mcduck

Wow! What a great weekend!!! Just got back from our ZDayZ event at Tail of the Dragon. I'll be really busy the next few days with my regular job, but wanted to jump out here and give a quick thank you to everyone who made the drive to Fontana Village to join us this past weekend, all the sponsor clubs who helped make this happen, and all our corporate sponsors who provided a treasure trove of Z-related swag!

In the near future, I'll have LOTS of info and pics to post... as I'm sure others will as well.

But, until I can get back and provide you some details on all the happenings, I'd appreciate if all who went who want to post something.. pics, stories, feedback (good or bad), pics of any cute gals I missed while I was running around working... would do it on this thread.

Oh, and for those who couldn't make it this year... don't worry, the event was such a success that we are already setting up dates for ZDayZ at Tail of the Dragon 2005!!!!! Go ahead and mark your calendars now for the weekend preceding Memorial Day 2005. We'll begin posting details in a few months (first, I'll be taking a few weeks off!)

bigdaddy

iTrader: (3)

car show pic...

bigdaddy

iTrader: (3)

there's a dragon up there...

bigdaddy

iTrader: (3)

overlooking the dam...

bigdaddy

iTrader: (3)

getting lined up for the group shot...

bigdaddy

iTrader: (3)

i've got a whole lot more where those came from.

andy, morris and all the sponsors...thanks again for a great weekend. i don't think any of us could have asked for a better time.

sean

Reggi914

iTrader: (3)

Damn, that looks like so much fun. I wish they had a meet like that in ny

mcduck

Reggie... you could always come down from NY and join us next year!

Bini2

iTrader: (2)

bhobson333

There was somone from New York there. Long-distance award was from just south of Baton Rouge Louisiana, and there were two from Detroit.

Here's a pic from the show. Guess who's car this is?


Here's the man himself, giving a detailing clinic:


How about this pair? No, you are not seeing double. Those belong to McDuck & Bonz.


Finally, a beautiful scenery shot:


(The last three pics were taken by Big SexZ. Thanks, dude, I hope you don't mind me posting your pics.)

Big Sexz

iTrader: (6)

HeII no I dont mind. I just wish I would have gotten you to burn me a disc too. I doing the DL from the camera again Sorry the pics are funny looking. I was asked to make them as big as possible and that equates to poster size @ 100% and anyware from 2-4 megs each! If anyone want originals let me know. I'm working on slapping a few up there myself. I need a host though....any takers?

EDIT: Actually I have a story to tell. There is a video that might show up somewhere with PIMP1911 following me up the dragon. It is my second run (first one was following Harold and was pushing so hard I made myself sick ) My first time leading and we did pretty good but the tape doesnt do it justice because I sware we were going faster than it looks. but lets just skip to the end here. At the end there are a series of straight aways where we are forced to pass some and just dont let up. So we are flying down this road at 120ish and I slow to around 90 to make this turn. Just as I round this turn I see on the side of the road in the following order: Harold, Bini2, Andys friend in a lighting (cant remember his name) all shooting the **** with a COP!!! Needless to say we get all over the brakes and fly in right behind Harold to a stop. WE JUST GOT AWAY WITH MURDER!! I was happy. The video might show that as well.

Someone should ask Bini2 about his camcoder. I'll let him tell that one if he wants.

2003z

iTrader: (7)

here are a few of mine./ The weekend was a real blast, can't wait for next year!!!! (hope this works, 1st time using my personal webspace)

ChuckGZ

oh, it's on like donkey kong next year. by then my ride should be at PIMPCON 5, so i'll definitely get my roll on.

bhobson333

Here's an edit of a summary I posted for the Triangle Z Club:

I just got back from Tail of the Dragon, it was better than I expected! It was good that we decided to sponsor, they said if they hadn't gotten the sponsorships they did, the event probably would have been cancelled. They MIGHT have broken even with last-minute raffle ticket and T-Shirt sales, but they were in the hole as the event started.

Our sponsorship was appreciated, I accepted this glass plaque on behalf of the club:


It was my privilege to meet and make friends with Bob Bell, the publisher of Sports Z magazine. He received a shipment from the printer Friday and gave me a copy of the Summer, 2004 issue. He said I was the 3rd person outside the printer to see it. There are some amusing letters to and responses from the editor and some good, informative reviews and articles, including some rumors about the 2005 350Z.

The Longest Travel award was from just south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Harold is one fast SOB). There were two from Detroit and one from New York State. Bob Bell drove in from Colorado.

Here's the Best In Show winner:


Interestingly, it was announced that before the car show voting was tabulated, Bob chose this same car for the Sports Z Editor's Choice award and it will have a layout in a future issue of the magazine.

Here are a couple more pics of things you missed, and at the end a movie clip from the Tail of the Dragon. It's a little like VIR South Course, only it's 11 miles long, twistier and without the straightaways, and there are cars (and 18-wheelers and Winnebagos) coming in the other direction.

74 (seventy-four) Z's showed up:


Looking down the row, at the bottom of the dam:


OK, here's the video clip (thanks, Bini2. I cut a 3:50 clip from one of yours). It's WMV format so you'll need to play it with Windows Media Player. it's 19.4 MB:

right-click and save

(I hope Eric1h doesn't kill me for the bandwidth this post will cost him )

This event will be held again next year, probably even bigger. Put it on your calendar for the weekend before Memorial Day.

Bini2

iTrader: (2)

Oh I have something to add to this story. The guy with the Lightning (Brian -- Nice guy and he really knows how to push that truck) and I just finished a run up the Dragon. We both pop our hoods and start BS about our cars. We are there for like 5 minutes and a cop slowly passes us in his Crown Vic. Well, I give him a friendly wave and say hello as he cruzes by.

Well he stops and turns around (lucky you guys because he was heading your way!) to talk to us and see if we needed any help since our hoods were up.

So we chatted with this cop for about 5 minutes, and he turned out to be a very nice guy. He asked us if we rode the Dragon, to which we both replyed yes. Then he asked us how fast we were going. Brian hesitated a bit and said "you know, I wasn't really lookin' at my spedometer.....I was just tryin' to concentrate on the road." I almost fell out.

He then proceeds to tell us that he rode the Dragon earlier in the day, and he also added that he could not get his car above 45.

He sounded really disappointed when he said it too....like I could ONLY get it to 45.

bhobson333

I got two unobstructed runs (early in the morning). My best time was just under 16 minutes. 11.5 miles in 16 minutes (according to my calculator) is an average speed of 43 MPH.

2003z

iTrader: (7)

here are bhobson's hi-res pics!
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson1.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson2.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson3.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson4.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson5.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson6.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson7.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson8.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson9.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson10.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson11.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson12.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson13.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson14.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson15.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~imspud/zdayz/bhobson16.JPG

Big Sexz

iTrader: (6)

DAM (Mothers Against Dyslexia) I never even thought about using the computer! That would have been cool to see, especially after the Dramamine.

mcduck

This is so cool... at first, I was hoping to get some posts out here to officially announce some things we did before others spilled the beans (like the "Sport Z Editor's Choice Award" that bhobson mentioned in one of his posts), but I'm just short on time to do a long series of posts right now.

Now that I've come back after starting this thread almost 4 hrs ago, I cannot tell you how cool it is (and rewarding for me) to hear you folks talking about the event and what happened

Keep it going and (everyone on this forum) watch for a special interview I had the luck of doing with the real Zaino-master!!!

Should get that posted next weekend. In the meantime, I'll be checking your comments and jumping in as I can (from my hotel room in Cleveland this week.)

Oh, and for the record, yes, my friend Bryan (with the Ford Lightning) is an absolute lunatic. I rode the Dragon with him one time when my car was recovering form a mild case of hydro-lock). He was absolutely thrashing that road. I know I felt the truck come partially off the ground a couple times and I lost count of the number of power slides we did around some of the tight corners. WOOHOO!!!

bhobson333

To clarify: Andy took the pictures using Gerry's cool camera with the excellent zoom lens. I was just sly enough to talk them into letting me copy the pics so I could be the first to post them!