Thursday--Nashville to Alcoa
Thursday was supposed to be an early start. It's a three hour drive back to the Alcoa Hilton near Knoxville, and that's only the start of the back roads. Depending upon the route and stops it's another four to six hours to Spartanburg. The day isn't helped by a one-hour time change halfway through Tennessee, so when we loaded the bags at 7am in the Nashville hotel car park it was already 8am Knoxville time.
Gleaming dark green Z3 with satellite navigation
We decided to wait and head east with a group of around 20 other cars which left an hour later, only to head downtown into the morning traffic for a photo opportunity at Nashville's full-scale reconstruction of the Parthenon (the concrete frieze looks in somewhat better condition than the Elgin marbles) in Nashville's Centennial Park.
The reason for the photo opportunity was that the Parthenon was the meeting place for the first Homecoming back in 1997. Carter Lee and Robert Leidy were part of that original group.
Robert Leidy's silver M on the left, Carter's red Z3 fourth on the left,
with our blue M on the right
The shorts were intended to complement the Estoril Blue M roadster!
Eileen and Doug Morgan travelled in matching silver Z3 and M roadsters,
each with one of a pair of sunglass-equipped terriers
On the open road at last, we travelled in convoy at a steady 80-85 mph on the I-40 towards Knoxville, using Talkabouts to keep in contact with each other.
MZ3.net webmaster Robert Leidy and Katy
Carter Lee's red Z3 with camera mount
Roger Secrest's MY01 M roadster (note chrome rear mirror)
I knew from Brent there was a section of roadworks ahead and slowed down ahead of time. But for a pair from Texas disaster struck--a large tractor unit skidded and hit a white van that then rear-ended their red Z3. Three Z3s stopped to offer assistance. We reversed along the hard shoulder, almost being hit in the process by an overzealous driver keen to offer paramedic skills. He would have needed to use them on himself if he had hit us.
Just as well it wasn't the tractor unit that hit the Z3
We thought the Z3 could be made drivable, but didn't see the couple again
The main group continued in the slow-moving congestion while BMW roadside assistance was called for the Texas couple. By the time we restarted the rest of the group were out of radio range. We started a high-speed chase and it was only after an hour of sustained 100+ mph travelling (max 122 mph) that we caught them up.
I had hand carried our plastic wind deflector over on the plane and fitted it to the M roadster, so despite the speeds we were able to travel top down the whole way to Alcoa, once through rain (which passed over our heads) as we crossed the highest part of the road, but mostly under slightly overcast skies that still allowed enough sun through to burn the unwary. There's nothing so offputting when driving as suncream running into your eyes!
