I drive about 45 minutes away up into the mountains every few weeks to give the Audi a workout. This past weekend, I had my camera with me and figured I would shoot a little video of my favorite winding road. For your viewing pleasure:

www.tomdrill.com/down.wmv
www.tomdrill.com/up.wmv




I obviously can't go too hard since I am driving and holding a camera, but I was pushing it a decent amount. It feels much faster driving it than it looks in the video. This is only the bottom half of the road with most of the sharp turns. The top half is great too, but is a bit more sweeping (but faster).

 

Yay understeer! You should do it again, but work on staying in your lane. It's more of a challenge that way.

 

Hey, they have this wonderful new invention called a tri-pod.
then you can drive and film at the same time with ease.
Cool video man, looks like a nice run!

 

Is this in the Table Rock/Cesar's Head area?

 

As a motorcycle rider, that downhill video frankly scares the hell out of me. That's just the thing I'd hate to see if I was coming up.

 

Next time at least catch some air or do some 720's in the gravel.

 

Cyber, it was doing a little twitching, but going into the other lane is more me letting her drift out there than not being able to keep it in the lane due to understeer. It is a stock V6 though.

Dafrazi, this is in the 'mountains' of lower NC.

Seagrave,I am pushing it a bit as you can tell from the small amount of tire squeal, but I am not going too fast where I would lose control. I know I am not on a track and if I went too hard and messed up, Icould put my DD into the guard rail. You can see that I do go over the middle line in a few spots, but what you can't see is that I have full view of the next corner before I enter the one in front of me. I will get off the gas if I see anyone coming the other way, and I go slower around all blind corners.

So not that its not dangerous, but I keep it within my driving limits (I tend to load up the tires and then gas them to squeal, not run deep into the corner without braking and squeal them because I am carrying too much speed, etc). I am having a little fun but I know better than to push it too hard or get out of my lane. That spot is pretty popular sometimes. I did have one scare up there from some stupid truck that was cutting all the way into my lane on a blind corner. Trust me, I am aware the whole time.

onepoint, I would be glad to do some videos of catching air and gravel runs. Let me borrow your car next saturday and I will have videos up by Sunday night.

 

Sounds fair. Thanks for the clarification. Track days are fun too, and safer just in case you DON'T see someone. I used to be in the Emergency Services and you'd not believe the number of times I heard, "I just didn't see him" or "He came out of nowhere."

 

Very true. To be honest though, I am probably more likely to nail someone because I didn't see them while cruising to work than I am up on the mountain. I am in full driving mode and at full alert on the twisties, but like everyone else, I am much more lax on the daily cruise to work at posted speeds.

Though I don't ride bikes, I am very aware of them and give them their room. The whole reason I don't ride them is because people driving cars scare me. I can't imagine having to lay a bike down on purpose at speed because of some moron in a car (there are way too many bad, clueless drivers out there).

 

Where abouts?

If you haven't already head up to Ceasar's Head State Park and check out US 276. Its a real fun road to drive. It's about 20-30 minutes north of Greenville.