Deals Gap Meet! July 15th - 18th 2010

[Confuc1ous]

Alright guys/gals, its time to do another meet, this time its gonna cover the span of a few days. We're planning on renting villa houses down in Tennessee right outside of the area where Deals Gap is. For those of you not familiar with Deals Gap look up the Tail of the Dragon or Deals Gap on youtube. Deals Gap is an area near the city of Franklin, North Carolina and close to the borders of Tennessee and South Carolina. Check out www.dealsgap.com Its meant to be one of the most aggressive, if not the most aggressive public road course in America. I've been gauging interest on a few sites and so far the feedback is excellent and I already have definites. Its gonna be a good time and its gonna be well planned out, we're doing shirts for the meet if people are interesting in buying one, that information will come along later.

Its almost 7 months out but on the scale of what we're expecting I want people to know what to expect, where we're going and what it entails. The other reason for posting it up this early is that we want people who want to come out to know about when to take vacation if they have to etc... We dont want ill planning to dictate the day. Right now we are working on shirts and a friend of mine who is a clothes designer is doing designs for me which should be awesome. We're also working on getting the use of an air strip to do a photo shoot which with the current amount of cars we're expecting from all over will be a half day event, but it will be professionally done, we'll get pics of individual cars, people from different area's together and the group as a whole. We want it done right so we're getting the ball rolling.

Well, either way, we're working on having the meet for 4 days/3 nights, and obviously the Deals Gap part of it will span the entirety of at least one of our days. We've been throwing around other ideas for the other days and there are a lot of options ranging from driving down to Atlanta for a day which would be within 70-100 miles of driving. Renting the Villa's in Chatanooga, Tenn which is about a 30 mile drive west of the Gap seems to be about $65 bucks per person for the entire weekend at the current places we're checking out, that is subject to change once we iron out more details but I think with planning done early on we stand to save a considerable amount of money.

As we're throwing around idea's the interest for this has grown incredibly and we're expecting people from as far west as Illinois/Indiana to meet up with us and enjoy the event. People from Texas and the Midwest have also expressed their interest, so you get an idea of the scope of the meet (18 signups the first week). A lot of people from Atlanta and its surrounding areas have already expressed interest and so we'll be working on organizing the meet so it can be epic. On that note, this thread has been thrown up so people can express their willingness to attend and any idea's to increase the epic'ness of this event. This information will be available on other Mazda6 sites etc... and will therefore be broken down by people from which forum would like to attend or are tentative etc...

Attendees from 6Club/6crew...
1. Confuc1ous (NJ)
2. Mazmart Sheldon (GA)
3. Mr.Polo (GA)
4. Spdfreak +1 & Friend with GTi (IL)
5. MicaBlackMS6 + Friend With GTI (IN)
6. Mike Vish (UT)
7. Tama666 (CT)
8. GerryB +1 (IL)
9. MatchingSilver +1 + Miata(IN)
10. DarkKnight (GA)
11. Brandini (VA)
12. Gellous +1 (FL)
13. ed4ward1982 (GA)
14. JBalla1036 (GA)
15. PardoMiguel22 + 1 (NJ)
16. Hammer (OH)
17. NYRslinger (NJ)
18. Def+ones (FL)
19. Semprine036 (OH)
20. Maxxdsix+2 (PA)
21. Buckeye (VA)
22. CKeffer (TX)
23. KaiserShake (OH)
24. CarbonMazda (TN)
25. BiohazardInc + 1 (TX)
26. BHiggy (Mexico)
27. GiftedPlacebo +1 (PA)
28. The Great NY +1 (NY)
29. R04fd (NC)
30. ArchAngel (NC)
31. BjBoelke (IN)
32. Sellers (Mexico)
33. DFW6er +1 (TX)
34. Zoomin6 (FL)
35. SpeedBaltimore (MD)
36. CamryRicer (NJ)

Attendees from Mazdaspeed Forms...
Predapio +1 (NJ)
MS3KO (NJ)
Anonymous 500hp speed3.....



You know some of these people as do I so I want to make sure we're quite efficient in our execution with caravans etc... to travel down to the area of interest so our communication with one another is key.

Check out Deals Gap!

or

check out Tail of the Dragon

[amp]

yall should coordinate this meet alongside the annual rotary meet.. could make for a huge mazda meet..
imho road course usually denotes a lefty righty race track.. deals gap is a public road for those of you that arent aware..

[MicaBlackMS6]

QUOTE (amp @ Oct 23 2009, 06:17 PM)

yall should coordinate this meet alongside the annual rotary meet.. could make for a huge mazda meet..
imho road course usually denotes a lefty righty race track.. deals gap is a public road for those of you that arent aware..[/b]

I take this reply as "Yes, I will be attending the Deals Gap Meet next year."
Cya there!

[Confuc1ous]

QUOTE (amp @ Oct 23 2009, 06:17 PM)

yall should coordinate this meet alongside the annual rotary meet.. could make for a huge mazda meet..
imho road course usually denotes a lefty righty race track.. deals gap is a public road for those of you that arent aware..[/b]

People will get it once they check out the information I gave them, the 2 websites and the youtube idea, if they dont, they probably shouldnt be going. I do like the idea of working with the rotary meet however the date of ours isnt changing so it would be tough if they couldnt change their dates, but thanks for the ideas, I'll speak to a few friends over there see what we can work out, the more the merrier. Can i count you as tentative? Did we meet at my meet I had in Roosevelt Park this summer or am I thinking of someone else?


QUOTE (MicaBlackMS6 @ Oct 23 2009, 06:43 PM)

I take this reply as "Yes, I will be attending the Deals Gap Meet next year."
Cya there![/b]

Matt, its gonna be an awesome time and even sweeter because you guys are coming out all the way from the midwest, I cant wait honestly, I just cant wait. I added you to the list already!

[amp]

QUOTE (Confuc1ous @ Oct 23 2009, 07:48 PM)

..Can i count you as tentative? Did we meet at my meet I had in Roosevelt Park this summer or am I thinking of someone else?[/b]

someone else... unfortunately havent had a chance to attend any meets with the speed6..

[Confuc1ous]

QUOTE (amp @ Oct 23 2009, 08:47 PM)

someone else... unfortunately havent had a chance to attend any meets with the speed6..[/b]

Aaah, I see, well no time like the Deals Gap meet to come out and meet up with other Mazda folks. Let me know if you'd like me to add you to the list, its gonna be a good time.

[Confuc1ous]

Okay, the hotel stuff is worked out and done. We are going to be staying at the Microtel hotel in Robbinsville, NC, its a nice modern building, they have 50 rooms or so available to rent, they offer free local and long distance phone service and high speed internet. They also offer a free continental breakfast for each of the nights we stay in their hotel so for those coffee hounds and people who love bagels/pastries, that's a good start to your day. The rooms come in 4 different varieties. They have Single Queen, Double Queen, Single Queen with Jacuzzi and a Suite. For our purposes we are only going to be using the Single Queen bed rooms or Double Queen bed rooms, if you want either of the other 2 options, at check-in, you can let them know and they'll take care of it, however it will be whatever the rate is at that time, they are exclusive rooms that arent subject to deals.

This is the link to the hotels website, its laid out pretty simply --- http://www.microtelrobbinsville.com/index.html

The hotel is located right on Route 129 which is the highway that has the Tail of the Dragon, its just a bit further up, so its very local, plus the town in which its located has a few bars and things going on plus fast food etc... Which I'm sure we'll be venturing out to regardless at some sober or drunken point.

The rates we've gotten are one of the better rates we've found considering some of the dingy and run down spots we looked at for other places demanding the same nights rate. The following prices include tax and are exactly what you will pay, no hidden fees or extra taxes. For your general knowledge, in this part of the country their tax rate is 10%. This is already reflected in the following prices I've listed.

Basically a Single Queen bedroom is $88.77 per night for the each of the nights we are staying in Deals Gap.

A Double Queen bedroom is $94.06 per night for the each of the nights we are staying in Deals Gap. So, if you're splitting a room, 47 dollars per person, per night, if you have 3 people in your room its $32 per person per night and you can do the math beyond that. These rates are in peak season and are heavily discounted because we reserved 20+ rooms.

The rooms are reserved and what we've reserved to this point are based on the feedback we've gotten so far and we also projected for other people who might be coming but are still on the wire for getting days off, for school or even for reasons such as money, their car etc... They have ample secure parking and its in a town that inhabits 7300 people that basically live off the summer traffic they get from people driving the Dragon, so they're quite hospitable.

This is a satellite image of the area --- http://maps.google.com/maps?q=robbin...31328&t=h&z=15

Its practically impossible to get lost being that its right on route 129, which also makes it easier for all of us to meet up initially and after any of the adventures we might undertake while in NC/TN/GA. Basically people will split the rooms based on cost and they can work it out amongst themselves but when you get to the hotel, check-in, that's when payment is due.

As far as the schedule we'll be keeping, I will be arriving there with the guys from Atlanta on that Friday afternoon/evening and will check in. That night we'll do our meet and greet, eat some chow, have some drinks etc... it will be a good time and will set the pace for the remainder of the weekend.

The following day, Saturday, we will get up, eat breakfast, drive the gap, locate the spot where we'll take photos of our cars, then have lunch. This will leave the remainder of the day for people to either take an evening drive on the gap and then return to the hotel for more meet/greet/drink etc... or perhaps we can find a local place to have a few drinks, maybe even check out the national forest etc... take a hike or something on one of the trails. Later in the evenings are when and where we'll do our partying.

The next day, Sunday, I have been working on a tentative plan for us as a group to take the 2hour drive down to Atlanta, have a bite to eat, check out the Coca-Cola museum, either catch a braves game or maybe hit the aquarium, and then dinner and back to the gap. That night we can continue from where we left off the night before and just hang and do the Dew. Either way, the following day, Monday, is the day we'll be checking out and heading back to our respective parts of the country so I was thinking maybe we could have breakfast before we all break to get home.

Let me know what sorts of things you guys wanna do for the photo shoot, where you wanna take the pics etc... especially people who are generally local or have been out to Deals Gap before. I figure the more we prime the event now, the less headbutting and confusion there is later. Thanks for reading guys, i'll edit this as necessary over the course of the evening tonight and as people give me details of their plans.

The attendee list has also been updated. A few different companies will be in attendance too along with their shop cars etc...including a Nissan GT-R and a few other fun surprises. Keep me in the loop if you're interested.