Continuing to highlight the sponsors of our raffle that benefits the Graham County Rescue Squad is important to us. Our friends at Treasure Coast stepped up and donated two very popular items:
>A full hydraulic clutch replacement kit including fluid, braided clutch line, slave and master cylinders
>Techna-Fit braided brake lines
Hit up the registration tent and buy those tickets!!!
With less than a week remaining, we have a new addition to the Vendor’s Area! uRace Simway will be setting up just outside the General Store with virtual driving! Numerous road and circle tracks available, and dozens of different cars to drive… including a Miata!
Along with the fun virtual drives, there will be an Inaugural MATG Virtual Race. Come see the uSim trailer for more details!
While we’re scrambling to get sleep and other things done we wanted to thank The Parts Group for donating to the raffle. Up for grabs are three gift certificates for 25% off of a $100 order!
6 days…didn’t we just all head home a month ago?!? Can anyone give us an extra couple days to prep?!?
That being said, Fontana has been our second home for almost 10 years and as usual will be donating 2 free room nights to one lucky recipient to our raffle! This is always a hot item so make sure to buy your raffle tickets at the Registration table!!!
So after the photo bombshell earlier in the week we wanted to give you the full skinny. Please hit up the link below for details and share this post so we can get everyone in the right place!
With only 1 week left before dragon season officially opens, we would like to take a second to remind you to drive within your own limits. With that said, a few guidelines to keep us all safe and make it home in one piece:
DO NOT CROSS THE DOUBLE YELLOW LINE
At all times, do not drive like an idiot.
Do not drive outside your own abilities, especially if you’re in a run and trying to keep up with the leader or the car ahead of you.
Don’t speed, these are public roads
At night and in low-visibility conditions, be very careful. Large wildlife can jump out of the woods in any curve, and people HAVE hit things like boar, bear, and deer. Hitting a 400 pound wild boar can ruin your weekend.
Slow in the Village. Fontana has a lot of families on vacation and small children running around, so be very careful and don’t drive fast in the Village
Pull Over!! If you have vehicles stacking up behind you, pull over in a safe area and let them pass. The Dragon has many paved pull-offs explicitly for this. Use them.
Beware of very large trucks. Though they’re illegal on the Dragon, they do still find their way up there from time to time, and they are still legal on all the other area roads. They take up a LOT of space, especially when trying to navigate the tight corners that the Miatas eat for lunch.
Everyone please drive safely and have a great weekend at Miatas At The Gap
One of the most well known vendors in the entire community, Flyin Miata, has donated three $100.00 gift certificates to our raffle this year. We’re sure you’re no stranger to what they have to offer in terms of parts and service but check out their site for something you may have missed. www.flyinmiata.com
Raffle tickets will be available on Friday and Saturday at the Registration Tent.
One of the most common questions about the event is what to bring along for your weekend of enjoyment on the wonderful roads and at the events we have going on. While we are all a bit different (we do drive Miatas…) a pretty simple list to start with is:
Folding or Camp Chair
Sunscreen
Towel
Umbrella
Jacket (It can get chilly at night, especially if you’re on top of the mountains)
Comfy Shoes
FRS/GMRS radio (most people use Channel 5 to communicate)
Maps/GPS units (Cell phones won’t work, you’ll need a dedicated GPS if you want mapping)
Beer or Wine (for the Saturday Night Beer Swap and Wine Tasting)
Cash (Fontana Village has one ATM in the main lodge and one at the Pit Stop)
Hat
Water
Camera
GoPro or other video camera
Epi Pen and other medications
Bug spray
And please stop by the registration tent. Registration is free and gets you a swag bag and annual dash plaque. You can also purchase your official event t-shirt at the registration tent.
Earlier this week we did a quick informational post about the late-in-the-game Hail Mary location change for our annual photo. As usual, much speculation was made on the subject and we wanted to make sure that all of you were well informed on the matter. Being that this is our longest-standing event, we could not take it lightly. With that being said, here are the facts of the matter:
We are the first car group that wanted to use the space under newly released guidelines and in doing so have seemingly laid the path through the minefield of who/how/what/where/why in order to move through the process.
The TVA has new policies in place as of 2018 that dictate minimum levels of event amenities for ANY event held on one of their properties. This includes things like:
A non-refundable application fee
Porta-potties
Certified and approved security services
Insurance
No parking on unpaved areas or blocking traffic
Drone regulations
We learned in late spring that permit applications need to be submitted 45 days prior to the event to even be considered and had issues contacting TVA to discuss the matters in person. Being the “Unofficial” event that we tout ourselves as, it was imperative that we could be provided with some idea that our application fee wouldn’t be for naught. Part of the conversation was to address these policies and how they apply to something as simple as an organized group photo.
In the meantime, we started looking into the costs and logistics of what we knew. Porta-poos are not cheap, apparently. Neither is providing an umbrella insurance policy. When it comes to security we had a feeling that we would be under a very watchful eye of TVA security since we are the quintessential guinea pigs for the new policy. This also meant that trying to skirt the system and still park on the grass as we have in years past was a no-go; so we would be severely limited space wise for 300+ cars on the roadway and in the turnaround. Logistically speaking it was shaping up to be one hell of a headache.
This brings us to a final issue; the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s back: drones. As anyone who has been seen the last couple of years’ photos we’ve been working with our friend Killboy (www.killboy.com) to make the group photo the best it can be. Previously, we just used a bucket truck, think electric company repair truck, to take the picture from a single perspective. The advent of drones and their capabilities allowed Killboy to crush the photo and take it to a level five times better than previous years. Well the TVA is a federal agency… and with that comes a certain amount (read: mountain) of red tape in order to follow no-exceptions policies. The TVA has a standing, strict order about drones, and it is essentially “No way, No how” in regards to developed properties without a heaping pile of red tape we faced, not to mention an equally hard to swallow dose of bureaucracy and liability for the drone operator himself. Now as we start tying it all together, we don’t want to put one of our friends in danger of fines or equipment confiscations.
We finally received word late last month to “send in the needed materials” with no indication if it would be accepted, especially since it wouldn’t be completed within their specified time frame.
In finally discussing the matter with what feels like a small army and feeling like we were herding drunken cats, the decision, not lightly, was made to move the photo to Fontana Village. The location is well suited for a good number of vehicles, easy ingress/egress, the ability to leave vehicles, and the fact that you will be closer to the free lunch.
8 days… Too much left to prep so we’ll procrastinate some more and talk about another sponsor.
Our friends at the Appalachian Inn B&B are returning again as sponsors and will cover one full night stay! This is always a hot item at the raffle so make sure to get your tickets at the registration table Friday or Saturday.
