[TR] TTA Stag on Tail of the Dragon

[Tim Gaines]

I had an interesting experience on that stretch of road a 
few years ago.  I had driven my TR6 from South Carolina to 
Cade's Cove in the Smokies to meet some Tennessee friends 
for a couple of nights of camping and a climb up Gregory 
Bald to see the flame azealeas.  Because the traffic had 
been bad going into the park from the east, I decided to 
leave Cade's Cove by a small road I found on a map that 
went west and met up with The Tail of the Dragon.  Well, 
that small road was about 15 miles of loose gravel that 
kept me to less than 25 mph all of the way and far less 
than that where I had to ford streams (about 15 times)! 
 What a mistake.  When I finally got to the paved Tail I 
was ready to move, and I really lit into it, all downhill. 
 What a blast.  At the bottom I pulled into a gas station 
for a soda and parked in the middle of about 50 bikers who 
were giving me some funny looks.  One guy with a radio 
came up and wanted to know where the hell I had come from. 
 "Down the Tail," I said, not really knowing what they 
were after.  "Yeah, but no one at the top saw you," was 
his reply.  And just about that time a guy on a Kawasaki 
came tearing down the road and pulled in.  It seems they 
were running "time trials" down the Tail and keeping tabs 
on other motorists to leave plenty of room.  The guys at 
the bottom were looking for the guy on the cycle when I 
appeared.  He surely would have caught me if I hadn't been 
moving pretty fast myself.  Good thing!

Tim
Clinton, SC
1980 Spitfire
1974 TR6

On Sun, 2 Aug 2009 11:09:12 -0500
  "Ann and Tim Buja" <thebujas at comcast.net> wrote:
> I've just uploaded a 9:56 video of John Macartney 
>following Ashford Little
> on the "Tail of the Dragon" to YouTube and linked it 
>from the TTA website.
> 
> My favorite part is when Ashford and John get stuck 
>behind a motorcycle that
> can't maintain the speed being set by Ashford and you 
>can hear John say at
> 6:10
> "Bloody motorcycles - more trouble than farm tractors!"
> 
> Once the motorcycle pulls over at 7:50, their pace picks 
>up considerably.
> John shot almost 20 minutes of this drive but YouTube 
>has a 10 minute time
> limit and Flickr has a 90 second video time limit.
> 
> Links and embedded video of this drive along with four 
>Brits of the Hudson
> caravan videos are available at the Triumph TransAmerica 
>website at:
> http://www.triumphtransamerica.org.uk
> 
> Tim Buja - Rockford, IL
> _______________________________________________