South Florida Jaguar Club - 2001 JCC

The main event for the first day of the 2001 JCNA Championship challenge was a 150 miles round trip to visit the Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg, TN. Personally, I'm certainly not a drinker and don't like whiskey but I thought it was an interesting idea because of the history as this is the oldest distillery in the country. The fact that it was some 70 miles away was also an incentive... any excuse to drive especially on nice country roads. While a few of us enjoyed the driving, a few others decided to take the bus instead... something I find hard to understand... leaving Jaguars in the parking lot for a bus ride ! Maybe they just wanted to be able to sample the alcohol ...

We met in parking of the Mariott around noon, in the rain which luckily didn't last more than a few minutes. We ended up driving a small group consisting of 4 cars. Ginger Corda's 71 2+2 from the Orlando Club, Kerry Vickers' XJ12 from the South Carolina club with Dick Deibel, Richard Irving and Russel Glace on board and a red series 2 E-type OTS.

The directions given to us in form of a large scale map where not very precise and Brad Cline, my navigator, missed an intersection about halfway through the trip. We ended off course along with the 3 other cars who were following us, faithfully relying on our navigational skills...

But as bonus, we found this great country road to bring us back towards Lynchburg. Smooth surface, little traffic, plenty of turns and elevation changes.. a driver's paradise where hands are feet are kept busy... exit a turn, on the throttle, upshift into 3rd or 4th, then hit the brakes, downshift and go through the next next corner. For some reason along the way we loose the XJ12... after about 30 minutes of this, we get to Lynchburg TN, home of the Jack Daniel's distillery.

The tour, given by a colorful southern guide, is interesting and worth the hour of time. The distillery grounds are nice and provide a good location to take some pictures of the cars.

After the tour we head out to a nearby country style restaurant for an early dinner where Brad and I decide along with Ginger to take the long way home through that same road... it's just to nice not to enjoy. After another 40 miles of fun driving, we hit the Interstate for another 40 miles north towards Franklin and so fun high speed running.... two V12 E-types roaring side by side at speed of over xxxmph ... a sight rarely seen indeed.

Next on the schedule, for Wednesday is the JCNA sanctioned rally in the morning and a tour to an historic mansion in the afternoon...

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