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13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
Crossfire Events and MeetsThis section is intended for threads to organize and plan Crossfire meets.
A place for everyone here to see where meets are happening and participate in discussions
13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
Attention:
If you have been sent here from Facebook and found this thread/post and are not yet a member on this forum please join us here for free.
Then you can submit a post and sign up for this event as well as become a forum member with no costs. CLICK HEREto join today ************************************************** **********
*****PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE PAGE HERE ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO THE BOTTOM OF POST 5***** We have gone out of our way to provide all the information we can in advance of the event.
Come Join all of us at the 13th Annual Fall 2019 CROSSFIRE "Tail of the Dragon"
In the Mountains of North Carolina (off HWY 28 just 9 miles south of the Dragon's South end)
Official website - CLICK >Tail of the Dragon
__________________________________________________ _________
PLEASE POST IN THIS THREAD IF YOU WILL BE ATTENDING
Please provide your name(s) and city and state
Please indicate your arrival day (am/pm) and check out (departure) day
You will then be added to the attendance list in post #2
__________________________________________________ _________
About the event:
Enjoy the accommodations at the Fontana Village Resort in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina.
Enjoy meeting other members and experience some incredible driving in groups around the Smokey Mountains.
This get-together (GTG) is for drivers of all skill levels and driving interests.
Route leaders will be taking individual groups on daily routes that vary from a relaxing drive in the mountains, to those that might make some passengers (and even DRIVERS) hold on tight.
Room reservations Just know that the lodge is filling up with us and two other groups as well. If you think you are going to call months from now and reserve a room, know that you are going to MAYBE get a cabin The lodge is booking up fast.
PLEASE do not message me or Gary this Fall asking us to help get you a reservation , we couldn't before and we cant now. We have added Thursday night October 3rd to our room block for those who want to arrive a day earlier than the majority of folks who will arrive Friday
Check-in time is 4:00PM - Check-out time is 11:00AM
Just call (828) 498 2211 and ask for the reservations desk.
Tell them your booking with the "Chrysler Crossfire Group" to be certain to get our reduced group rate.
Our discounted room rates are: $92 + Tax (without any additional fees) for rooms with either 1 King or 2 Queen beds in the lodge or Garden units (these are adjacent to the lodge). $99 + Tax (without any additional fees) for Poolside Cabana rooms with either 1 King or 2 Queen beds (these are adjacent to the lodge, around the pool).
When making your reservation your credit card will be charged $92/99 + Tax (One Night) for a deposit
Reservations must be made by August 1 to get a room at our group rate.
Consider sharing your room with another attendee to reduce lodging costs; room shares can often be found by mentioning in your post in this thread that you are interested in a room share. Cabins are also available at a reduced rate on a case-by-case basis; post your interest here in this thread, message Pizzaguy here or "Mark Christopher" on Facebook.
CANCELLATION POLICY:
Reservations cancelled within ninety days of arrival and up to thirty days prior to arrival date will be charged a $50.00 cancellation fee. Reservations cancelled within thirty days of arrival will result in a forfeiture of your deposit.
AVOID CANCELLATION FEES:
Please keep in mind that we always have last-minute attendees looking for a place to stay
(and the lodge WILL likely be booked as we near the cutoff date ).
If you must cancel, announce it in this thread before contacting Fontana Lodge
There may be someone here who will gladly take over your reservation.
Once they choose to do this for you ....you can then call the lodge and ask them to give your room to the other guest by providing their full name
Your credit card will be credited once they have the new credit card info from the person who takes over your reservation
CLICK > Google Maps
Set your GPS to:
300 Woods Rd.
Fontana Dam, North Carolina
If distance to this event is a problem consider flying into Knoxville and renting a car
It's only about a 75 minute drive to the Lodge where we all stay
There is always a passenger seat open for you to ride along in a Crossfire and enjoy the fun
This event is not to be missed I assure you
CLICK > McGhee Tyson Airport
318 Turns in 11 miles - The "Tail of the Dragon"
Saturday Morning at the Dam Visitor Center:
On a run:
Map of Rooms (Lodge, Cabana and Garden Units):
Property Map of Fontana Village:
We are a somewhat informal group, just friends who are gathering for a fun weekend. Many ask for an idea of "What is happening and when"; to address that, we offer this agenda of the weekend's events. This is somewhat vauge, and that is intentional, we do not plan every minute of your vacation!
Re: 13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
What is the tail of the Dragon?
The Road
As your drive north down US129 in North Carolina, you eventually cross the state line into Tennessee. The first 11 miles in Tennessee consists of 318 curves and is the actual “Tail of the Dragon”. This stretch of road consists of nothing but curves – no intersections, no driveways, no homes and no businesses – nothing but trees and curves.
Very little of our weekend is spent on the Dragon, this area consists of almost nothing BUT wonderful roads – the Dragon gets most of the press, but the fact is, most of us have a favorite road or drive up here and it often is not the Dragon.
The Weekend
When we speak of “The Tail of the Dragon”, most of us really mean the whole weekend. The Dragon consists of driving some wonderful, fun roads that feature more than fun curves. We will drive routes that take us up above the clouds and down into forests with wonderful waterfalls and other such natural beauty that this area is known for.
The weekend also means spending time with a group of people who all have at least one thing in common: The appreciation of a unique car with an involved pedigree. We will be sharing food, fellowship, fun, inside jokes, and often, several of us end up fixing someone’s car in the lodge parking lot – it happens almost every time.
Why are people taking pictures of me?
Some tourists become upset when they pass photographers on the Dragon and other roads in the area, but this is all part of the fun. You can order high-resolution photographs of your car as a souvenir of the weekend. The major photographers are listed here; note that you can search their sites by date and approximate time. Killboy and US129 Photos usually also subdivide the photos in folders that contain ONLY Crossfire photos – so finding yours can be quite easy. If we have enough cars and make enough runs past the photographers, special offers will show up on the sites below targeting our group – watch for these special offers when visiting their sites AFTER the event. Most offers and photos are posted by the Tuesday after the event.
Re: 13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
********Some of the runs / activities to look forward to this Fall**********
Mark's Mystery Tour
Totally accidentally, I found/invented a new run for us. THIS FALL, I will premier "Mark's Mystery Tour".
WHAT IT IS:
We will be gone five hours.
We will stop for lunch.
We will see some wonderful roads and scenery.
No further information is, or will be, available. So do not ask.
NOW:
No maps will be given out; no description of the run will be given to anyone.
No one without a QUALITY (Kenwood or Midland Mobile) radio will be allowed to drive on this run. (No Walmart/Amazon FRS radios; I will have at least two spare REAL radios. There are unique aspects of some of this route - you MUST be able to hear what the leader is telling you.) And the most amazing (or suspicious) part: It will be almost entirely Tourist Class - only the slightest "Sport Skill" will be required. (When did I ever lead a tourist run?)
The Vonyure Liquor Store(s) appear to be gone. In search of a substitute, we changed the route from Tellico Plains to Vonure.
I will publish a new map in this post in the coming weeks.
With the re-route, we do miss a bit of scenery, but we encounter a Walgreens,
Liquor Store, big grocery store and gas stations. It is a re-route worth considering.
The Church run started in 2018 in Honor of Johnathan and his Sunday morning devotionals he led for many years until his passing in 2015. Each year we choose a different denominational church. This years run will take us out of Fontana on a road you probably didn’t know existed then on through Robbinsville for a fuel/potty stop then on down Wayah road to Franklin for a church service at Discover church 11:30 AM. Lunch is at a favorite in Franklin, the Motor Company Grill at about 1:00 then on to Bryson City for a small waterfall hike. It's about a half mile round trip to the falls.
We will line up at 9:00 on the upper road in the lodge parking lot and leave at 9:15. We plan to stop in Robbinsville to get gas/snacks/potty/etc then on to the church in Franklin. https://discover.church
We vary in what runs we offer. The factors that determine where we go are: What the leaders feel confident with, what attendees express interest in at the Friday night driver's meeting, weather conditions and number of cars. Please understand that ANYONE can invent a run and lead it. Don't worry about how it will go - the first time on a new route is always interesting. (This last Dragon, we tried a new route, not knowing the best road of the route was closed - that turned into some unexpected fun ! )
We try to limit runs to ten cars each, as it is hard to handle a LOT of cars and more than 20 people at a time will overwhelm some of the little restaurants we visit over the weekend. If we have more than ten cars, we usually break into two groups for that run.
Check back here over the next few months for updates on routes that are being offered, as leaders discuss their plans. If you want to be a leader, simply post that in this thread and we will add you to the conversation (which is held elsewhere, including conference calls, email and private messages).
Skylift Park / Skybridge Run - With drive to Gatlinburg - Friday and/or Sunday only
This new attraction might be of interest to some of our Crossfire folks - This attraction is new for this year !!
It is about a 2 hour drive / 75 miles from Fontana lodge to Gatlinburg Gatlinburg can be a very congested area but this new attraction might just be worth the trip
I called and spoke with someone at the Skylift Park and was told that the Skylift ride is about 20 bucks per person to take you to the top where you can then walk across the suspension bridge with no additional cost
There are two parking lots nearby and parking can be 5 to 10 bucks a car but there should be space for a group of 15 to park fairly close to one another if we arrive mid morning.
Skylift park is centrally located in downtown Gatlinburg and about 75 miles from Fontana lodge
There are two different runs that we can use to take us into Gatlinburg from Fontana lodge
If this does become one of our runs it would be done on Friday and/or Sunday
The link below will provide you a little bit more information about the bridge etc
Other FUN! tttt
Other places or activities we will probably visit:
The Wheels Thru Time Museum https://wheelsthroughtime.com/
We turn this into an all-day event, as we drive to Maggie Valley, visit the museum, get lunch and then come back to the lodge via the Parkway and other roads. This can be a LONG day (over 7 hours) or a shorter event - depends on leader motivation and participant interest.
The Road to NoWhere https://www.greatsmokies.com/road-nowhere/
It's a short drive to Bryson City, NC. The Road to NoWhere does not take long to drive, so we either hike to the lake or stop in Bryson City for shopping. Lunch is is in Bryson City at any one of many restaurants.
Sunset Ride on Fontana Lake
This is a chartered boat ride guided by a local expert who can tell you all about how the lake and dam came about, decades ago.
Go-Karts https://www.nascarspeedpark.com/
We've had some attendees drive to this park only to drive AT this park - it's an all-day event, as it's a considerable drive thru the Smokies to get there.
Re: 13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
Radios, the Dragon, and YOU!
A great substitute for the cheap FRS radios has been found. I bought one of these from Lowes.com and tested it in my car and the lab at work. It is not quite the radio the Kenwoods are, but they are in limited supply. This radio is available for $99 (free shipping to store with Lowes as well). It runs the same power as the Kenwoods, but is WAY smaller and lighter.
It's only downfall is the TINY crappy speaker. You can overcome that by adding a quality external "CB" style speaker (you can get at any truck stop for $15-30). If you have an aftermarket AM/FM/CD player with an "AUX" jack, just buy an 1/8" (or 3.5mm) stereo to mono cable and plug the Midland into your AM/FM, set the AM/FM to "Aux" and you have six speakers to hear your Crossfire friends as you drive down the road with the top down at 80mph! How's THAT?
This radio mounts with Velcro strips (included) and plugs into your cigarette lighter. Current draw is minimal, you can put in a Y-adapter and also power your cellphone charger or other device with no problem.
Is this radio legal? The radio comes with channels 1-7 and 15-22. Use ONLY 1-7 unless you obtain a GMRS license. You are not legal on channels 15-22, also, those channels will often have repeaters on them that run HIGH power, you wont interfere them, but they WILL blast you off the channel. If you listen, you will hear a lot of professional sounding traffic and users will be giving out their call signs, if you dont have a call sign, stay off 15-22.
Presenting the MXT-105 by Midland:
It comes with an almost invisible (to the Dragon Cameras) antenna:
Perfect for a Crossfire with a passenger - it's small enough to stay out of the way:
Link to an external CB/Scanner/Communications speaker that I did an engineering review on for management - we will now sell these under our brand name for $45 each.
Check out the Amazon price with the OEM's name on them !
Re: 13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
Diana Pierson and Ruby.
Mims, Florida
2005 Blaze limited roadster.
Arriving Thursday October 3rd.
Departing Monday October 7th
Booked room before we left last fall!!!
Last edited by Diana Pierson; 04-11-2019 at 08:50 PM.
Re: 13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
It goes without saying put me down you know I'll be there! Pat and Mickie and/or Lauren. This will be my Silver Dragon my 25th so I expect all gifts to be made of silver, you all better hope I don't make it to my 50th (GOLD).
Re: 13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
I would like to go if all the stars line up for me between now and then. All vacation time at work has already been spoken for so I thought there would be little to no chance of having that week end off but I checked today and no one else has spoken for that weekend so I grabbed it. So...that is one star in line. Now I'll need about three other things to clear up and I just might be able to do this. Fingers crossed!
Re: 13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
@pizzaguy , please update my listing that I am arriving Thursday PM and leaving Monday AM. Previously, I had only stated Thu-Mon. Thanks for all you do. Can't wait!!
13th Annual Fall 2019 - Tail of the Dragon GTG - October 3 - 6
