Smoky Mountain Small Bore Rally 2023 & Tail of the Dragon
Jun 5, 2023 14:53:47 GMT -5
190mech, ryan_ott, and 8 more like this
Post by 90GTVert on Jun 5, 2023 14:53:47 GMT -5
I spent from Tuesday to Saturday night in Townsend, TN for the Smoky Mountain Small Bore Rally along with ryan_ott. I'll put up a video or videos from the event at some point, but that's gonna be a while. I've got multiple videos ahead of it that I need to get working on.
We rode down in the F-150 loaded with the 2 small scoots, towing a trailer with the TMAX and Ninja. I've never towed a trailer before so I was pretty nervous about making a 10 hour trip (each way) the first time I've ever towed. Even had to install a hitch just to do it. Turned out to be not that bad. It tracked well behind the truck and it wasn't tough to find gas station that weren't tight along the way. I was doing 80MPH with the 55MPH max trailer and it handled fine. Didn't wanna try to push my luck anymore than that. I never really had to back it up. That would have been a 💩 show.
Shortly after arrival and unloading, Ryan ran down to a store on the MetRuck and I just wanted to take T2 a few miles down the road. I made it 3-4 miles and stopped, realizing I never reinstalled my bar end mirror that was removed for towing. Decided to do it at the hotel instead and went to head back. Immediately overheated.
I pulled over and the water pump didn't seem to be working. I could turn the switch on and off and watch the voltage drop when it should have been on, but it wasn't moving water. I left my cell at the hotel, so luckily I just had to stop multiple times and let it cool to get back.
At that point I was ready to go home. lol I brought T2 all that way to drag race and ride and it's dead a few miles in. Wound up draining the coolant the next day and taking the pump cover off. There was what I believe to be ferrous crud attached to the impeller body. I cleaned that off and Ryan poked a hole in a water bottle cap so I could use that to rinse the pump body out a bit as well. Stuck it back together and filled it with pure water and it worked! I didn't trust it much, but it was moving water. I figured at least it may get through drag racing the next day.
BTW, Ryan and I did look for pumps, thinking this is an aux pump from a car so maybe a parts store would have it. Wrong. I could get one, but not till after the race was over and they ranged from near $200 to $400. I ordered one on amazon for ~$60 and had it waiting when I got home.
The next day Ryan and I intended to do the Tail of the Dragon on his RD 250 swapped Kawasaki Ninja and my TMAX 500. Initially traffic and slow Harleys were our only problem, but he put a hole in a piston on the Foothills Parkway. Pics, video and details of that are in his Yamasaki thread already. He limped it back to the hotel on 1 cylinder, going slower than a stock 49cc 4T at times... but he made it.
I really wanted to do the Dragon, and he didn't want to risk a failure on the MetRuck before drag races, so I went back on my own on the TMAX.
Here's an example of what you may see if you pull into one of quite a few pull off lots along the parkway.
I was behind a car going roughly the speed limit and waiting for a safe-ish place to pass on the Foothills Parkway when an aggressive Harley rider came up behind me. BTW, the Foothills Parkway is a road with a lot of curves that can be done at a fast pace (though the speed limit is low and there are lots of places for cops to hide). The Harley guy was tailgating me hard and swerving in and out antsy to pass. Unless you're really quick/fast, you will have people looking to pass you on the twisty roads at times (mainly the Dragon), but they aren't generally jerks about it like that guy. I just let him go and waited a few minutes till there was a better place to pass.
It didn't take long for me to catch the aggressive Harley guy and I proceeded to pass him and then dust his ass. I couldn't see his headlight at all in my mirrors after a handful of curves. That made my day. On the flip side, for the "get a real bike crowd" I was filming the sunrise over the mountains early one morning up there and a guy went buy on a 250-300 scoot with a loud pipe. I took a couple of minutes to take down my tripod and cam and loaded up and figured I'd catch him even though we were sort of near the end of the parkway. Never did. Saw him later on the Dragon scraping the center stand. All of us scoot folks aren't just sensible commuters. I actually saw him in a parking lot and wanted to stop and say hi, but I'm pretty introverted so I was dumb and didn't say anything. Now I wish I did.
I entered The Dragon, greeted by signs telling you of the (318) curves in 11 miles and warning of it being a high crash area.
The Dragon starts out with some "normal curves" for lack of a better description. They aren't too bad or tightly spaced at very first. Then you proceed to things like switchbacks, banked turns, dips and one turn after the next. It's not somewhere that you have to crash if you ride your pace and don't push beyond that, but you absolutely have a lot of opportunities to crash... and if you do miss a turn you may be going down the side of a mountain or at least a hill. Some places people would probably have no idea you were even down there if you weren't able to yell for bit. It is not very forgiving.
I had a lot of fun and was lucky with my timing because I never had anyone come up behind me and only caught cars when I was at the very end. I pulled into the Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort just after passing into North Carolina at the end of the Dragon before heading right back through to do the Dragon the opposite way. Had I known at the time, I would have kept going because I think the Cherohala Skyway is beyond the resort and that is supposed to be another amazing ride.
The next day was drag day, so we headed out a little before 8AM to drive an hour (with the smaller scoots in the back of the truck) to the Knoxville Dragstrip. It was $30 each to get in as a racer ($10 if you only spectate) plus we each paid $22 to pre-register for the 2T class and Ryan was also registered in the Ruckus/Chuckus class.
It turned out that there was only us in the two-stroke and Ruck classes. We had no competition. Matt, the event organizer came to tell us this is the staging lanes prior to the rider's meeting. It seemed like he just wanted to call it off totally for those classes and not run them, but Ryan said basically there's no sense just throwing trophies away if you have them. Matt gave us our pre-registration fees back before telling the field that he'd get us "out of the way" first. He seems like a nice guy that tries to make sure everyone's enjoying the events, so I don't think it was meant in a negative way, but being the only 2 to show up to race on 2Ts/scoots anyway it didn't exactly make me feel like a fit in at that moment.
We raced first, twice. Once for the 2T class and once for the Ruck class... that I don't even belong in. Ryan won both, which we already knew beforehand from comparing dragy data and tuning info. He had nitrous on his, but never used it. Not needed and if it went bad then we would be down to my 2 scoots only, one of which has a questionable water pump.
I filmed the Groms most of the day. Those suckers are riders for sure. Some of them are wound up launching and getting the wheel up. I think I may have video of one that got the wheel up in 3 gears just hanging on twisting the throttle the whole way. The quickest/fastest made it into 6 seconds and over 100MPH in the 1/8 mile! For comparison, Ryan is faster than me and doing 9.1X at just over 70MPH which is also similar to where my TMAX 500 should run according to dragy. They are cool to watch.
Ryan made a few passes between rounds, because that's allowed to even people that didn't register with the event. I think as long as you pay the racer fee at the gate you could go. I waited till the end, when all classes were done, and then raced Ryan over and over. I at least got into my usual dragy times. Initially I was nearly a second off pace with terrible 60ft because I didn't want to be the guy to wheelie and crash in front of everyone. I also ran my dragy at the same time and found it to indeed by quite accurate. Surprisingly close on every run. It's a seriously good tuning tool.
My main complaint at the event was having no one else to race. Not being outgoing, I didn't ask a Grom rider to race. Most seemed to either be paired up for races or they left as soon as the actual competition was over. There was a Ruck in the lot, but the guy never raced it and then left before I could go ask him to race. I just wanted to race anyone else, even if they ran a 6 and totally smoked me. Oh well. Still a cool event. Ryan already asked if they can just have a scooter open class next year. If others are interested in going drag racing there next year, you could try to express your interest to the Matt on the SMSBR facebook group and see what happens.
After the trip back to the hotel and unloading the scoots, Ryan and I took the 2T scoots to try the Dragon on them. That's roughly an 80 mile round trip going up a mountain half of the time with carbureted racing engines. Mine was jetted with an 0.97 correction factor (current jet size multiplied by 0.97) for going from sea level to 2500ft at the dragstrip and Ryan's was probably something similar. That went surprisingly well. The scoots are bit unnerving at first. On the TMAX, the real suspension soaks up a lot of bumps and imperfections in roads. Not the case on the little ones. You feel all of the irregularities while trying to make sure you aren't going off of a hill. That said, the return trip was better after we both got used to the feeling a bit more.
The Dragon and the drag strip all in a day. These little two-stroke spec racing engines can do anything.
I bought pics from the photographers that wait around a few bends on The Dragon after returning home, so here's what I got. I think I spent $50-60 total on pics, but I don't buy any other sort of souvenirs. We were more cautious on the way up and on the way back we were behind traffic and a police officer was waiting beside the only photographer left on the road at the time. I did wind up with 2 SMSBR 2023 stickers for free that Ryan grabbed for me when he was looking around. They gave them to anyone that went to the killboy shop at the end of the Dragon and asked for 'em.
The next day Ryan and I went down the road to film a group ride from the event passing. Then we rode down a winding road following a rocky river where I stopped to film Groms coming around turns when I could. Late in the day we went and sat on a turn with a big pull off area on The Dragon and I filmed some stuff coming through. I found it quite enjoyable just watching other bikes (and cars).
I got up around 5AM the next day and headed out at 6AM to go right back to the corner on The Dragon and film. I went alone, not wanting to wake Ryan up that early. I spent at least a couple of hours there. I would say that any gearhead should try to go to The Dragon and maybe just sit in a safe spot near a corner for a bit. It was pretty amazing to me and I'm not sure where you'd ever have a similar experience. For example, I saw a big group of Dodge Vipers coming through together, a group of Porsches, Groms, Harleys, sport bikes, Mustangs, Chargers, scooters... even a pair of those mini trucks went through together. You can hear anything with a louder exhaust as it winds through the adjacent turns and echoes. It's such a cool experience just listening and watching. Highly recommend.
I took Happy Valley Rd on the way back. Ryan said it had worse turns than the Dragon. Some of it is tame, but holy crap some of it is brutal. Can't really imagine anything much tougher to ride on the street. It may not be that bad in all circumstances, but there are a couple of tight switchbacks marked 10MPH. One is especially rough. I slowly ran through that one. Felt like a total noob. I was going downhill, the road was uneven and rough and covered in fine dirt and some gravel. The TMAX and I are heavy, so I'm headed at this incredibly tight switchback and I can't let off of my brakes for a second or it gains speed. I can't turn well while holding the brakes. I just stopped and then got going again rather than risk dumping it going too fast. Embarrassing, but it happened. Aside from those couple of turns it was a good road. If you want a challenge, take a big long heavy bike there the downhill way. Just be sure you truly want the challenge. I'm not sure if it's normal for it to be covered with dust/dirt and gravel or if I was just lucky.
I got back to the hotel and Ryan said he was gonna try taking the MetRuck to Clingman's Dome. That's the highest point in the area at over 6,600ft elevation. He was deservingly uncertain about how the RC-One would handle the elevation change with the carb since he had some part throttle issues already. Nothing major, but who knows how it could go with a big swing in air density. I offered him T2 or the TMAX to ride instead, but he took the MetRuck and I tagged along on the TMAX. It would have been kind of cool to take both two-strokes up there, but the TMAX was parked where I didn't want it at the hotel due to other cars and I didn't feel like sorting that out. Plus, I thought if stuff does go wrong, it would be nice to have the generally reliable TMAX in case of emergency vs T2 with unknown life left in the water pump.
It was about 40 miles from the hotel to the parking lot at the top of the mountain, and Ryan made it without issue. Pretty much the whole way there and back was behind tourist car traffic. One we were ready to leave the top, I got back on the TMAX and it cranked but didn't fire. Oh crap. I held the throttle wide open and it fired. Then we both wondered how the RC-One was going to do if the EFI TMAX is struggling. Fired first kick!
The TMAX still struggled to start at the hotel after, but once home it fired up just fine. The only time I had any trouble with it was at the top and upon return to the hotel. I'm not sure that it adjusts much or at all now that I have a fuel controller on it. Maybe the adjustment dials on the controller were moved in the process of cramming things under the seat? I'll check that later.
After that I went to film another big group ride passing by and then it was time to load up and be ready to leave early the next morning. Once we got the scoots all loaded and strapped in, we decided to start right then. I drove from 7:30PM to 5:30AM after a full day of riding since 6AM with limited sleep. Fun stuff, but somehow I never wrecked us doing 80 with a trailer fighting to stay alert drinking energy drinks (never had an energy drink before in my life that I recall) while lights seemed to blur together at times.
We never did attend the actual rally and it was literally next door to the hotel. I enjoyed riding and filming too much and Ryan wanted to try to get on the mobile dyno, but we weren't back from the high elevation trip till it was basically over.
Overall I had a good time. I wouldn't have gone if not for Ryan offering to split a room and trailer and so on to make it more feasible. Thanks to Ryan for being easy to get along with the entire time and he even grilled steaks one night and bratwurst another. I'm not sure if I'll go back or not. I haven't gone on a vacation for 20 years prior. I don't have that kind of cash. Like most things for me, I can either scoot or _____ and scoot always wins. May not be able to do it again. We'll see. It was a cool thing though.
The people were friendly. We had multiple neighbors in the hotel with Groms that all struck up conversations. I talked to another neighbor about his CB300R. He swapped Grom forks and wheels on it. So a CB300R with 12" wheels to turn it into some sorta mega-Grom. I really liked it. The guy gave me the details and even told me to ride it sometime and see how I liked it. I didn't but I talked to him another day and he encouraged me to ride again. Somehow I never got a pic of it, but I did just find a pic of him on it at the Dragon so you can at least kinda see the bike (below). It was cool to be around other folks into small machines. Really unusual for me.
Oh, and I think Ryan's scoot will be in an article in RoadDirt.tv. We talked to the photographer/writer at the track.
We rode down in the F-150 loaded with the 2 small scoots, towing a trailer with the TMAX and Ninja. I've never towed a trailer before so I was pretty nervous about making a 10 hour trip (each way) the first time I've ever towed. Even had to install a hitch just to do it. Turned out to be not that bad. It tracked well behind the truck and it wasn't tough to find gas station that weren't tight along the way. I was doing 80MPH with the 55MPH max trailer and it handled fine. Didn't wanna try to push my luck anymore than that. I never really had to back it up. That would have been a 💩 show.
Shortly after arrival and unloading, Ryan ran down to a store on the MetRuck and I just wanted to take T2 a few miles down the road. I made it 3-4 miles and stopped, realizing I never reinstalled my bar end mirror that was removed for towing. Decided to do it at the hotel instead and went to head back. Immediately overheated.
I pulled over and the water pump didn't seem to be working. I could turn the switch on and off and watch the voltage drop when it should have been on, but it wasn't moving water. I left my cell at the hotel, so luckily I just had to stop multiple times and let it cool to get back.
At that point I was ready to go home. lol I brought T2 all that way to drag race and ride and it's dead a few miles in. Wound up draining the coolant the next day and taking the pump cover off. There was what I believe to be ferrous crud attached to the impeller body. I cleaned that off and Ryan poked a hole in a water bottle cap so I could use that to rinse the pump body out a bit as well. Stuck it back together and filled it with pure water and it worked! I didn't trust it much, but it was moving water. I figured at least it may get through drag racing the next day.
BTW, Ryan and I did look for pumps, thinking this is an aux pump from a car so maybe a parts store would have it. Wrong. I could get one, but not till after the race was over and they ranged from near $200 to $400. I ordered one on amazon for ~$60 and had it waiting when I got home.
The next day Ryan and I intended to do the Tail of the Dragon on his RD 250 swapped Kawasaki Ninja and my TMAX 500. Initially traffic and slow Harleys were our only problem, but he put a hole in a piston on the Foothills Parkway. Pics, video and details of that are in his Yamasaki thread already. He limped it back to the hotel on 1 cylinder, going slower than a stock 49cc 4T at times... but he made it.
I really wanted to do the Dragon, and he didn't want to risk a failure on the MetRuck before drag races, so I went back on my own on the TMAX.
Here's an example of what you may see if you pull into one of quite a few pull off lots along the parkway.
I was behind a car going roughly the speed limit and waiting for a safe-ish place to pass on the Foothills Parkway when an aggressive Harley rider came up behind me. BTW, the Foothills Parkway is a road with a lot of curves that can be done at a fast pace (though the speed limit is low and there are lots of places for cops to hide). The Harley guy was tailgating me hard and swerving in and out antsy to pass. Unless you're really quick/fast, you will have people looking to pass you on the twisty roads at times (mainly the Dragon), but they aren't generally jerks about it like that guy. I just let him go and waited a few minutes till there was a better place to pass.
It didn't take long for me to catch the aggressive Harley guy and I proceeded to pass him and then dust his ass. I couldn't see his headlight at all in my mirrors after a handful of curves. That made my day. On the flip side, for the "get a real bike crowd" I was filming the sunrise over the mountains early one morning up there and a guy went buy on a 250-300 scoot with a loud pipe. I took a couple of minutes to take down my tripod and cam and loaded up and figured I'd catch him even though we were sort of near the end of the parkway. Never did. Saw him later on the Dragon scraping the center stand. All of us scoot folks aren't just sensible commuters. I actually saw him in a parking lot and wanted to stop and say hi, but I'm pretty introverted so I was dumb and didn't say anything. Now I wish I did.
I entered The Dragon, greeted by signs telling you of the (318) curves in 11 miles and warning of it being a high crash area.
The Dragon starts out with some "normal curves" for lack of a better description. They aren't too bad or tightly spaced at very first. Then you proceed to things like switchbacks, banked turns, dips and one turn after the next. It's not somewhere that you have to crash if you ride your pace and don't push beyond that, but you absolutely have a lot of opportunities to crash... and if you do miss a turn you may be going down the side of a mountain or at least a hill. Some places people would probably have no idea you were even down there if you weren't able to yell for bit. It is not very forgiving.
I had a lot of fun and was lucky with my timing because I never had anyone come up behind me and only caught cars when I was at the very end. I pulled into the Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort just after passing into North Carolina at the end of the Dragon before heading right back through to do the Dragon the opposite way. Had I known at the time, I would have kept going because I think the Cherohala Skyway is beyond the resort and that is supposed to be another amazing ride.
The next day was drag day, so we headed out a little before 8AM to drive an hour (with the smaller scoots in the back of the truck) to the Knoxville Dragstrip. It was $30 each to get in as a racer ($10 if you only spectate) plus we each paid $22 to pre-register for the 2T class and Ryan was also registered in the Ruckus/Chuckus class.
It turned out that there was only us in the two-stroke and Ruck classes. We had no competition. Matt, the event organizer came to tell us this is the staging lanes prior to the rider's meeting. It seemed like he just wanted to call it off totally for those classes and not run them, but Ryan said basically there's no sense just throwing trophies away if you have them. Matt gave us our pre-registration fees back before telling the field that he'd get us "out of the way" first. He seems like a nice guy that tries to make sure everyone's enjoying the events, so I don't think it was meant in a negative way, but being the only 2 to show up to race on 2Ts/scoots anyway it didn't exactly make me feel like a fit in at that moment.
We raced first, twice. Once for the 2T class and once for the Ruck class... that I don't even belong in. Ryan won both, which we already knew beforehand from comparing dragy data and tuning info. He had nitrous on his, but never used it. Not needed and if it went bad then we would be down to my 2 scoots only, one of which has a questionable water pump.
I filmed the Groms most of the day. Those suckers are riders for sure. Some of them are wound up launching and getting the wheel up. I think I may have video of one that got the wheel up in 3 gears just hanging on twisting the throttle the whole way. The quickest/fastest made it into 6 seconds and over 100MPH in the 1/8 mile! For comparison, Ryan is faster than me and doing 9.1X at just over 70MPH which is also similar to where my TMAX 500 should run according to dragy. They are cool to watch.
Ryan made a few passes between rounds, because that's allowed to even people that didn't register with the event. I think as long as you pay the racer fee at the gate you could go. I waited till the end, when all classes were done, and then raced Ryan over and over. I at least got into my usual dragy times. Initially I was nearly a second off pace with terrible 60ft because I didn't want to be the guy to wheelie and crash in front of everyone. I also ran my dragy at the same time and found it to indeed by quite accurate. Surprisingly close on every run. It's a seriously good tuning tool.
My main complaint at the event was having no one else to race. Not being outgoing, I didn't ask a Grom rider to race. Most seemed to either be paired up for races or they left as soon as the actual competition was over. There was a Ruck in the lot, but the guy never raced it and then left before I could go ask him to race. I just wanted to race anyone else, even if they ran a 6 and totally smoked me. Oh well. Still a cool event. Ryan already asked if they can just have a scooter open class next year. If others are interested in going drag racing there next year, you could try to express your interest to the Matt on the SMSBR facebook group and see what happens.
After the trip back to the hotel and unloading the scoots, Ryan and I took the 2T scoots to try the Dragon on them. That's roughly an 80 mile round trip going up a mountain half of the time with carbureted racing engines. Mine was jetted with an 0.97 correction factor (current jet size multiplied by 0.97) for going from sea level to 2500ft at the dragstrip and Ryan's was probably something similar. That went surprisingly well. The scoots are bit unnerving at first. On the TMAX, the real suspension soaks up a lot of bumps and imperfections in roads. Not the case on the little ones. You feel all of the irregularities while trying to make sure you aren't going off of a hill. That said, the return trip was better after we both got used to the feeling a bit more.
The Dragon and the drag strip all in a day. These little two-stroke spec racing engines can do anything.
I bought pics from the photographers that wait around a few bends on The Dragon after returning home, so here's what I got. I think I spent $50-60 total on pics, but I don't buy any other sort of souvenirs. We were more cautious on the way up and on the way back we were behind traffic and a police officer was waiting beside the only photographer left on the road at the time. I did wind up with 2 SMSBR 2023 stickers for free that Ryan grabbed for me when he was looking around. They gave them to anyone that went to the killboy shop at the end of the Dragon and asked for 'em.
The next day Ryan and I went down the road to film a group ride from the event passing. Then we rode down a winding road following a rocky river where I stopped to film Groms coming around turns when I could. Late in the day we went and sat on a turn with a big pull off area on The Dragon and I filmed some stuff coming through. I found it quite enjoyable just watching other bikes (and cars).
I got up around 5AM the next day and headed out at 6AM to go right back to the corner on The Dragon and film. I went alone, not wanting to wake Ryan up that early. I spent at least a couple of hours there. I would say that any gearhead should try to go to The Dragon and maybe just sit in a safe spot near a corner for a bit. It was pretty amazing to me and I'm not sure where you'd ever have a similar experience. For example, I saw a big group of Dodge Vipers coming through together, a group of Porsches, Groms, Harleys, sport bikes, Mustangs, Chargers, scooters... even a pair of those mini trucks went through together. You can hear anything with a louder exhaust as it winds through the adjacent turns and echoes. It's such a cool experience just listening and watching. Highly recommend.
I took Happy Valley Rd on the way back. Ryan said it had worse turns than the Dragon. Some of it is tame, but holy crap some of it is brutal. Can't really imagine anything much tougher to ride on the street. It may not be that bad in all circumstances, but there are a couple of tight switchbacks marked 10MPH. One is especially rough. I slowly ran through that one. Felt like a total noob. I was going downhill, the road was uneven and rough and covered in fine dirt and some gravel. The TMAX and I are heavy, so I'm headed at this incredibly tight switchback and I can't let off of my brakes for a second or it gains speed. I can't turn well while holding the brakes. I just stopped and then got going again rather than risk dumping it going too fast. Embarrassing, but it happened. Aside from those couple of turns it was a good road. If you want a challenge, take a big long heavy bike there the downhill way. Just be sure you truly want the challenge. I'm not sure if it's normal for it to be covered with dust/dirt and gravel or if I was just lucky.
I got back to the hotel and Ryan said he was gonna try taking the MetRuck to Clingman's Dome. That's the highest point in the area at over 6,600ft elevation. He was deservingly uncertain about how the RC-One would handle the elevation change with the carb since he had some part throttle issues already. Nothing major, but who knows how it could go with a big swing in air density. I offered him T2 or the TMAX to ride instead, but he took the MetRuck and I tagged along on the TMAX. It would have been kind of cool to take both two-strokes up there, but the TMAX was parked where I didn't want it at the hotel due to other cars and I didn't feel like sorting that out. Plus, I thought if stuff does go wrong, it would be nice to have the generally reliable TMAX in case of emergency vs T2 with unknown life left in the water pump.
It was about 40 miles from the hotel to the parking lot at the top of the mountain, and Ryan made it without issue. Pretty much the whole way there and back was behind tourist car traffic. One we were ready to leave the top, I got back on the TMAX and it cranked but didn't fire. Oh crap. I held the throttle wide open and it fired. Then we both wondered how the RC-One was going to do if the EFI TMAX is struggling. Fired first kick!
The TMAX still struggled to start at the hotel after, but once home it fired up just fine. The only time I had any trouble with it was at the top and upon return to the hotel. I'm not sure that it adjusts much or at all now that I have a fuel controller on it. Maybe the adjustment dials on the controller were moved in the process of cramming things under the seat? I'll check that later.
After that I went to film another big group ride passing by and then it was time to load up and be ready to leave early the next morning. Once we got the scoots all loaded and strapped in, we decided to start right then. I drove from 7:30PM to 5:30AM after a full day of riding since 6AM with limited sleep. Fun stuff, but somehow I never wrecked us doing 80 with a trailer fighting to stay alert drinking energy drinks (never had an energy drink before in my life that I recall) while lights seemed to blur together at times.
We never did attend the actual rally and it was literally next door to the hotel. I enjoyed riding and filming too much and Ryan wanted to try to get on the mobile dyno, but we weren't back from the high elevation trip till it was basically over.
Overall I had a good time. I wouldn't have gone if not for Ryan offering to split a room and trailer and so on to make it more feasible. Thanks to Ryan for being easy to get along with the entire time and he even grilled steaks one night and bratwurst another. I'm not sure if I'll go back or not. I haven't gone on a vacation for 20 years prior. I don't have that kind of cash. Like most things for me, I can either scoot or _____ and scoot always wins. May not be able to do it again. We'll see. It was a cool thing though.
The people were friendly. We had multiple neighbors in the hotel with Groms that all struck up conversations. I talked to another neighbor about his CB300R. He swapped Grom forks and wheels on it. So a CB300R with 12" wheels to turn it into some sorta mega-Grom. I really liked it. The guy gave me the details and even told me to ride it sometime and see how I liked it. I didn't but I talked to him another day and he encouraged me to ride again. Somehow I never got a pic of it, but I did just find a pic of him on it at the Dragon so you can at least kinda see the bike (below). It was cool to be around other folks into small machines. Really unusual for me.
Oh, and I think Ryan's scoot will be in an article in RoadDirt.tv. We talked to the photographer/writer at the track.