Wednesday saw me drive nearly six hours to get here. Thursday saw me drive about six hours around the area. It was a lot of fun. Friday has been earmarked as a more chill day. Meaning, less driving.
But isn’t the whole point of Miatas at the Gap to drive? You haven’t even driven the Dragon proper yet! Yes, I can hear you. And, yes, you are absolutely correct. But I needed some rest from it and today is also day one of Vendors!
Vendor Row
So with my plan in place I woke up early and got ready. My plan, by the way, was to visit the vendors early and then pop out to the Dragon for a quick drive later. While getting ready I did notice some odd water in the bathroom. I think the ceiling may be leaking, but I’m not quite sure. I’ll keep an eye on it.
The vendors were scheduled to open at 8am. Around 7:30ish I walked down to the area and found a line to stand in. There was a very big line, and then a much, much shorter line. I chose the shorter line. While waiting for them to open up, I snapped a few pictures.
Once vendor row opened up the line moved pretty fast which was excellent. I checked in, got my registration gift and was then told to go to the merchandise tent to pickup my pre-ordered swag bag and shirt.
The merch tent was less efficient. Whether you pre-ordered or not, you had to wait in the same line. I was in line for about 40 minutes total. My fault for doing so on Friday morning when everyone else was doing it. But just like them, I wanted it checked off my list.
My goal for this morning was to collect my pre-order merch which included a shirt from RGR Engineering and then check out Flyin’ Miata (FM). Since the merch tent was close to Flyin’ Miata I wandered over that way first. While browsing a bunch of their products a lady next to me asked Keith from FM about the free shirt they were giving away. Keith said it would be given away at 10 and there wasn’t a line for it yet. He said since she was the first to ask, she could be first in line. A few people overheard and walked over. One of them asked if I was in line for the shirt. I wasn’t. But since it’s a free shirt I said “Yea I guess I am!”. That put me second in line.
While we were standing there we did notice a line that was forming next to the FM tent. The lady called over to Keith again and he said that no, that line was not for the shirt. He then had us move our small line to be at the back of their tent, next to the truck. It was at this point the other line of people started asking questions. Apparently they were standing in line for the free shirts, but had failed to let Flyin’ Miata know that. Since we were already told by them that we would be first in line, they had the other line step behind us. There was about 25 people in the other line at the time. They were not pleased with us. But hey, our line only had about five people in it so not that big of a deal. We still had an hour to wait which was fine. I didn’t have anything else to do really. I talked to to some of the FM guys and the people I was in line with. All nice people.
Before we knew it, 10am came and we got our shirts. By then, the line had to have over 100 people in it. It was massive. I’m glad I was just randomly browsing in the right place and time.
I browsed a bit more before picking up my shirt from RGR and then bought a few more small things. I wanted to find a shirt for my 2 year old but no one had children sizes. So I bought the smallest “small” I could find. She’ll grow into it.
Here was my “haul” from the day.
I dropped everything off in my room and then walked back down. I wanted to check out the Flyin’ Miata booth again. I wanted to get some new door bushings and was hoping they would have brought some stock with them. They didn’t but let me place an order. I could do that myself but hey, I’m at an event, and don’t get to order from Flyin’ Miata in person very often.
The door bushing order got very expensive. While waiting I looked over at their brake kits. I’ve been eyeing up their Little Big Brake Kit for the ND. It’s not super expensive but more than I was planning to spend. When it was my turn I said what the hell and handed over my credit card. I’ve been stalking that kit for months. After driving the roads around here, it was obvious that my stock ND brakes were the weak point in the car right now. I fell victim to event and convention mentality and spent more than I wanted. But it’s done now and I’m quite happy with the purchase.
Finally, the Dragon.
Alright. Money spent. Time to drive. Let’s go to the Dragon.
It felt a little intimidating rolling onto the Dragon. A road that I have always wanted to drive and heard so much hype about. I can say pretty easily that the hype was real. It wasn’t so much the curves, though there were a lot. But the elevation changes were many and came up fast. I was not prepared for that. I can see why it earned it’s name “The Tail of the Dragon”. Right from the start it lived up to that name.
The speed limit on the Dragon is 30mph which seems slow in areas, but also about right in others. I heard the limit used to be 55mph. I can’t think of anywhere on that road I could comfortably do 55 for any long stretch. That is probably a skill issue on my part, which is fair. But the turns and dips come fast.
What also came fast were the police. I passed by two Miatas and a Polaris Slingshot all pulled over in separate areas of the Dragon. So that was three different cops. Add to that the two other cops I saw staged and waiting on one of the pull offs, and that’s five cops all within this 11 mile stretch. They knew it was Miata week, and they were ready. I kept it under 40. I also made sure to wave to them as I passed by. Just in case.
My trip through the Dragon was fairly uneventful. It was fun, but I actually think I prefer some of the other roads around Fontana. Mainly due to the increased speed limit and ability to maintain those speeds. I’m not knocking the Dragon. Not even a little. But my skill level was just more comfortable on other roads. I’m not good enough of a driver to tackle the Dragon at higher speeds. I have full confidence in the car, but I’m the one letting it down in this case.
Here is me in action!
I stopped by the Killboy shop before heading back and picked up the road sign in the picture above showing my haul from today. I also bought a small “track” decal of the Dragon to add to the car. Picture in tomorrow’s update.
The Car Needed Maintenance
Towards the end of my run I noticed a little pop under hard cornering. When I got back to the resort I parked it up and grabbed my tools. I thought the sway bars may need to be tightened back down. That’s also the only thing I could really do right now as I only brought basic hand tools with me. But given the noise, it made sense to me.
So I crawled under to check the torque on the endlinks and brackets. A few nuts could do with a bit of tightening but otherwise not too bad. Hopefully that was the noise, just a few nuts working loose a little. I’ll find out more in a day or so. It would not surprise me if that were the case. It also wouldn’t surprise me if it was a bushing or ball-joint now starting to go out. The car has been driven very hard the last few days with a new, much stiffer suspension. It’s a good way to find other weak links. I’ll cross my fingers it’s fixed now, but if not I’ll fix it at home. The car still drives great, but I’ll take it a little easier.
Getting some Rest
The rest of my night was easy. Spent time with my friend Greg and his family. I walked around the resort looking at cars and taking it all in. It was nice. I don’t have any runs or drives planned for tomorrow. I’m going to try and get in the big picture of all the cars. I’ll also walk the Vendor row again, but keep my wallet in my pocket. And later in the evening I’ll cross my fingers and hope I win something in the raffle before packing up to leave the next day.
I’ve had a great time so far. Looking forward to tomorrow.
Supergoat Garage 