. Tim’s Z Drives Pages - 5th Anniversary Homecoming, Aug/Sep 2001 . |
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. Monday/Wednesday--UK to Nashville The BMW Z3 Homecoming is a North American event in which owners drive their BMW Z3 roadsters and coupés back to where they were born-- BMW's factory near Spartanburg in South Carolina. The plant is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the 2000-mile long Appalachian chain, some 150 miles inland of the deep water port of Charleston on the east coast. Some owners drive to Homecoming from the west coast, a round trip journey of several thousand miles.
I went to my first Homecoming in 1999 with fellow UK owner George Chadwick, then went again in 2000 with my wife, Irene. It’s a great way to make and renew friendships, as well as an opportunity to ride with the convoys over the mountains. 2001 is the fifth annual Homecoming and with the next-generation Z3 arriving in the near future I was more interested than ever in attending. The numbers attending the event have steadily risen and this year the line had to be drawn once 520 cars and more than 850 participants had registered.
Monday--UK to Alcoa Monday was a long day. Our flight from Gatwick to Charlotte in North Carolina arrived late and immigration consisted of one official checking 200 foot-and-mouth infected aliens. We eventually emerged, collected a hire car and set off for Spartanburg 95 miles away to pick up a loaner car organised earlier with the factory. I briefly wondered what car would be available. Would it be a 2.8 or would BMW have refreshed their loaner fleet with 3.0s? It would certainly be interesting to compare a 3.0-litre stick shift against my 2.8 automatic. Kenn Sparks, BMW’s manager of communications, met us at the Zentrum and explained "there are a number of European journalists coming over for the event, Z3s are a bit short, so would you mind having an M roadster?"
That’s a bit like asking if the Pope is Catholic. OK, so it was the MY00 240-BHP US-spec roadster rather than the 321-BHP MY01 model, but in a way that was even more intriguing as it's a vehicle I otherwise wouldn't get to drive. So this series of articles includes some thoughts about the M roadster. We quickly packed clothes and things we would need for the next couple of days into the M, leaving the rest in the hire car, and headed northwest towards Asheville and the mountains which form the border with Tennessee. The Appalachians run north-south about 200 miles inland, but otherwise parallel with the coast. It was the Appalachians that formed the primary barrier to the westward spread of early colonial settlers until routes had been found through passes or 'gaps' in the mountains. Our destination was Alcoa in Tenessee, a town named after Aluminium Company of America. Alcoa is the northern gateway to the Dragon, an exciting route over 'Deal's Gap' that we would take on the return journey. However, as it was dark and we were at the end of a long day, we travelled to Alcoa on the Interstate in the company of literally hundreds of very large trucks all making 75-85 where possible on the twisting road. There's nothing for miles in the mountains so there was a certain moment of panic when the petrol warning light came on and we hadn't seen a gas station in the last hour or so. We eventually arrived at the Alcoa Hilton around 11.30 which was 4.30 in the morning UK time after having driven 290 miles since arriving at Charlotte. Tuesday/Wednesday--Alcoa to Nashville Tuesday morning I spotted a familiar white Z3 in the car park and sure enough it belonged to Connie and Brent Hill, a couple we had met the previous year when we travelled with Teachum's Midwest convoy. We had a great time with that group and Brent and I had kept in touch over the intervening months, so it was good to meet up again and exchange news over breakfast. Tuesday was uneventful. We knew Dollywood would be closed (phew!), so had planned to go shopping in the huge malls and so-called factory outlets at Pigeon Forge and Sevierville.
The heat and humidity were a shock. Although the temperature was probably lower than mid-summer it was still approaching 90 degrees in the shade and quite humid. What makes it seem worse is the air conditioning in shops and hotels, which is so efficient you get acclimatisation problems all over again when you step outside. Whilst in the southern States I woke each morning with a runny nose due to hotel cooling systems--anyone remember Legionaire's Disease? Seeing as air conditioning works on a heat-exchange basis, and also requires fossil fuels to run, I started to wonder just how much of the outside heat was a result of interior cooling. Perhaps Kyoto should be taken more seriously. We knew Rachel was stopping at Alcoa Tuesday night but the car park was empty when we arrived back from the shops at around 7.30. We assumed they had gone out to eat. We had another three hours ahead of us to get to our pre-booked hotel in Nashville where some of the bigger convoys would be converging, so we just hit the road and arrive around 11pm. Wednesday morning we spent at Nashville's brand new Country Music Hall of Fame. Whilst not particularly liking the twang of 'Cowboy' Western music, I appreciate the story-based Country music, some of which is traditional and some definitely not! Tom Jones (Green green grass of Home) was an unexpected exhibit, as were Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Two of the Hall of Fame's displays place lesser 'King/Queen of Chrome' attempts firmly in the background. Webb Pierce's astonishing Pontiac Bonneville features silver dollars set into the upper dashboard, hand-tooled leather seats, gun and rifle door handles and fittings and a set of cow horns attached to the front of the car. That was almost tasteful compared to Elvis Presley's fabled 'Solid Gold Cadillac,' which has a gold-colored interior, golden shag pile carpet, 24-carat gold-plated record player in the back and a pearlescent exterior paint scheme achieved through the use of 40 coats of paint consisting of pulverized diamond dust mixed with fish scales. Beat that David and Mandy! We were planning to sightsee downtown Nashville but the sun was blazing down and we turned back after a block. Instead we went to Opry Mills shopping mall where I ended up buying a copy of Dixie Chicks' Fly album after seeing the video at the Hall of Fame of women lined up at a concert singing along to 'Earl had to DIE.' Afterwards we headed for BMW Nashville who were hosting a BBQ for the assembled hords from the convoys. We were pleased to see many familiar faces, including John Bergeron, Robert and Katy Leidy, Jon Trudel, Carter Lee and too many others to mention.
After two time zone changes and several late nights we were quite tired, so left quite early so as to be fresh for the Dragon in the morning. |
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