Deals Gap 1999
From May 14th thru 16th thirty riders from the HSTA (Honda Sport Touring Association) headed down to the DEALS GAP area for 3 days of riding. We rode in groups of 5, taking on different sections of road. My riding partners included Dr. Don Proctor with his custom painted Kawasaki ZX-7, Famous photog and all around cut up Jim Brehmer and his FZR 1000, Master motor builder Clayton Walsh and his ATK Flat tracker and my brother and former National Hare Scrambles Champion Mark Sheldon and his very trick Suzuki 1200 Bandit.
We stayed at a place called Mountain Brook, (our first time to we stayed here) which is centrally located in North Carolina. It's about 1 hour from the GAP.
3 days in the Deals Gap area is like going to heaven! You could easily spend a month in this area! There are so many killer twisty road sections. Most of our time was spent on roads other than DEALS GAP (129) We did however ride one lap through DA GAP.
I apologize that there areno photos. Two things conspired to make this happen. (1). We lost to rolls of film and (2). Over the years I have simply lost a lot of the original film pictures and negatives from this particular year.
The DEALS GAP section (Hwy 129) itself continues to get worse. By that I mean idiot riders (lots of them) cutting corners by cutting across the yellow line and from one lane to another. One Ducati rider who could not catch me decided that this was the only way to get ahead of me. It was then that I discovered that 80% of the riders used this line. All I can say is that, this road is the last place on earth that you would want to cut corners.
Anyone who has been up to the Deals Gap store has seen the pictures of the many, many bloody morons who use this line and have been either hit or run off the road by a vehicle in the oncoming lane. Also the amount of tee shirt and short pants sportbike riders going balls out thru the GAP was unreal and pretty stupid.
Sadly, we had planned to have some killer shots (ie stoppies, full leg dragging action, ect) Unfortunately our first roll of film, which contained the best shots, tore in half inside of the camera. Upon opening the camera we exposed it, so thats that! We'll try again this fall.
Overall I have to thank the HSTA guys who are insanely fast here (having years of riding experience down here helps them). They showed us a ton of new killer roads to explore. Roads with far less traffic that offer more room that accomidate higher speeds. More to come this fall. Stay Tuned!
