It was a great weekend! It was nice to meet and chat with everyone. The only bummer was my tire and holding up the group yesterday. You guys were troopers by waiting for me! Thank you!

A special thanks to maily, maily's boyfriend, and 2006 Roadster in TN for helping me swap around my tires (and if I missed someone, my apologies)! We learned how cruddy the Crossfire jacks are!

 

Roberta & I got home safe today. Left out early and took a drive up to Cherokee before heading to Greenville, SC area. We really enjoyed the drive on Saturday. And meeting folks, putting faces to logon's, was especially a highlight of the weekend. Everyone travel safe on trip to home, wherever that may be.

Later,

 

Tina and I arrived safely ~@ 2 pm local, despite the best efforts of some really poor drivers.

Thanks to all for another great time and especially to Valk for all of his hard work getting "all of the sheep in one pen"!

See y'all in October!

 

Everybody that was with James group ,( The Old Folks ) should give him a shout. He did a great job, Layed back, kept his cool when it got stress full, and just a all out good time. GREAT JOB JAMES, my first time at the Dragon and with the crossfire group. was something i will never forget and look forward to many more. Once Again James GREAT JOB AND THANKS
Mike and Kathy

 

And for all the great people we met , Thanks for a great time. I am sorry i am terrible with names . I got to drive the dragon for the first time and ...WOW...., if you could only bottle it and sell it... what a blast
Thanks
Mike and Kathy

 

Itsky, I hope I never have to use one of those jacks again! Great meeting you, hope you have a safe trip home.


Gary, can't thank you enough for your hard work and efforts to keep this great meet going... already looking forward to the fall.

To everyone else, it was great meeting those of you we got a chance to talk to. Hope everyone has a safe trip home!

What a great weekend!

 

Wow! I just got home. What a long driving weekend!! I won't mention when I left the dragon, just in case any law enforcement would like to punch the numbers. I did have a little run in with the TN police as I was leaving the dragon, but he was a decent guy and saw that I wasn't being ridiculous, so he just gave me a written warning. Good thing he didn't see me about 2 miles before that...

It was a blast doing the dragon again. HUGE thanks go out to Gary, and to Jane (for putting up with us aggressive drivers again). It was great to see you all again, and meeting all my new friends.

I can't wait until Halloween!!

 

The rest of us had a GREAT day in the sunshine in The Smokey Mountains.
Temp reached 87 degrees today and it was absolutely perfect for driving.
Were back in the lobby having wine and other drinks and talking about all our experiances this weekend.
I have a TON of pics to go through and narrow down for my gallery but in time they will be uploaded.
For all who have left for home I hope to hear from all of you and see your feedback here about your weekend.
Thanks to everyone who came and make this weekend as great as it was.
I'm heading back to Chi-town tomorrow morning and snow or rain or whatever I may encounter I would never have missed today for one second.

 

A few pics from this perfect day in the Smokey Mountains............

 

had a great time. always learning more about the 6 from others at the meet. ready for the next one.

thanks to all

 

A few more from last night and today........

 

Fabulous Weather!
Fantastic Scenery!
Incredible Cars!
...and Great Friends, one and all!

The Dragon has been TAMED!

Go Crossfire!
----------------------------------------------------------

PS: SRT's RULE!

 

Well, Tom, I had a long chat with the local Sheriff as I was leaving the Dragon...and no he didn't stop me...I went over to make friends...never know when I might need one down there. I got home safely after dodging a few crashes around Indy. It is raining now...great meeting old friends and making new ones....and will be back in the fall....thanks to everyone for the great time...Good job Valk...and Jane...Ray and Susan, you know for what...and Congrats to the Newly Weds....What a Dragon!!!!...

 

.....can we do this EVERY weekend?

It's slightly after 10:00PM that I'm typing this & made it back an hour ago.
We decided to leave early this morning & see if we could hightail it back to the land of the frozen before this weekend's storm hit.
After leaving the BBQ last night I noticed I had but one headlight. At first I thought of blaming Max figuring that he probably swiped my bulb in some type of desperate move to keep his HID clinic (make your reservations NOW for his upcoming HID clinic sessions during October's Dragon Run! ) record 100% spotless but decided that I didn't have any actual proof. He gets a pass.
Our plan was to get as far north as we could before the predicted 4 - 6 inches of snow started falling. We left at 6:15 this morning, with the morning sun just starting to light the sky, down the Dragon with one headlight, not really sure if it would be a wise idea to drive with the brights on & take the chance on blinding an opposing driver.

Interesting drive............

Only one pick-up on the road until we reached the 4 lane.

As fun as the drive was it was frustrating because the entire Dragon was mine, all mine, not another soul on it, & I COULDN'T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT !
It's killin' me!

We stopped only for gas & bathroom breaks. Deb drove from Knoxville through Kentucky; I drove the rest. Beautiful sunny warm weather, 80 - 85mph cruising down Sunday highways, about as stressful as breathing until we hit

INDIANA

Actually the Hoosier state did well until Indianapolis, when it started to rain & thunder & then pour & pour & pour some more until we reached the NW Chicago 'burbs. The temps. dropped from 73 in Indianapolis to 34 when we stopped for gas outside of Gary; wind blowing so hard my as_ got wet just from standing & pumping gas.

Oh, & I forgot to mention the traffic jam that took a hour to get through on I-65 northbound.

We were kicking as_ & taking no prisoner's until

INDIANA

By the time we got to the NW Burbs around Chicago it was snowing to beat the band & we started to think about scoring a motel room & hanging out until the morn.
But, after all, I'm a guy; it's my sworn duty to do stupid shi_ so I had to keep driving. After all, we had made it to Chicago; another mere 3 hours & we'd be home !

After cruising through some more Chicagoland construction on I-94 we reached the Wisconsin state line & voila', it was like someone had dropped a curtain down over some invisible line somewhere. The snow ceased to fall & we encountered not one single flake from Kenosha to Clintonville. Dry pavement, typical Sunday evening traffic (meaning like none) & other than for the wind, a nice easy drive back.

I figure it must be good juju from meeting all of you in N.C. !

This was beyond a blast & it was truly fun - can I say illuminating - meeting all the faces behind the screen names. I regret that I didn't meet all of you or can remember everyone's names. I missed pestering Woody about "voodoo" magnets & TPM's (I will swear on any of my relation's graves that I saw it work with my own 2 eyes on my SRT!).

Gary, for ALL of your work, you deserve a huge round of applause.

Jane, thanks for leading the aggressive drivers; we all know you weren't overly thrilled with the responsibility but you did a GREAT job & therefore, know you are doomed from this point forward to forever lead us around next time!

Thanks everyone for making this an adventure & a heck of a lot of fun.

Kurt & Deb

 

Kurts,
Glad you made it all the way back.
My trip home looks interesting for sure tomorrow ...
but what the heck it will be a test for the Crossfire to head into some snow but so many others have done it year round I see no reason why I can't .
Actually in a strange way sort of looking forward to the test.
I'm glad you guys had fun and I wish your weekend wasn't cut short to beat the weather home but now ya know what we do down here and I hope ya do find the time to join us again.

Gary

 

As far as we know our group is home safe, haven't heard from Lisa yet, Frank drove on 4+ inches of snow, no markers for the road way at 10mph or so. We left at 11:20 am got in at midnight. It was fracking scary. The slush was so deep it grabbed the car and threw it so to speak into the next lane, it started after getting into Michigan. The car when we pulled in:




From north of Cincinnati it rained- poured like a monsoon - a repeat of last year.



Gary laid down and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

We had a great time-really wanted to spend today relaxing and shooting the **** with everyone, miss that the most. New friends: very glad to have met you. Old friends: it was great to see you again. I did get to drive the Dragon on the way out. It was so much fun. Jane your advice was ringing in my head and I think I held my own while having a blast. So...off to bed, will post some more pictures tomorrow. I have sunburned arms while I listen to the snow and sleet hitting the window-too weird. Rapps

 

Well I finally made it home about midnight. It was a ride home I'll never forget. It started raining in southern Ohio and rained all the way thru it. It was heavy at times and we took it slow and easy. The real fun began about 15 minutes into Michigan. The rain changed to snow and it was the heaviest snow I have ever driven in. It only took about 15 minutes for the lane lines to disappear on the country highway I was traveling on. I could only see about 1-2 feet in front of the car and had to use the center rumble strips to tell where I was. There was no traffic or tire tracks to help tell where the highway was. At one point I lost the sound of the rumble strips only to hear them reappear under the right tires which meant I had crossed the center line and was in the oncoming lane. I could only drive about 10-15 miles an hour due to the weather and road condition. What should have taken me 30 minutes to drive ended up taking a couple hours of stressful driving. When I finally arrived home I looked at the front of my car and my chrome grill was hidden under 2 inches of snow. I had a great time at the dragon and enjoyed everyone's company. I would like to thanks Gary for a great event. Well it's off to get some much needed sleep.

 

Kurts - great to meet you in person, and I'm glad you made the long haul successfully.

Hope to see you and many others in the fall.

 

Just woke up to look out and see 8 inches or so of the white stuff and it"s still coming down! All the schools are closed today and my daughter just called and asked to come and use the shower since they have no power. We are expected to get 2-4 inches more before tapering off and the north wind will be picking up. I'm glad I high-tailed it out yesterday and almost beat the storm home. I still can't believe how hard it was snowing last night, it was like looking at a white sheet in front of my car. I need to thank you Ann for talking on the phone with me to keep my mind off the conditions I was driving in. Everyone that's driving home today have a safe trip home. If Judy decided to stay, tell her she may wont to stay south one more day before heading to Michigan. My wife just called from work and said she saw at least 3 cars in the ditch and several minor fender benders on her way to work.

 

Glad that you made it home safely Ann and Frank. Franc and I will be heading out to St. Louis today to look for tires!