Guys,
This past Saturday, I drove my Scamp to The Tail of the Dragon, in NC/TN. I've been there dozens of times, but only one other time on 4 wheels (1993 Mazda RX-7). It was a beautiful day on 4/5/2025.
I live south of Atlanta, but within Atlanta metro. The drive TO the Tail of the Dragon was ~205 miles. I went to the Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort (DGMR) to start with, had lunch, and lurched around the parking lot.
It was EXACTLY the same as I had noticed last year when I went to the Dragon 4 times, trailering a motorcycle (to Robbinsville), and made up my mind to bring the Scamp in 2025. By that I mean, on the way up there I saw a fair amount of antique / muscle cars. But once having arrived at DGMR, NOT ONE SINGLE ANTIQUE/MUSCLE CAR. It is as if The Tail of the Dragon is the Kryptonite of muscle cars.
So yeah, same thing. My 72 Scamp was in that parking lot all alone. No other contemporaries, not one. Lots of motorcycles of course. Packs of import cars, Corvettes, Porsche's, a Lambo or two, but not one other antique / muscle car. Nevertheless, El Scampo was going to make a run. And in that parking lot, many random people are coming up and asking lots of questions, giving me the thumbs up. The Scamp was getting lots of attention. Kind of what I figured would happen, since I figured there would be no other old cars there. I had people coming up saying, "that dude sounded bad-*** rolling through the parking lot."
So I fire El Scampo up. There were a few imports around about to fire up and leave. And I asked them, you mind if I leave at the back of your pack? You don't want me in front, I'm going to take it real easy with 4 drum brakes. They said SURE. So I left at the end of a pack of imports. And I did, I took it easy. The following is the point of making this post.
I WAS FLABBERGASTED AT JUST HOW GOOD THAT SCAMP HANDLED. I can drive a car. I can ride a bike. I raced motorcycles in the late 90's. I wore knee-pucks out. I'm not the badest *** rider or driver that's ever been, but I can drive pretty darn good. And that damn Scamp, holy cow. It handled WAY BETTER than I ever dreamed it would. Oh and on the first drive out from DGMR onto The Dragon, there was a crash, motorcycle vs. car, which I believe was fatal. So, no matter how hard you imagine I drove the car (below), I left room for error, and I stayed in my lane 100% because I didn't want to hit a motorcyclist, or destroy a Scamp.
As far as I know, the car is totally stock. And it's rolling on P215/60R14 (from my memory) cheapie tires. As I started into The Dragon, and was getting the feel of lobbing the car left and right, I slowly began inching up the pace. And the car took it and grinned. The LA360 with 727 trans is running TTi headers, an X-Pipe and no mufflers. An Edelbrock AVS carb I've tuned and tuned and tuned via an AFR gauge, and an Eaton True-Trac differential. Once into the meat of The Dragon (which is not far from DGMR), I pulled into 2nd gear and left it there. It was as if 2nd gear was MADE for The Dragon.
I pushed it a bit more, and then started hitting it hard out of the turns. OMG, it sounded like a damn old school NASCAR racecar. I pushed it to the point the tires were squealing that they were at their limit. The car seems so very well balanced. It's not an understeer or oversteer car. It's very neutral. I was surprised about that. I got worried that the amount of load I was putting on the front end (back and forth and back and forth) something was going to break. But nothing broke. There was a lot of people parked on the side of the road, and they'd hear the Scamp coming and started hooting and hollering cheering on the Scamp. I even heard one guy yelling as I went by, "SCAAAAAAMP YEAAAAAAAH!" Not many people know a Scamp when they see it.
After slowly building up the speed, I could keep up with those imports. Not all, but the ones I left with yes I could. The Scamp caught up to many motorcycles (the ones where the riders are amateur and smart enough NOT to ride beyond their capabilities). There were many cars and motorcycles that would pull off the side (when a pull-off was available) and let the Scamp scream on by. And there were lots of instances where El Scampo pulled over to let very fast motorcycles and a few fast cars go on by. But I am still flabbergasted at just how hard that Scamp would stick in the corners. I had a hard time staying in my vinyl seat, lap belt on and tight. I eventually found that if I steered with my left hand, and reached my right hand down the bottom of the seat in the center and held the seat frame, I could keep myself as steady in the seat as I was going to get. I kept wondering while RAILING through the turns harder than I ever thought the car would go, "has this suspension been upgraded / modified."
I just can't say enough about how badass the car did. I went through The Dragon twice. Left home at 7:00 am, and got back about 9:00 pm. I put 450 miles on the Scamp. Burned about 30 gallons, and averaged about 15.2 mpg. A helluva great day. I'll attach some Killboy pictures later, after stomaching how much I'm going to have to pay for them!
This past Saturday, I drove my Scamp to The Tail of the Dragon, in NC/TN. I've been there dozens of times, but only one other time on 4 wheels (1993 Mazda RX-7). It was a beautiful day on 4/5/2025.
I live south of Atlanta, but within Atlanta metro. The drive TO the Tail of the Dragon was ~205 miles. I went to the Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort (DGMR) to start with, had lunch, and lurched around the parking lot.
It was EXACTLY the same as I had noticed last year when I went to the Dragon 4 times, trailering a motorcycle (to Robbinsville), and made up my mind to bring the Scamp in 2025. By that I mean, on the way up there I saw a fair amount of antique / muscle cars. But once having arrived at DGMR, NOT ONE SINGLE ANTIQUE/MUSCLE CAR. It is as if The Tail of the Dragon is the Kryptonite of muscle cars.
So yeah, same thing. My 72 Scamp was in that parking lot all alone. No other contemporaries, not one. Lots of motorcycles of course. Packs of import cars, Corvettes, Porsche's, a Lambo or two, but not one other antique / muscle car. Nevertheless, El Scampo was going to make a run. And in that parking lot, many random people are coming up and asking lots of questions, giving me the thumbs up. The Scamp was getting lots of attention. Kind of what I figured would happen, since I figured there would be no other old cars there. I had people coming up saying, "that dude sounded bad-*** rolling through the parking lot."
So I fire El Scampo up. There were a few imports around about to fire up and leave. And I asked them, you mind if I leave at the back of your pack? You don't want me in front, I'm going to take it real easy with 4 drum brakes. They said SURE. So I left at the end of a pack of imports. And I did, I took it easy. The following is the point of making this post.
I WAS FLABBERGASTED AT JUST HOW GOOD THAT SCAMP HANDLED. I can drive a car. I can ride a bike. I raced motorcycles in the late 90's. I wore knee-pucks out. I'm not the badest *** rider or driver that's ever been, but I can drive pretty darn good. And that damn Scamp, holy cow. It handled WAY BETTER than I ever dreamed it would. Oh and on the first drive out from DGMR onto The Dragon, there was a crash, motorcycle vs. car, which I believe was fatal. So, no matter how hard you imagine I drove the car (below), I left room for error, and I stayed in my lane 100% because I didn't want to hit a motorcyclist, or destroy a Scamp.
As far as I know, the car is totally stock. And it's rolling on P215/60R14 (from my memory) cheapie tires. As I started into The Dragon, and was getting the feel of lobbing the car left and right, I slowly began inching up the pace. And the car took it and grinned. The LA360 with 727 trans is running TTi headers, an X-Pipe and no mufflers. An Edelbrock AVS carb I've tuned and tuned and tuned via an AFR gauge, and an Eaton True-Trac differential. Once into the meat of The Dragon (which is not far from DGMR), I pulled into 2nd gear and left it there. It was as if 2nd gear was MADE for The Dragon.
I pushed it a bit more, and then started hitting it hard out of the turns. OMG, it sounded like a damn old school NASCAR racecar. I pushed it to the point the tires were squealing that they were at their limit. The car seems so very well balanced. It's not an understeer or oversteer car. It's very neutral. I was surprised about that. I got worried that the amount of load I was putting on the front end (back and forth and back and forth) something was going to break. But nothing broke. There was a lot of people parked on the side of the road, and they'd hear the Scamp coming and started hooting and hollering cheering on the Scamp. I even heard one guy yelling as I went by, "SCAAAAAAMP YEAAAAAAAH!" Not many people know a Scamp when they see it.
After slowly building up the speed, I could keep up with those imports. Not all, but the ones I left with yes I could. The Scamp caught up to many motorcycles (the ones where the riders are amateur and smart enough NOT to ride beyond their capabilities). There were many cars and motorcycles that would pull off the side (when a pull-off was available) and let the Scamp scream on by. And there were lots of instances where El Scampo pulled over to let very fast motorcycles and a few fast cars go on by. But I am still flabbergasted at just how hard that Scamp would stick in the corners. I had a hard time staying in my vinyl seat, lap belt on and tight. I eventually found that if I steered with my left hand, and reached my right hand down the bottom of the seat in the center and held the seat frame, I could keep myself as steady in the seat as I was going to get. I kept wondering while RAILING through the turns harder than I ever thought the car would go, "has this suspension been upgraded / modified."
I just can't say enough about how badass the car did. I went through The Dragon twice. Left home at 7:00 am, and got back about 9:00 pm. I put 450 miles on the Scamp. Burned about 30 gallons, and averaged about 15.2 mpg. A helluva great day. I'll attach some Killboy pictures later, after stomaching how much I'm going to have to pay for them!
