Two Factory Five Cobra owners cause accident at the Dragon 5/18/02

[JPorter900]

Two Factory Five Cobra owners blatantly endangered fellow motorists at Deal's Gap this weekend.

These are the gentlemen in question:

from tailofthedragon.com...

Jim and Chuck from Orlando FL - scouting the Dragon for a future Cobra Rally.

The owners of these two beautiful cars decided to run VERY hot through the Gap, sliding sideways around the corners and causing an extremely volatile situation considering the volume of sportbike traffic on the road this weekend.

The silver Cobra was leading, and lost control on the exit to a left hand corner and came across the road directly toward a member of our group, who was forced to drive off the road into the ditch to avoid him. After coming to a stop sideways in the gravel on the opposite side of the road, the Cobra driver took a look at the Subaru in the ditch and then made the decision to continue on up the road without offering assistance or checking to make sure everyone was OK. The driver of the Subaru Legacy in question was running in-car video, so we have the whole thing on tape. The car that ended up in the ditch was running sticky tires and a $2000 GAB racing suspension, so I seriously doubt that his handling ability was an issue in this situation. The little car is a go-kart.

from Killboy.com...
Saturday the mayhem continues with a Silver Cobra losing control and running a Subaru off the road at the stone wall. According to the driver of the Subaru, the Cobra ended up in the pull off area at the wall, the driver of the Subaru saw him stopped, waving for traffic to move along and he then pulled out and left. Way to ignore. The Subaru driver was running video.

I personally spoke to the driver of the silver Cobra (Chuck?) at the Crossroads of Time gas station before they began their run. I gave him directions to the Cherohala Skyway and told him that it was probably better suited to the handling characteristics of the Cobras. I remember he was wearing a Factory Five baseball cap and he told me he had a 302 in his car, and the driver of the blue one was running a 351.

As they left ROARING out of the CRoT gas station, I remarked aloud that they were going WAY too fast for conditions and that I hoped they didn't cause an accident. Famous last words.

Several members of KatanaPlanet.com also remarked to me that they had had near-misses with the Cobras as they came sliding around the corners.

I JUST WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR - THE DRAGON IS NOT A RACETRACK, AND TRAFFIC THERE IS FAR TOO HEAVY TO DRIVE IN SUCH AN IRRESPONSIBLE MANNER.


If anyone has further information on the identities of the two Cobra drivers involved, please contact me directly via email.

Thank you for your time and attention!


-Jason Porter
Subaru Dragon Challenge Coordinator
Southeast Subaru Club
asphaltsurfer@charter.net