I'm in the middle of Boontown, Nowhere, population seven, surrounded by 500-foot cliffs. I'm packing just a toothbrush, a pair of shorts and an extra-wrinkly t-shirt. I must be reliving a scene from Deliverance. But instead of hearing the scrape of a banjo from a bucktooth Lonny, I pick up the sounds of screeching tires, blipped downshifts and high-revving engines. This isn't a scary place at all-this is paradise, in the form of pavement.
This paradise rests on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee on a little windy road that makes your grandpa's spine look straight in comparison. On the map, it's called Highway 129. The locals (and most others, for that matter) refer to it simply as The Tail of the Dragon, The Dragon or Deal's Gap.
Many people come up with different numbers, but the one being passed around most is 318 curves in 11 miles. A curve being each time the steering wheel has to be readjusted. One corner, say a decreasing radius, will have several curves in it as the wheel is turned in or out.
A small local car club named High Tach Motorsports, based in the Carolinas, has been visiting the Dragon annually for the past five years. Their choice of machinery isn't anything that will grace the cover of your average import tuning mag, but what they lack in bling, they make up with hundreds of hours of track time, wrenching and, of course, mountain drives. Good company.
And when I say the middle of Boontown, Nowhere, I'm not kidding. Imagine a world without Wal-Marts or stoplights. No Wal-Mart could be built on this steep mountainous terrain, no stoplights are necessary (or able to be maintained with any ease), but all is not lost-there are warm showers. Fontana Village Resort is just a few miles away. This oasis of amenities in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains has everything from $15 breakfast buffets, an 18-hole Hillbilly Putt-Putt course, square dancers and cabins. One large cabin with lots of beer and hamburger meat-check. Square dancers... we'll leave that to the show-car guys.
After a quick pit-stop at the cabin to drop off bags and food (also known as dead weight), we head toward the notorious Dragon with me riding shotgun in an autocross-prepped 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse, driven by Ken Ingersoll. After telling him I was a Tail of the Dragon virgin, Ingersoll gulps and says: "Please don't yack in the car."
Ingersoll is close to my age, maybe 24 years old, but twice as smart because he's the one driving and I'll be the one holding on for dear life. I take comfort in the fact that he's wearing $150 Alpinestars driving gloves, Puma racing shoes and a Fernando Alonso Formula One t-shirt. I spy the meeting spot for drivers and bikers before the subtle entry to The Dragon and then, just like that, I see it blur past and disappear. Butt clenched and knuckles firmly on the oh-shit bars, I brace for the unknown. No turning back now.
First curve, OK. Second, not bad. Third, bring it on. The high-revving, naturally aspirated Eclipse echoes off the surrounding forest as I try to count the curves; 12, 13, 14... er, 15? Have we even gone a quarter-mile yet?
Ingersoll keeps his eyes on the road and hands shuffling on the Momo steering wheel. This is no ordinary, ex-girlfriend-owned Eclipse. The interior is, well, not much of an interior. Only Sparco seats, five-point harnesses, three pedals, a steering wheel and a shift lever remain and can be considered fully functional. The abrupt on- and off-throttle sounds pierce my eardrums with every blip. I've never heard of a fully built, old-school, naturally aspirated Eclipse before, but I don't care much. This drive is getting fun.
By now I've lost count and stopped really caring what number turn we're hitting. Not having a steering wheel in hand on one of the curviest roads in the world can make anyone feel uneasy. Instead, I have my camera and I'm somehow able to snap off a few shots of the concentrating driver and the scenery.