Day Four, Sunday May 27th, 2012.
So the first part of the first morning of RTT was pretty uneventful. We spent about an hour and a half in our cars rolling the twisties of North Carolina and then Virginia to make it to this gas station where many of us had to pee... but there was no bathroom!
We improvised on the bathroom part. No photos there. But the next leg had Bill Baxter and his lovely wife in their S50 swapped E28 leading the way on the route... and despite the RTT team's best efforts the roads were not all paved...
But its still cool to see this in your rearview mirror...
And we managed to find pavement again...
Only to loose it once more. We all stopped on the next dirt road and I polled walked the line of cars and polled everyone and they said to stick on the road- which was only two more miles. But we wound up stopping at the top of a hill either for Bill to ask for directions or because this guy thought we desperately needed directions...
Well we kept on trucking on our way to Tazewell to make it through 'The Back of the Dragon' where our friend Larry had invited us to join them for a nice lunch. We told them we'd make it around 1pm but it turned out to be closer to 2.
And Leonard was able to join us again for the first part of the trip...
And while we were eating great BBQ...
One of our fearless leaders was finessing the route to assure that we made it to Bristol in one piece without any dirt roads in the way this time...
Well the only casualties of the first part of day one of RTT appeared to be the bugs...
So at this point we rolled on. I was fortunately right behind Aaron and Andy in their 533i which is a great place to be if you want to keep the speed up a bit. That car may be the oldest in the group but they have it tuned to run hard!
After a bit the group needed to pull over because Cousin Billy's car was rubbing on the front wheel. I asked if I needed to stay but Aaron told me to go and I just plotted the route to the hotel in the GPS and told it to avoid interstates. This seemed like a good idea at the time but it routed me through Abington which is stoplight hell, so I gave up and took the last 10 miles of I-81 to arrive at the hotel and start the drinking. When I arrived I saw the 6ers had already made it...
Both 6ers are from the Pittsburgh area and the gentleman who brought the red one had purchased it from Utah. He, unfortunately, won't be able to drive a stick much longer so he brought a co-driver to assist and its really a touching story how he came to have that car and a few others over the past year.
So I pitched my lawn chair and waited for the group to arrive. Sia was next...
But then I got this text from Hunter at 5:18pm...
Uh-oh. We had been there for a bit and this was not a good sign. I immediately sent it to Hunter and warned Paul to expect a text from him. I got this back in minutes from Paul:Hey, anybody there know moosehead paul's number?
Wow. Cool. So the crowd called a tow truck and Cousin Billy actually has a 200 mile tow radius but only needed much less. They pulled into the lot around 6 or so:I'm working on it for them
So now back to the broken brake line on Ali Jonny's bike. His front brake line was leaking right after he got to The Hawthorne on Friday and it was going to be unusable. We all talked about it to him on Saturday but we seemed more worried about it than him so I stopped hounding him. But the owner of the area BMW motorcycle dealer saw that he needed the part and jumped into action. He removed the brake line from his own personal bike and installed it on Ali's on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend. Wow. Generosity there. So moments after the 535is arrived on a flatbed this happened...
The sheer emotion of happiness that encompassed me I cannot describe because not only had Ali made it to the event- one that we knew he was very much looking forward to- but we were actively working on a solution that had significant potential to get the 535is back on the road by mid-morning if not sooner.
6:25pm this from Paul:
Hummmm.... Interesting. Might we be back on the road tomorrow? Another half an hour passes and then this:I may have a plan. Still have 1.5 hours to go home, then i have to press the parts, then the relay.
What the $%^&? Seriously? That $#%^ing AWESOME!I will get the parts to Jeff in Lynchburg, Jeff will get the parts to Blacksburg, my sister has a friend who will pick up the part from Jeff and bring it towards the event.
So while we were doing this...
And ldsbeaker was swinging Thor's Hammer...
They managed to extract this:
Yeah that needs work. But despite the fact that I had a set of Moosehead UCABs and so did Andy, no one had a way to get them into the control arm. And after we pulled the arm we realized that the ball joint was on its way out anyway so it was a moot point.
And I would also like to thank Adam (ldsbeaker) for bringing his awesome jack and stands which made the job much easier and safer than it may have otherwise been...
We knew there was a plan in the works so Adam, Hunter, Ali johnny and perhaps someone else took the S54 powered E28 for a spin. Adam, being a non-drinker, was the only one sober enough to drive.
But the rest of us hung out in the parking lot because there was nothing else we could do...
And Paul managed to put this plan together and this Email was sent out at 9:17pm:
I was flabbergasted. Absolutely an incredible plan. I'm not kidding when I tell you I went up to my room for a moment filled with emotion and shed a few tears of joy when I realized how awesome this group really is. Seriously. I was part of this.The players:
Moosehead - I will build a set of UCABs and press them into control arms very shortly here. I also need to build a spare pump assembly for Slammin/Jeff in case his fails, since it has been noisy.
Slammin/Jeff - I will meet him in Lynchburg VA with the parts as soon as I can get there.
Charlotte - Moosehead's little sister's friend - she will meet Slammin near Blacksburg VA (probably Christiansburg VA). He will give her the parts. She will drive to Marion, VA to meet ldsbeaker/Adam. Adam will get the parts back to the RTT crew.
ldsbeaker/Adam - Part of the group fixing the car
The timeline:
Moosehead needs time to prep everything, then about 1.5 hours to get to Lynchburg (~10:45-11:15PM parts arrive in L'burg)
Slammin will get a text when Moosehead is 20 minutes from leaving Charlottesville. He will drive them to Christiansburg, VA. If he is too tired to drive all the way back after his long day, he will contact Melissa and/or Charlotte to get a couch for sleep. (~12:15-12:45AM parts arrive in Christiansburg or Blacksburg)
Charlotte will drive to Marion and meet ldsbeaker/Adam Armour. Parts arrive in Marion ~1:15-1:45AM
Adam will bring parts to RTT crew.
Well we hung out in the parking lot some of us got inebriated...
And I think it was Pete who told Adam that he can drive any of the ///M5s here- including Sia's S54 E28- and that he got to pick. There was a brief moment of silence and then I said lets take my car. Hell yes I want to be part of this and I was in no condition to drive anywhere. As far as I was concerned this was better than being part of the moon landing. So Adam certainly agreed, we went and checked my headlights (my left one seems to take a moment to get its composure), and then off he went to take nap.
We continued to hang and consume adult beverages. And Hunter and Ali Johnny took Hunter's Z4 M out for a trip to Wal-Mart and were gone for like 2 hours. We think they eloped. But then I received a text from Paul around 1am...
Time to hit the road. And Sherman was definitely joining us. And not riding- he was determined to drive his car too!you should head out soon if you haven't already
So around 1:10am we hit the road...
Sherman in his ///M5 and Adam driving Heinz. We got off for Marion at the first exit and drove through town and this was a cool site to see for Memorial Day...
That flag was HUGE. And the, I'm assuming, courthouse was also very humbling...
I think we arrived around 2am and had some time to kill in the parking lot so they checked out a new Camaro and found this...
And nothing quite says S38 like Wal-Mart...
Well I took a few more pics of the ///M5s...
And then Charlotte arrived...
Now the important part to remember here is that Charlotte isn't part of this group at all, she's Moosehead's sister's friend who decided to help out. At 2am. And drive 200 miles round trip. That takes generosity.
So after the parts handoff we headed back to the hotel with Sherman in front...
And when we arrived I was able to capture a quick image of Ali Johnny's helicopter leaving for the night as they had returned him to the hotel after a night of too much fun...
And at 3:30 or so in the morning I turned in for the night and slept about 5 hours before I needed to awake and bring the parts to the repair crew.
And that's it for Sunday. I'll type up Monday later...
You can look for a little something extra in your next paycheck.
Here's one of my favorite photos. The reflection of what appears to be an '02 on the top left blue area of the roundel is neat.
