Dragon Run Tourism

I'm lucky enough to live within a long day's drive of the Tail of the Dragon.  If I want to save on motel bills and meals, or am pressed for time, the 600+ mile run is do-able, even with slow going between Robbinsville and Knoxville.  But it's more fun to take two easy days and smell the roses.  There must be tourism opportunities for you too if you're departing from a similar distance from Robbinsville, no matter your vector of travel.

My particular interests are racing cars, history, and architecture.  The major opportunities on my route are Indianapolis and Columbus IN, and Louisville and Lexington KY.  The "must" stop for me in Indianapolis is the Speedway Museum.  (There is a small Kurt Vonnegut museum in Indianapolis too.  It was his home town and he wrote about it often.)  Columbus, which I haven't visited yet, is famous for its architecture.  The Miller family, co-founders of Cummins Diesel, put up several nationally known modernistic buildings and homes, including the Cummins corporate headquarters.

Louis Meyer's 1928 Indy-winning Miller 1.5 liter straight eight  and Mark Donohue's 1972 Indy-winning 2.65 liter Offenhauser turbo McLaren M 16B in the Speedway Museum.  The Museum has a large collection, including loaners and sports cars, which it rotates frequently.  There's always something new to see if you give them a few months to refresh their display.

Louisville is on the Falls of the Ohio, where navigation was interrupted before the 1800's.  (Early explorers portaged around the rapids; later travelers took a day-long stagecoach ride around.)  It also has a couple of Plantations, one owned by Joshua Speed, who was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln's in their youth, pro-slavery, and instrumental in keeping Kentucky in the Union during the Civil War.

Louisville viewed across the Ohio River,  and my friendly docent at the Falls of the Ohio.  When I stop at a historic site almost anywhere, my experience has been friendly and knowledgable people to tell me what I'm looking at and answer my questions.  They are usually retired teachers.  This guy was particularly knowledgable about the Falls of the Ohio and Louisville before modern navigation began in 1872.

I haven't toured Lexington yet.  As a history buff, I want to see Ashland, the home of Henry Clay, who was a fascinating bundle of contradictions.  He was one of the most powerful men in Congress for four decades and a 4-time unsuccessful candidate for President.  And the Mary Todd Lincoln house, home of the Todds, who were movers and shakers in Lexington for decades.  After I've ransacked Lexington, I'll Google Knoxville and Oak Ridge.

Most Dragon fans know there are other interesting drives and things to see in the area: the dams, Cherohala Skyway, Tellico TN, Bryson City NC, Great Smoky National Park itself, and Gatlinburg.  If you have a week to spend near the Dragon, you can pack considerable variety into your trip.

Jackie Stewart at Mid-Ohio

Jackie Stewart in the Lola T-260 Can Am car (Road Atlanta).

I was lucky enough to see Jackie Stewart race, once.  It was at the Can-Am race at Mid-Ohio in 1971.  Denny Hulme's McLaren's won and Peter Revson's (surprisingly) retired.  I don't recall if Jackie finished or not, but he was the only driver to give the McLarens a run.  His Lola faded as the race wore on.

Stewart has since said that the T-260 was hard to drive: the short wheelbase made it twitchy.  My own guess is that lack of front-end downforce played a role too.  It grew appendages as the season progressed.  Only Stewart's talent, probably, made the T-260 sometimes competitive with the McLarens.  He won a couple of races, but they won the championship again.  Bruce McLaren had been killed in 1970, testing the M8D at Goodwood.  But the Can Am was still "The Bruce and Denny Show," with various drivers replacing Bruce.

The interesting thing about the Mid-Ohio race was that Stewart had threatened not to drive.  This was at the height of his passive safety campaign.  (He won his 3rd World Championship in 1971 and retired at the end of the year.)  In practice, he became concerned about Turn 7, at the end of the longest straight.  There was a stand of sizable trees, a mini-forest, really, maybe 200 feet from the end of the braking zone.  Stewart qualified, but said he would have to think about starting the race unless something was done to make the corner safer.  The track scrambled to make changes, but there was not a lot that could be done overnight.  I don't now remember what they did.  Maybe they cut down a few trees and/or put up an Armco.  And they promised to make more acceptable and permanent changes in future.  Jackie agreed to race.  Today, this area is "China Beach," with the trees removed, a giant sand-trap, and Armco barriers.

Jackie had a point.  The first race I saw at Mid-Ohio was an SCCA Regional in 1961.  In practice on Saturday, a BP Corvette Stingray locked his brakes approaching Turn 7.  He snap-spun and backed across all 200 feet of grass without slowing down much as he disappeared into the woods.  A few minutes later, the driver walked out of the woods, holding his helmet, obviously shaken but unhurt.  It was an amazing escape: how did he miss all those trees?  After practice, it took a tow truck half an hour to winch the 'Vette back out of the woods.

The only difference between Mid-Ohio then and Mid-Ohio now is the addition of Turn 3, the chicane, which is rarely used
for "big dog" races.  Turn 6 is flat-out, not really a bend.  Turn 7, which bothered Jackie Stewart, and Turn 8, provide most
of the highlight reels.  "Madness" is Turns 7-8-9-10-11, which are very technical, including a jump that unsettles the car
before 10B, and an off-camber exit from 11.

Killboy's Captions...

...are BACK!!!!  And just as funny as ever.  Oh, Joy!!!!  Thankyou, Darryl!

Across The Great Divide...NOT...

My sister's 2011 Ford Fiesta SFE.  Why Ford did not equip this model with Dean Moon's "Moon Disc" wheel covers to reduce air turbulence, further improving gas milage, is a mystery.  It's not like SFE drivers need to cool their brakes.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of people in this world: car people and not car people.

My sister and I share one automotive trait: we prefer to buy 'em new and drive 'em until they drop.  It's the way to minimize ownership problems while maximizing value.  It captures the years that have both low depreciation and maintenance costs.

Otherwise, we live in not-so-parallel universes.  I still remember a furious argument we had about 35 years ago when we were young adults.  I visited her in Ann Arbor, MI, which is a university town, with wall-to-wall 10-speeds.  She rode.  Like politics and religion, conveyances is a subject that should never be discussed in polite company.  She started in with "bicyclists have just as much right to the road as cars," and I totally lost it.  I offered to punt her onto a tree-lawn if I encountered her butt sticking up in the air.  I still regret my tone that day, if not the general sentiment regarding bicycles in the roadway.  (It makes me laugh to see Harley riders holding up 10-speeds on the Dragon's downhills.  They need to use the pull-offs.  On the uphills, the 10-speeds should use the pull-offs.)

Anyway.  My sister has a Green mentality and a Scottish soul.  If there is anything she hates more than polluting the air, it's spending money on a car.  Money spent on a car is money that could have been spent on something useful, pleasant, or both.  A bit over a year ago, she called me for advice on her next new car.  She had already done her homework, and told me it was down to a choice between a Honda Fit and a Ford Fiesta.  "Perfect finalists for you," I replied, "it's a difference without a distinction, a coin toss.  Drive 'em both and pick the one you like."  She felt that the Fiesta was peppier, and she could see out the back of it better.  (This is important, because she gets passed a lot.)

So the Fiesta it was.  She asked me if she should get the Super Fuel Economy package.  I don't recall everything in it now, but it was basically a "smart" e.c.u. through which the 6-speed automatic and the engine talk to each other.  It maintains the lowest revs in the highest gear, shifting up or down to minimize engine load.  The system "knows" when it should shift to a lower gear,  reluctantly, to increase engine revs.  The SFE package also included a body kit to clean up the under-hood aero.  I replied, "Why not?  Can't hurt, might help."  She's had the car for over a year now, and gets a bit south of 40 m.p.g. around town and a bit north of it on Interstates.  I have never seen close to 40 m.p.g. in my cars.  I can't imagine a car worth driving that could achieve it.

Speaking of which: I drove my sister's car to the supermarket and back in Gatlinburg last summer.  Gutless.  Too much body roll.  Too much understeer (she'll get 70,000 miles out of those gripless tires).  Her life was spread throughout the car: road maps, note pads, motel reservation slips, receipts, sunglasses, tissues.  When I drive, I drive.  A place for everything, and everything in its place.  And, as Captain Lone Star says in Spaceballs, "Take only what you need to SURVIVE."  When my sister takes a road trip, she essentially moves her life from one place to another.

 Which brings up another point.  My sister and I literally cannot ride with each other.  Literally is a word overused by young people when they mean "metaphorically."  I mean literally.  If I'm in the passenger's seat, I'm offended by her misuse of the car and timid driving.  If she's in the passenger's seat, she's offended by my aggressive use of the car and the firm conviction that I'm going to get her killed.  (Neither of us has had a serious accident in 50 years of driving, knock wood).

She recently completed a 2600-mile road trip inside of a month that covered 5 States, with days and even almost a week between wheel sessions.  She can do 600 miles as easily as I can.  She's world-class when it comes to "no comfort stops unless a gas or food stop is necessary too."  When she left Philadelphia, headed back home, I told her "Don't forget to enjoy the Pennsylvania Turnpike: it's a great run."  I didn't mention passing left-lane bandits on the right, in turns, which is kinda the high point of it for me.  (In the mountains, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is a kind of Interstate Dragon: the curves feed one into another.)  When she got home, she said "I hate that road: trucks were passing me in curves."

I love my sister dearly.  I can advise her on car stuff without trying to make her see it my way.  We both would love to visit Quebec City again.  But damned if I can figure out how we'd do it in the same car.  Before posting this, I showed her the text.  She said "I'm Pilote's sister, and I approved this message."

Blues Brothers Tourism

A favorite movie of mine and my then-girlfriend's is The Blues Brothers.  She had clipped a newspaper article documenting the sites of the location shoots in Chicago.  In 2008 we toured them.  It was a fun day.  Almost all of the interior/dialogue scenes were shot in Hollywood studios.  The location shots were used primarily (but not exclusively) for scene-setting.

We didn't see 'em all, and we couldn't photograph well some that we did see.  An example of the former is the culvert/tunnel in which Carrie Fisher ("mystery girl" in the script) tries to machine-gun Jake.  It's in the Lincoln Park Zoo.  An example of the latter is the restaurant "Chez Paul," where Jake and Elwood enjoy their shrimp cocktails.  It was then a restaurant but is now a condo at about 600 N. Dearborn St.  We couldn't get a decent picture shooting into the sun while trying to get the building into frame.

Pilote outside the gate of the prison where Elwood awaited Joliet Jake.

The 95th Avenue Bridge over the Calumet River, where the Bluesmobile performs its jump.

Exterior of Jake and Elwood's orphanage, which they learn from Sister Mary Stigmata ("The Penguin") is about to be closed.  It was then and still is the ex-Schonenhofer Brewery.  It's South Loop office space today. 

The Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, through which the cops chase Jake and Elwood.  It was slated to close when the movie was shot, so "renting" it was easy.  Still tough times on Southside Chicago: brownfield opportunites!

Triple Rock Baptist Church, where Jake has his vision of of getting the band back together.
There was a REAL funeral in progress on the morning we visited, so we did not go in.

Mrs. Tarrantino's house in Cicero, where Jake and Elwood begin tracking down former band members.

"Ray's Music Exchange,"  300 E. 47th St.  It was a pawn shop before the movie and is a pawn shop today.  The "Shake Your Tail Feather" dance routine was shot from here, looking toward the El station that's out of frame to the left.

The "Effing Illinois Nazis bridge," in Jackson Park near the University of Chicago.

Off topic: 2120 South Michigan Avenue, the offices and studios of Chess Records in the 1950's and 1960's.
Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, Buddy Guy, and many others well-known to fans of
"Chicago-style electric blues" recorded here on the second floor.  Today it is a blues museum. 

ALMS at Road America

Well, the American Le Mans race at Road America was another good one (watched it on ESPN3).

You wouldn't think that a class with 4 cars in it could be fun (and usually it's not).  But at R.A., the Greg Pickett-owned HPD-Honda went 4 laps down to the Dyson Lola-Mazda turbo, with a water leak, and clawed it all back to pass for the win on the last corner of the last lap.  Except that the Dyson car outdragged it to the checker by less than a car length.  Hollywood stuff.

The GT class was, as usual, the most fun.  They chewed on each other for 4 hours with little to choose among the top teams.  Each marque led for many laps at some point, except Viper, which is new to the series.  It occurred to me while watching, not for the first time this season, that these are the Good Old Days of GT racing.  I'm getting antsy to make my trip to Road Atlanta in October, to watch these guys chew on each other for 9 hours, into the night.

But, as a spectator, Road America remains my "home track."  I love the place and know how to wring the max enjoyment out of an event there.  I haven't been up since 1999, the last year CART ran there before the open-wheel split.  Didn't want to "overwrite" my mind's eye memories of the glory days there.  But ALMS GT is good enough to get me back.  Especially a 4-hour race among equally matched and well-prepared cars.

Road America Trivia (big dog lap records):

1955: 80 m.p.h., Ferrari Monza, Phil Hill (inagural race)
1959: 88 m.p.h., Scarab, Jim Jeffords
1965: 97 m.p.h., Chaparral 2B, Jim Hall
1971: 114 m.p.h., McLaren M8F Can-Am, Denny Hulme
1973: 123 m.p.h., Porsche 917/30 Can-Am turbo, Mark Donahue
1984: 125 m.p.h., Lola T-800-Ford CART, Mario Andretti (Donahue's record finally broken)
1999: 144 m.p.h., Reynard-Honda CART, Dario Franchitti (this remains the absolute record)

As Road America fans know, the track's configuration has never been altered, although it has been widened and resurfaced.  So these lap speeds are comparable...sort of.  Another way to look at it is that a current ALMS GT car can lap as fast as Denny Hulme's 7-liter Can-Am "Batmobile."  Technical progress?  I guess...

Ex-Hulme McLaren M8F (Chevy) "Batmobile" at the Monterey Historics.

Came For the Reputation, Jumped In The Tank

It's hard for me to write about my newest car without sounding like I'm in the tank for it.  Which I am.

What would have been my '94 Chrysler New Yorker's 4th a/c evaporator proved to be instead my last straw.  I donated it to charity.  (It ran fine and everything worked, otherwise.)  The first evaporator failure was on Chrysler's dime: one of those under-the-counter recalls.  ("We won't publish this, but if an owner shows up disgusted, comp him.")  The next 2 were on my dime.  Enough, already.  This was in 2009.

My bang-for-the-buck spreadsheet was still in the drawer.  If a fast but inexpensive and useful daily driver was the goal, the Honda Civic Si won in a trot.  I needed 4 doors and a real trunk.  I had been impressed with my son's Acura Integra (stolen) and the CR-V he replaced it with.  The Si came only one way: fully-equipped.  As with my RX-7,  26 years before, the only choice was color.  And I again opted for an unusual shade to avoid meeting myself on the road.  Honda calls it "Red Line Orange."  Isn't that an oxymoron?  Before I got a radar detector, l.e.o.'s called it just-plain-orange.  I call it bronze.

Natural habitat.  

The drive home from delivery on the Interstate was a revelation: 80, planted; 90, planted; 100, planted.
So I took it to the twisties.  It was better than I was.  There was still room in the trunk after a grocery run.  Or packing for a week's vacation.  My 80-something friends could get in and out of the back seat and be comfortable on a day trip.  The gas milage is unimpressive: 30 on Interstates, 20 around town.  But I drive it hard most of the time.  This is because the car is an unmixed joy, on a 600-mile Interstate run or the Dragon.  It's always right there with me: synched up.  Front-drivers understeer: the fun way around is to "back the corner up," turn-in with some reserve, then just pile in the power and steering angle.  "That was fun--any more corners around here?"

No complaints about the cockpit and controls.  The engine and 6-speed tranny are a joy to use and mate-up perfectly.  The steering feel is great.  So is brake feel: I can get into and out of the ABS at will.  I believe the o.e.m. Michelins have a lot to do with this.  The drive-by-wire throttle lags when I lift for shifts, but I've learned to finesse that.  The controls for the wipers, washers, h.v.a.c., and audio are light but positive.  The cruise-control's "coast/resume" feature is the best I've used.

I thought the dual-level instrument panel would annoy me; actually I prefer it.  Digital speedo, fuel level, and temp above.  Tach and idiot lights down below.  You can manage the h.v.a.c. and audio controls without taking your eyes off the road for long.  The wipers have a "one swipe" feature which turns out to be surprisingly useful.  My pal Larry found that the A-pillar obstructed his vision on the Dragon.  I didn't notice it, but then I drive the car every day.

 Which brings me to the iVTEC: superb.  The car has plenty of scoot at lower revs because it is short-geared.  You don't have to get into the VTEC.  If you do, it comes in at about 5500 and runs right up to the 8000 r.p.m. red line, still pulling.  Engine performance for a 2-liter is awesome.  All gearing is low: on the Interstate at 80 m.p.h., the engine turns 3500 r.p.m.  If you're not rev-happy, this is not the car for you.  But it cruises quietly.

Mine has clocked 30,000 miles with no problems.  The tires are near replacement, but for me that kind of wear is the cost of entertainment.  One of the o.e.m. wheels has developed a slow leak (5 lbs. over 2 weeks), and that's a problem.  But I was thinking about upgrading the rims when I replaced the tires anyway.  The car is so good that 25% lighter wheels will make it better.

I read somewhere that my Gen 8 Si is 40% more stiffly sprung than the standard Civic.  Some would find the ride choppy.  But my octogenarian friends seem not to mind, and, for aggressive road use, the suspension is perfect.  I read elsewhere that the Gen 9 Si softened the suspension (lots more roll) and the new engine "gives back" about 1000 revs and on-the-cams sharpness to gain 0.4 liters.  Maybe this can be understood as a move toward broader market appeal, but it changes the feel of the car in ways I don't like.

Mine's a keeper.  The only thing that gets me to thinking is the new Ford Focus ST: European spec. chassis and 250 h.p.  I suspect the MazdaSpeed 3 was Ford's target car, and either of them would wax my Si.  But I don't need or want a new car.  This one gives me the most smiles per mile I've had.