Great Drive!!

I'm in Nashville for a trade show and drove up from Charleston this morning. It was possibly the best drive I've ever had, so I thought I'd share the route.

I had taken NC Hwy 64 from Flat Rock to near Brevard, where it turns into Hwy 276. Hwy 276 runs through the Pisgah National Forest, and that was where the route got really fun. The roads through that park are basically all out of tire commercials - incredible scenery which you can't really pay attention to since you're blazing the incessant turns one after another. Eventually Hwy 276 runs out and turns into the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I followed the Parkway south for quite a while. The pavement quality is fantastic all down the parkway, and there are dozens of turns which can kill you if you hit them wrong. Needless to say, incredible scenery which you'd better just glance at. Today being a Tuesday, it was a perfect time to run this route. No tourists, barely any other traffic, and with two exceptions, every slower car pulled out of my way at one of the many scenic overlooks.

I left the Parkway when I got to Hwy 441 which turns north back up towards I-40 in TN. The pavement quality turns to hell here, but the roads are still fun. As a bonus laugh, I passed a local police patrol car on 441. It was a Toyota Prius. Green points for the local boys in blue, but I'd LOVE to see the Prius make any meaningful pursuit in those hills. The fun part of that route basically dead ends into Gatlinburg, which looked like a fun little cheesy tourist trap.

I'm going to do it again on the way home on Sunday to see how different the traffic is. We should get a group together to run this route if we can get people to show on weekdays. The light traffic just made this a dream run - almost 2.5 hours of non-stop curves. Can't wait to do it again!

 

I did the same drive coming back on Sunday. It wasn't really all that much more crowded, but I do have to say that Harley riders are the least considerate bunch of jerks I've ever encountered. In three hours of mountain driving, the various Harley groups I came on were the ONLY people who would not move out of the way for any reason.

They were toodling around at about 35mph in each case, and they space themselves so that there's no safe way to pass them, even in the rare case of having a passing zone. Where everyone else could tell that someone wanted by and would pull off for a moment, the Harley guys just pretended no one else was there. I try not to do anything dangerous in passing, but they were seriously trying my patience.

I was stuck behind one group almost the whole time on 441. I finally lost them when I turned onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. The 2nd group I found there was also completely rude. I was stuck with them through all the tunnels. Harleys sound crappy enough to me in open air, but you put a group of them in a tunnel and it sounds like a bad misfire on the QEII. When I finally got around two of them in a passing zone the leader finally pulled off and let me by, but not before holding me up for 1/2 hour and brake checking at almost every curve. Are Harleys completely incapable of rounding a curve at speeds above 20mph? The last group I got stuck behind in the Pisgah National Forest and I was stuck behind them till the highway ended.

For the time I wasn't behind bikers, it was another amazing drive, but after that first group in 441 I was ready to go home and bolt a cattle-catcher to the TR for the next time I hit a bunch of biker wanna-be pusses.

David - I'm missing Eurofest due to my honeymoon, but sometime after let's definitely get together for that. Maybe Jeremy knows where to avoid bikers...

 

Took the Testarossa. It was a lot more fun than I expected. The torque pretty much let me leave it in 3rd gear almost the whole time and concentrate on steering. I would've thought it was a little wide and heavy for those kinds of roads, but I was wrong.

The last time I got to do these kinds of roads was in Dahlonega, GA with the world-famous Clyde from the F-List. I did that in a borrowed 328 and it was also phenomenal. There is definitely something to be said for the cars without power steering - terrific road feel. I've done the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia before in the 355, but that was the 2nd day I had the car, so I wasn't really comfortable pushing it at the time. Looking forward to doing that again...