW plant:
DSCN2535.jpg


DSCN2559.jpg


DSCN2539.jpg


DSCN2575.jpg


Tail of the Dragon:
DSCN2654.jpg


DSCN2661.jpg


DSCN2662.jpg
 
Drop a tire off the shoulder and it can kill you trying to get back on. Best to slow and ride it out.
 
todras said:
Drop a tire off the shoulder and it can kill you trying to get back on. Best to slow and ride it out.
Click to expand...

Thats certainly what I was planning on if things went out of sorts....but with the depths of some of the drainage ditches I don't know that there is a right way to go off the road at the Dragon.
 
Round two on Saturday!! We're repeating the trip in reverse. Leave MA at 3-4am hopefully make it to KY by 7-8pm. We'll leave for SC on Monday and we plan to hit the Dragon on the way thru. We plan on leaving SC for MA on Friday.

We're really excited, the Miata has 5 fresh layers of Zaino...nose bra, mirror bras. New oil, tranny and diff fluids. The cooler weather means more hp and great scenery. We're planning on lots of pics this time. We're gonna take it a just a wee bit slower this time around.
 
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