Thread: The Spyder Slays a Dragon

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I have the street Mickey's on the front of my Camaro and the drag radials on the back. I've noticed the flat spotting from sitting too long in the garage. Mine generally smooth out after a few miles. Guess who made your Mikey Thompson tires?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper...and%20Starfire.

I've always wanted to get out to the dragon but have not made it yet. Your description of it reminds me of driving around the lake of the ozarks. I took my Camaro down there a year after I got it drivable. Those roads are stupid fun, but can end so badly. My friends and I laughed because we're out there on the tail of a crew cab 4 door binder pulling a gooseneck 4 horse trailer going 20mph over the speed limit barely hitting the brakes. He stopped at a gas station and we pulled in just to see if there were horses in there. There were! So I looked through the window to see if they were alive. Those poor things. That guy had to be on something.

After I got back from that trip I put a large sway bar on the back of that car and haven't tried it out yet.

Your trip to the collection is very cool and something all of us look to stumble across I believe. Thanks for sharing it.

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Yeah, I was aware that Cooper made some of the MT's, but didn't know the extent. The Cobra's and the MT ST's are supposed to be the exact same tires with different logos. I had SR's on my car and it must be something about the softer compound in them. I have heard from other folks and read on the internet about their tendency to flat spot. Apparently, I couldn't get enough heat back in them to make them return to shape.

As to the rim sealing thing, I can only think that the US Mags wheels I'm running weren't completely compatible with the MT tires. I had 3 tires that would leak slowly out around the rim. One wasn't so slow either. It would go nearly flat in about 3 days.

The flat spotting thing reminded me of my T-bucket. I eventually just kept a jack and jackstand in the garage and raised the front wheels off the ground if it was going to sit for more than a couple of days. Let it sit over the winter and you were going to have to replace the front tires. Of course, that car only weighed about 600 lbs on the front!

OK, I’m going to wrap this thread up quickly so that I can move on to updating the build thread. I talked about there being some bad and I think I’ll tackle that in the other thread. Sorry for the delay, I’ve had a lot of catching up to do at home and work.

The day after our trip to the Dragon we visited the Tuckaleechee Caverns that were only a few miles from our hotel. My parents took me to Mammoth Cave when I was about 11 and I have been fascinated with these dark holes ever since. I took my wife to one not long after we were married and she caught my interest in them.

The story behind the Tuckaleechee cave is as interesting as the cave itself. Two young boys, ages 6 and 8, found the opening, which was barely large enough to get their shoulders through, to the cave back in the 1920’s. They told their parents about it, but either they didn’t believe them or weren’t interested in a hole in the ground. The boys kept it mostly their secret and over the years they explored a few hundred yards using only pine knot torches and pebbles. The torches only lit up a few feet and they would toss pebbles ahead of them and listen for whether they hit something or didn’t, indicating a possible drop off. The boys grew up and both of them went off to fight WW2. They survived the war and after visiting Carlsbad Caverns, decided to see if their cave would draw people like Carlsbad. They explored it much deeper, constructed trails, and opened it in the early 50’s. It’s still owned by a descendant of one of the original boys. How many 6 and 8 year old boys could pull something like this off now? Most parents would never let their boys run off like that for long enough to do what they did. Big contrast between then and nearly 100 years later.

Of the caves we have visited, this one was, by far, the most strenuous to do. Lots of staircase steps (over 480 total), with many low hanging openings. Many of the stairs had very low handrails, but the effort was worth it, to me at least.











We did the Foothills Parkway and stopped for a selfie at an overlook. I don’t post many pictures of my ugly mug ‘cause I don’t think anyone wants to see that, but the car does look good. This is my one and only time to use a selfie stick along with the remote on my Samsung phone.



Same basic shot without me. Car still looks good.



The next day it was on to Dalton, Georgia for the Moonshine Cruzin car show. It was blazing hot in Georgia. We had gotten used to the pleasant temps in Tennessee pretty quick. Lot’s of nice cars, as usual. There was an indoor show too, with plenty of trailer queens (most of them anyway). I did get to have a nice long conversation with Sam Memmolo from the old Two Guys Garage show. That would have been the original show that was on Spike. Way back when it was less of a 30-minute advertisement and they actually gave good DIY info.

Not a lot of pictures, but here are a few.









Then, sadly, it was time to pack up and go home.

Was up on the parkway/dragon a few weeks ago, SWMBO and I made the trip up, one run, then a run down to Hendersonville, NC for a day of shopping and eating. Too many stupid people still on the road to make the runs enjoyable, heard of one fatality a few hours after we left when a Miata crossed in a turn and hit a motorcyclist head on. Sad, sad, sad, makes me want to "NOT" make any further trips up that way. Then again, there are still some unmarked, not well known back roads we can take at a leisurely pace without the same concerns or incidents.

Glad you had a great trip.

Bill S.

Thanks for sharing the cavern/cave. There are some in Davenport we have visited and there are several old mine shafts in our area that are permanently closed. We used to sneak in them all the time as kids. What a great idea that was. The best caves I think I've been in were around the Ozarks and in Kansas. I'd have to search and figure out which ones we went to. Bridal Caves was pretty cool. I always look at the work gone into putting the paths in and I know none of that is an easy task.