I went to Eastern Tennessee last week to take part in a 45 car rally through some of the best drivers roads I know. We did 270 miles split into 3 parts. Starting at the Tail of the Dragon, in Tennessee, then going into North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and back again.

The speeds were from about 10 mph over a slow comfortable cruise to wide open. Luckily everyone in the group was respectful of others limitations. Everyone had a great time and no injuries or auto damage.

This is the map route:

​​​​​​https://goo.gl/maps/RraszmJh2ZScMxYv5

Pics of the car

 

Pics of some of the other cars










#dragonrally
#smokymountaindrives
#killboydotcom

 

Thanks for posting, ironically my wife and I where planning a trip to the same in our black F Type R a couple of weeks ago- at the last minute I was asked to fly at an Airshow during the time we had originally scheduled. Naturally the plane (a B-25) broke and myself and the crew ended up repairing it over the next couple of weeks. Maybe a springtime drive there might be fun…

 

They don't have next years schedule posted yet, but this is who I ran with.

https://www.smokymountaindrives.com/

My wife wasn't able to go with me this time, but wants to go next spring. Scheduling conflicts allowing, I will be back next spring with my wife.

See you there!

 

Beautiful group of cars. Love those roads. Used to go for a week each year and drive with a group of friends that had s2000’s. Always a great time. Want to go with the jag someday. Did you get some pics from Killboy? Not sure if he still hangs there and takes pictures.

 

These were all Killboy pics. I tagged Killboy in the 2nd set of pics.

Smoky mountain drives trips include the Killboy pics, some pics from their photog, maps and lead cars and a BBQ dinner.

I will post here before I do it again.

I only signed up about 5 days before the run this time

 

Have done that drive once before with the RX7 folks and it was a blast. Hope to do it again some day with the Jag…would be awesome if someone would maybe organize a small group.

 

Definitely going to look into this. Thank you for the link.

How was the pace of the group? Where you able to keep the pace, seeing how heavy the jag is and how technical that road can be. Just wondering what your actual driving impressions were of the f type.

I know the dragon can be hot and cold depending on traffic and police presence. A lot of other roads in the area could be taken at a faster pace. We did a few night drives on the dragon as well. That was an experience, not for the faint of heart but fun none the less.

 

There was only 1 police car on the Dragon (mile marker 7). Oddly, one of the cars running with our group was running late getting to the start point. He passed a parked cop doing about 20 mph over the speed limit and the cop only flashed the blues to tell him to slow down.

We had a lead car provided by the company and everyone had a radio (walkie-talkie) and they would call out locations of police, cars pulled over, debris, etc. On most of the twistier roads, local (slower) cars would pull over to let the group pass. The company laid out the route to avoid other groups so we had fairly clear roads.

As to performance:

I come from 18 years of E46 M3's so the F Type is up 242 HP and about 1000 lbs. My F Type is a '21 AWD vs RWD M3 and I've only owned the Jag for about a month, so I've got some learning curve to deal with.

The pace was anywhere from 10-15 mph over a standard ride in the mountains to as fast as I could make the car go. The twistys were pretty much full brake to rev-limiter in 2nd gear on some and 3rd gear on others.

There were only 2 or 3 turns ( out of more than I can count ) where I knew I entered with way too much speed for the weight. The AWD handled it very well. I know I could have taken almost all of it way faster but I've got a lot more to learn about the car before I push that hard. I felt like I was pushing the car in front of me most of the day and in a way it was nice to have a limiting factor to keep me in check.

I'm really looking forward to doing some HPDE days on Road Atlanta. The M3's loved it but didn't have enough torque to pull out of 7 (if I remember) for the back straight. The F Type won't have that problem.

 

Thanks for the pics. Gives me Gran Turismo Trial Mountain track vibes. Specially that White Viper with the blue stripes.