Fantastic weekend with my 8 - Tail of the Dragon
 

Took the 8 up for a long weekend playing on the Tail of the Dragon. The group of friends I run with mostly run Porsche 911's and I met them from my ownership period.

I usually go up in my RX7 but this year, I was dying to take the 8 and see how it would do. A few of these guys have very dialed in cars and know how to drive them, my RX7 is the same way. I was not sure if the 8 was going to be up for the task, that doubt was quickly dismissed after the first day there.

Mods to the 8... front swaybar and aggressive alignment. That's it.

I took one of my friends for a ride, he owns 4 Porsches from a 930 to a modern twin turbo model. He kept asking me what suspension mods the 8 had and did not believe me when I told him it was stock. He was amazed (as was I) how well behaved and planted it was. This was while I had a 997 chasing me and I was easily keep out in front of him.

We took turns chasing each other around and I can honestly say, I could keep up with them just fine and the same when they chased me.

More pics and some video to come, here were a few of the gang out and around.

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I will be there in two weeks. We have property in the east end of the Smokies and always try to make the Dragon on our trips. Just depends on the weather.
Look forward to the vid.
Thanks for sharing

Where at? I used to have a place in Sylva, I sold it just before the RE crash.

I hope to have time to chop up the video tonight and upload it.

I took my 8 up there a couple months ago and blew my clutch out. :( But now I have a new stage one clutch and BHR lightweight flywheel. :) Anyways nice pics!

Compressing a video and getting ready to upload, here are the only pics that were shot of me in action, we missed most of the guys taking pics out there. ..... and a lot of the traffic as well as the leo.

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Video from an early run when I was still learning the car somewhat...

Nice pics and it looks fun driving on those zig zag roads. ;)

Nice pics and video! Looked like a great time.

I wanna take mine out there in the worst way. Looks like you had a a blast!

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Yup cool video,just makes me want to go that much more.
Thanks for sharing

Nice video! Was your heart beating faster when you were chasing or when you were getting chased?:):)

When you are in front it is much harder to drive the road. If you are behind someone you trust (Guy in Red Porsche and I have been running together for 8 years now) you can gauge your speed off of them.

I will try to compress and upload a second video, the guys in the black and red Porsches, chased me for a while and the pace was scary, I do not think it will translate well on video but my adrenalin was pumping during that run. I had a friend in my car with me and he told me to push as hard as I wanted he did not mind and trusted me.

The guy in the Black Porsche was pushing me from behind hard. I am used to my RX7, I just need to turn up the wick for about 5-10 turns and whoever is behind me is faded way behind. The RX8 is not as fast in a straight line nor in the turns but for a bone stock car is is damn fast in both regards and I am sure my friend in his Black 996 was working hard to keep up. His car started flashing dummy lights for coolant and brakes during that run and he backed off, let the Red 911 by and we continued on, I let the Red 911 by like I did in the video above but we were only about a mile from the end when I did so we did not get a good run.

Funny story, wish I had video, someone might. I will see.

We left the Dragons Lair (Corner of 129 and 28) heading back down 28 (Hellbender) to Fontana when a Honda Civic took off to give chase behind me.

Anyone that does not know Hellbender it is a very fast road with some 2nd gear stuff tossed in to keep you on your toes.

My son was taking up the rear of the pack, he is 19 and a newb running in his E30 BMW. I radio'd him and told him not to do anything stupid trying to keep the Civic behind him, no sooner did I finish my sentence the Civic pulled out and passed the BMW over a double yellow. Now coming after me.

In front of me was the Red 911, the 2 of us were a good mile behind the other cars. The Red 911 has a Magasquirt setup and it threw a fit in the parking lot. He stalled then took a minute or two to restart then we were off, the other guys had a good minute jump on us and that ended up being a good thing.

So the Civic is now coming for me, except, my friend in the Red 911 and I were both on the same page. We get to it....

Right about the moment the Civic caught up we turned it up good and hot and got to work. I was nailing redline in 2nd and 3rd gear a lot coming out of turns and giving chase to the Red 911. We walked away from the Civic pretty easy and to be honest, it was comical watching him trying to catch up while we could still see him, acres of body roll, 75 series tires rolling over and screaming in protest. I kept waiting for the tires to stop squeeling as he went off into the lake.

He was quickly dispatched behind us and we kept it up, running hard until we caught the other guys that were ahead of us. Then about a 1/2 mile after we caught them and slowed back down from ludicrous speed to a good brisk pace, the Civic caught up.

I pulled into a pull off and let him by because I was the back car and he put his POS about 1 foot off my back bumper, he was obviously upset and was going to make a point. I like my car too much to have it rear ended.

I warned the others he was back and they motioned him by with a point out the window (like a HPDE event) no one put up a fight at that point, no need to my friend in the 911 and I covered what happens when you push us. :D:

I do not have any footage of that, I do have a adrenaline run mentioned above and will see if I have time tonight to clip it out and compress it.

Sounds like a lot of fun. My Friend Mike in his 350Z talks about the tail of the dragon and says it is great fun. I add it to the list of placed to drive.

Great shots! that last pic is tits.