1800+ miles in a 21 year old car

[Jims5543]

So what if everything has been upgraded its still a 21 year old car.

I am leaving in the morning to decompress for a few days with my 15 y/o son. We are heading up to our vacation home in North Carolina for 2 nights. Once there we will be driving into eastern Tennessee to bomb some great mountain roads. I am going to try to get to the Tail of the Dragon but to be honest I found a much better road we call the Devils Backbone, every bit as fun as the Dragon without the traffic or cops.

I am first driving to Ocala to drop off my slicks and tires at a friends house who is going to co-drive with me Sunday in an Autocross up there.

Then off to Jacksonville to drop off a set of oil cooler lines from my 911 to another 911 guy who bought them from me.

Then to North Carolina to meet up with 2 friends to go tear up some mountain roads on Friday.

Saturday we are heading to the Columbia South Carolina area to meet up with some more friends and do another cruise in our cars. Once that is done we are going to shoot some guns, BBQ some, drink some wine and Beer and whatever else. (I will be taking it easy with the booze)

Saturday evening I am driving back to Florida and as close to Tavares Florida as I can get then stopping for the night. Sunday morning its Autocross time.

I will not have internet access for the next few day but promise lots of pictures of the happenings and in car video of the fun roads and Autocross.

Here is my route up:



I will put up some pics tonight before I leave then I will report back on Sunday night when I get home.

[Dave 88 A.E]

Sounds like a good time jim. I was going to try and get to the dragon with some friends that are going with their bikes but money and time don't allow it.

[Jims5543]

I want to roll at 9:00 tomorrow and its shaping up to be a late night.

I still have not even begun to pack the car. I am taking a break from thin coating the bathroom walls to type this. We are in the middle of a bathroom remodel that was supposed to be done already, nothing goes as planned. There is always next week.


So I put my hitch on the 7 even though she seems to get pissed off when I put it on.



I also have another 1/2 finished project going, my son bought an E30 and we are doing the timing belt on it before we put it on the road. Here it is next to the 7.



The trailer I am towing up to Ocala to drop off at my friends shop.



The slicks and a rubbermaid box I might use for my autocross stuff. I might use a different carrier I have in the garage.



I might get up a couple of more photos in the morning before hitting the road. Then I do not know when I will be online again before Monday.

This is the camera setup I am using on my car when the driving gets interesting. Chase PDR100 with their lipstick cam.

I also have another setup that is not as good but I can hold 60+ hours of video on, I try to keep that running all the time, just in case.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by Dave 88 A.E

Sounds like a good time jim. I was going to try and get to the dragon with some friends that are going with their bikes but money and time don't allow it.

Dave, I am in the process of selling the house, if I was keeping it I would invite you down next time time.

If your interested we go to Tennessee every April for some spring runs, we all chip in on a giant house, here let me tell you in pics...

The house:


It is 4 stories tall has 8 bedrooms on the top 3 floors a huge deck jacuzzi basketball court and giant gameroom.

The gameroom - 2 of the guys that were there work for a Sprint Cup team, they build chassis for them. Hence the race being on.



The view:


We ate like kings:


The cast of characters:



You should really make plans to come down and join us next spring. Start saving now, the driving was the highlight of the trip.

[EvilWankel]

thats a man-size steak.

[brando1985]

Lookin good Jim! Why are you selling your house? That's one hell of an asset; I'd wait for the economy to come back first!

[Dave 88 A.E]

Those are some bad ass steaks. And to top it off some Lager to wash it down.

I would love to make a trip down it's just too bad I'm saving up to by a house.

[calicrewchief]

If only was got stationed at Seymour. The Twisties are where its at. Hangin with the Porches. But whats with the tow hitch? FCs can only tow their own fat ass.

[Jims5543]

I am back at work, worn out tired and a little hard of hearing from how loud my RX7 is. Pics and Videos coming soon.

Some notes from the trip.

I drove right around 1800 miles maybe more I have to check.

Best gas mileage 22 MPG worst 11 MPG.

Garmin Nuvi sucks balls, if you want to get lost using one get it.

4 year old Hoosier slicks with numerous Autocrosses and track days will have less traction than a set of Falken Azenis, about 1 second slower on a 50 second course.

The mountains and roads around the Smoky Mountain Park are some of the most beautiful in this coutry.

The Tail of the Dragon has turned into a tourist trap with a lot of bozo's on there that should not be.

When your buddy drinks 2 Bottles of wine in 1 sitting he will become very entertaining.

A .45 magnum pistol kicks pretty had and will make both your ears ring.

A .22 Marlin Rifle makes less noise than a bb gun.

My fuel system needs to be rethought.

I need a muffler of some sort where my straight pipe is, the noise level in my RX7 cruising at 80 MPG is painful.


Lots of pics and video's coming soon in a few day, I am very busy at work and home for the next couple of days.

Oh and Brandon, that is not my house in those pics that is one we rent. I am selling my house for a decent little profit, not as much as if I sold a year ago and not as much if I hold on to it for a few years.

I am selling because if it is sold I have no mortgage payment on my house in Florida, I will be 100% completely debt free and I do not see good economic times coming. Its not bad yet, wait a couple more years and see. These are good times right now compared to whats coming.

This is my house in NC:



View from front porch, my favorite part of the house.




I should be updating in a couple of days.

[Jims5543]

The trip was awesome I drive a loop around the Smoky Mountain park on Friday it was about 200 miles around the park and the roads included the devils backbone and the Tail if the Dragon among many great roads that we drove that day. It was just myself and a guy in a sweet 1983 Porsche 911 that is set up nicely. He ran with me fine in the twisties, although I had my 15 y/o son in the car (he was hopped up on Dramamine) so I took it a little easy, if I was alone.....

I'll give a more detailed update in the next couple of days here are some teaser pics:

I am glad I only had to pull this trailer for 260 of the 1800+ miles I drove, it pissed my car off a lot.



A couple of the guys shooting clays in South Carolina. I never did this before and hit the clays 50% of the time. I was happy with that considering I never fired a 12 gauge before nor have I fired at clays.



My son firing a .45 mag.



Video of said .45 mag:


Amazing roads this is somewhere outside Gatlinburg:






I-40 coming over the North end of the park towards Asheville.


I have to sort out some more pictures and videos, more to come.

[TurboSmoke]

Nice trip Jim. Looks like fun.. Its nice to get a few people together and rent a house like that for a week. We use to do it. Its hard anymore with times as tough as they are.

So how have you been doing? I haven't talked to you in years. Literally.. If you ever get over to the east side of the state (near crystal river, cheifland) Stop by and say hey.

Take it easy, care looks nice. As usual .

[Jims5543]

A couple of vids, I have been busy, tired, lazy this last week.

Both are a tad different, I have the camera pointing backwards and I am delighted with the result. This is on Hellbender leading up to the Tail of the Dragon from the Fontana Dam, my friend Duke is chasing me in his sweeeettttt 911. It makes me miss mine. snif.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/D...-me_172424.htm

There is no Tail of the Dragon footage because our run down the Dragon was ruined by a moron on a cruiser bike who thought it was cool to have 20 vehicles staked up behind him.

We stopped a few times but kept catching up to this idiot over and over, we were glad to get away from the Dragon and head over to the Devils Backbone, here we go on a 7 mile run with ZERO cars in the way. Notice how many you see pass us in the opposite direction.

I can skip the Dragon and head here from now on, no bozo's on this road.

There was some debri on the road and it was wet, this made it hard to push and with my son in the passenger I had to dial back some.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/B...ing_172437.htm

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by TurboSmoke

Nice trip Jim. Looks like fun.. Its nice to get a few people together and rent a house like that for a week. We use to do it. Its hard anymore with times as tough as they are.

So how have you been doing? I haven't talked to you in years. Literally.. If you ever get over to the east side of the state (near crystal river, cheifland) Stop by and say hey.

Take it easy, care looks nice. As usual .

How have you been dude?

I am doing fine, I had not had time for the last 3 years to play much car and I am catching up now with everything slowing down.

I have downsized my business and life a lot, sold a lot of toys let a lot of people go but all in all I am enjoying it now. I was freaked out at first, but my wife reminded me of something I wished for 3 years ago. When we had 15+ employees and business was insane, I was not make much more money than I was when I was a 2 man company and I wished I could go back to those days.

My wish is about to come true, I have 3 employees besides myself right now and if it does not pick up in 3-4 weeks, once I get back from 12 days in Arizona, I am cutting down to me and another guy.

I will be a very busy person but I will also do fine in this slow down like this and being smaller and busy if fine by me.

These trips are therapy to me and I plan on plenty more car trips. We have a night Autocross next weekend and I am gonna go and just run on my street tires just for yucks since my slicks are shot and I will not have time to order and install new ones before then.

I was just in Tavares at a Martin Sports car club Autocross at the Lake County Technical center on Frankies road near the dump. I have a buddy living in Ocala now and I am going to go up there an AX from time to time I will give you a heads up.

Shoot me an E-mail

Jims5543@gmail.com

Take it easy Jeremy.

BTW- Mike fell off the face of the earth, a friend owns his car now but the engine let go finally and his ball and chain will not let him fix it.

[Jims5543]

After some great BBQ it was time to head back to Florida. I drove from Greenville SC to Ocala Florida via Byrons house in Jacksonville to drop off some oil lines. I arrived in Ocala at 2:00 in the morning.

I drove some desolate 2 lane roads through the middle of Florida and never saw so many Deer in my life:

The roads were pitch black and forced me to slow down somewhat due to my not so good 21 year old headlight design, I may need to upgrade.


It suspect a lot of cars have crashed in this area, what do you think?


Then I met up with Bell on Sunday morning for an Autocross, I overslept and thang god Bell called me at 8:00 to wake me up, I had to scramble to get breakfast and gas then head to the venue before 9:00. I did it and my V1 saved me 3 times.

[Jims5543]

I tech my car in with its street tires on (I should have kept them on) then Bell and I worked like mad to ge tthe slicks on as fast as possible, walk the course a couple of times and attend the drivers meeting.

Then the fun began, the slicks are 4 years old 3 DE's on them and countless AX's along with them being in storage for 2 years while I worked over my RX7. What you are about to see is an uncontrollable car on worn out sicks.

Brian takes a try at driving the monster and hilarity ensues:

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/B...n-1_173335.htm

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/B...n-2_173337.htm

Jim tries and announces these slicks are greasy!

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/J...zda_173343.htm

These slicks are shot, I was able to run 1 second faster on a 50 second course on street tires.

Unfortunately we experienced a malfunction of the camera for Bells last (and fastest run) I was able to beat the gear into submission and get my last run, we switched back to my street tires and dropped a full second off my time, as did Bell. My last run on street tires, no more drifting!!

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/J...zda_173340.htm

After the Autocross I drove back home 130 miles, once I approached Yehaw Junction (Jackass Junction) the signs were saying that the Turnpike was closed due to an accident. I asked the Garmin for an alt route but I already knew where I was going.

I jumped off at Yehaw Junction and jumped on 441 and headed south.

someone has a sense of humor in Florida the roads names are great!

Like 441 near Okeechobee:



Or Orange Avenue heading into fort Pierce:

[Jims5543]

Some more random pictures:

This was at the top of Cesar Head Park:


Procons business partner takes his dog everywhere, the dog is awesome, well, the Park Ranger did not care how awesome it was it needed to be on a leash.


This was after meeting up with Procon, its just a beautiful stretch of road:


This was the Gravel road we drove:


Duke and I warming up our cars Friday morning:


I was having a fuel pump issue, it did not like it when my tank was low, the ambient temps were high and I was not moving. So I did what McGyver would do.

[Jims5543]

4:10 gearing great for acceleration, not so good for the interstate. I love this dash layout. (the gauges on the left are not hooked up I have aftermarkets in the center console)


I think I forgot to clear this after a track day. I am missing about 200 miles where I did not use it.

[Jims5543]

Gassing up in Florida, this was the only buzz kill of the weekend.


I saw this guy in Atlanta, we gave each other thumbs up and I followed him for a few miles. Its about as rare to see an RX7 on the road as it is a 911.

[WKZ (works)]

Looks like you had a great trip Jim, I love the Carolinas for their mountains.

[Vegard]

Awesome read, and looks like you had loads of fun! Great video also, loved the one where your friend went sideways thru some cones