IMO-YOu guys have no idea as to the level of difference between California CHP and the ones i saw at the event. First of all their there for our safety, like it or not.
It seem to me that they were very and i mean very forgiving of the activity taking place @ the Dragon. In Cali any where and any time there is a gathering of any MOD car activity you are most likely to attract the LAW.

What a pleasant atmosphere @ the Dragon. I wish i had my FD, In any case i ended up rocking my Mazda3 all 318 turns of the beautiful 11 mile course.

let's set up a caravan for next year....no way I'm missing it in 2010.

A must event for all Rotary Lover. BEST mix of Mother nature and Motorsport.:driving:

do it!!! i would love to see more people from back home attend this event

you guys got screwed for making the wrong move at the wrong time. Had you waited the lady would have gotten teh ticket for slowing down traffic, I'm almost certain of that.

the Dragon is 11miles long and 318 turn in total. From the beginning to end, the whole entire section of the national park is double solid yellow line "no pass" you just need have patience . Unlike Californians most of the people i ran into in while driving my Monster MAZDA3 looking for places to take photos, allowed me to pass by.

ONLY WHEN THEY HAD A CHANCE TO PULL OVER THAT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had one follow me right when I turned onto 28 for 5 miles on the way to the dragon at 5am on Sunday!

I do remeber a lot more activity in 07, dawn is the best time to go out for a drive!

I didn't get any but us other Canucks were followed a good ways down the 28 back to the lodge on Friday night and given a stern warning by an NC officer to stop speeding. I think he was recently off duty because his Ford Explorer was unmarked and there was no equipment or lights, and he was still in his uniform.

Talked to a guy in the Corvette.
His son and his sons friend... I think they were the guys in the 4 door stripped out thing, and something else that were in the overflow parkinglot..

The dad told me (all pissed of btw) that the son and friend were following a "Blue Mazda of some kind" and the mazda pulled over, 2 wheels off into a pull off and waved them by, going slow. And they went around "without crossing the line" and got pulled over on the spot by a LEO who was further ahead and watched the pass.

They both got tickets for Illegal passing supposedly.

/shrug

BEST QUOTE EVER! truer words have never been spoken of the Dragon :driving:

Yeah tell me about it, I know it was the wrong timing, as soon as I started to over take the old lady, and saw the Jeep on the side of the road. :banghead:

I had no issues with the police while on the dragon but everywhere else was a different story.

As Brian said, it was my car that the driver got ticketed in while passing through NOVA. She said that all they wanted to see was the registration and insurance, show them the insurance but she didn't know where I kept the registration info. I keep the registration in the folder along with the owners manual but in Texas we're also required to have a vehicle registration sticker in the windshield, guess the NOVA guys were blind and couldn't see the bright blue/white sticker right above my inspection sticker. She got ticketed for my radar detector too. :banghead:

After I left Brian's I got pulled over in Ohio and spend 2 hours in the back of a cruiser while two Akron cops and their dog tore apart my car, and I do mean tore apart. The pulled my storage bins out, took off my kick panels, pulled the spare out, poked around under the dash, crawled under and prodded around every fender well, and snooped around under the hood before the officer with the dog did the 'I don't know' gesture to the other officer after pointing at various things in the engine bay. Originally he said he pulled me over for following too closely, though I had about the same distance between the car in front of me as everyone else did around me, and loud exhaust which I'll give him since it is a touch on the loud side, but I feel that the real reason was that I have OOS plates and my car was covered in days worth of road grime and a bit on the faded side which automatically meant I was up to no good. Suppose my long hair and goin' on 26 hours without sleep also added to their suspicions. :/ The found a magnet in my car and gave me all kinds of grief over it as well as having a gas mask in the car with me. When all was said and done, the officer who initiated the stop gave me a warning for following too close and sent me on my way without as much as a thank you for your co-operation or any kind of apology for costing me 2 hours.

All was well for the remainder of Ohio, all of Illinois, MO and most of OK where I got stopped again...for exhaust. I explained to the officer that I had already been stopped twice for it and showed him the warning from the Ohio officer and I was on my way without any fuss. Really cool guy actually.

damn that would have drove me insane

Lol - welcome to my pain gentlemen. Growing up in VA I've learned much about our officers. My bro-in-law is actually a state trooper so I dont get hassled much in the central/richmond area, but everywhere else its a different story.

Our NOVA cops are actually cooler than the ones you find in many of the smaller townships, etc.

Top things they like pulling you over for - tint, radar detectors, exhaust and county/inspection stickers. They dont care where your car is from, if it doesnt fly in our laws, you're screwed.

Pleasures of being a "commonwealth" state!

At least none of you went to jail....

I wasn't exactly happy, lol. Thankfully they let me have my phone and didn't cuff me. My feet were doin' a reverse pigeon toe cause the cage was so close to the seat and I'm 6'2"

While I was sittin' in the cruiser watching them I saw the officer on the driver side literally yanking my bins out. I was angrier than I have ever been when I saw that cause I thought for sure that he just grabbed it by the lid and ripped it out. I was shaking in the back of the car but after asking him what he'd done he said he had taken the screws out with the screwdriver in the mini tool kit I kept in that bin. The part that irks me most was that he never asked for consent to search, or at least I don't remember him asking. I don't remember the entire conversation leading up to that point but he was asking why I only spend 2 days in CT and remarked that it was odd that i didn't spend more time considering the distance from home to where I was. I was a bit confused at that point because I wasn't aware that I had to spend any specified amount of time in any location and he must have noticed the blank look on my face and proceeded to tell me that 70 was a know drug runners route for crap coming in on the east coast. That's when he asked me out of the car and put me in the cruiser. Typing this out is starting to bring it all back.

I didn't get any of that though looking back I wish i had. I was heading for Nutsid's place, tired, and just wanted to get back on the road. About 20 minuets before that my throttle cable snapped and I spend an hour fashioning up a new one out of the wires that used to run to the A/C so I was in no mood for arguing at that point.

She said one reached in and ripped my brand freakin' new V1 off the windshield and tossed it in the floor.

I wanna say she told me that the cop threatened to take my V1 but I just don't remember. I don't ever plan on goin' back to NOVA any time soon and if I do the car will be quieter and hopefully won't draw any attention. The two that got her were sitting one in front of the other whith their lights on as if they had just finished with some other unfortunate soul when I went by them in the lead car, she was bringing up the rear.

Oh, I forgot that it was the officer who initiated the stop first day on the job so I'm thinkin' he wanted to be big man on campus and himself a big drug bust on his first day.