Join us for the 17th annual TT-East as we seek out new areas and head into the Interior Highlands to see the beauty and drive the wonderful roads of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Great people, great cars, and great roads is what makes TT-East the special event that it is. Please join us for the 17th annual TT-East so you can experience it for yourself. TT-East, by drivers for drivers.

Full details can be found at: http://tt-east2017.eventbrite.com. Registration will open on Thanksgiving 2016.

TT-East 2016 Video:
Pics & other videos from last year can be found on the TT-East facebook page, you do not need a FB account to view the page.

 

Do you get a lot of cancellations scheduling almost a year in advance? TT West gets about 15% cancellations and our registrations starts 4-5 months before the event.

 

Most of my cancellations typically happen within the 3 months before the event, it's usually only 1 or 2 and usually they are not the people who registered early.

The reason I announce the dates and open things this early is because some people have to ask for vacation time at the beginning of the year.

 

Your cancellation rate is better than ours, so obviously early registration is not a factor. We just advertise the when/where a year in advance but don't do registration until Spring. One reason is unexpected issues along the route might change the date. For example, the 2016 event was supposed to be the last week of September but by the Spring we discovered a major tourist event that had gobbled up most of the hotel rooms at our last city and was going to clog up several of our road routes for the last 2 days. The delay turned out to be the right move as there were several stories in the local papers about traffic jams along the rural routes we were to drive. Unfortunately, the temps were about 20 degrees cooler than the originally scheduled week (and the week after), almost daily showers, and sometimes snow.This year TT West is scheduled for the last week in September and goes from Vegas to Virginia City, NV TT West 2017 ? Death Valley, Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe

 

So far I've been lucky with area events, new ones haven't sprung up on me so checking old event calendars for areas always worked out. I do book the hotels a year or more in advance so even with the foliage trips I've been able to avoid problems with lodging. This year I had to book one of the critical ones in August for 2017 (Mt Magazine) and they were already over 50% full. I think issues like that are tougher for you since you don't have as many route options as I do, you have nicer places to stop though. My biggest issues are lunches and bathrooms, I usually have to have backup plans for some of them.

When I saw the 2016 date I was wondering if you were going to have to deal with snow, that must have been interesting.

 

When we left Laramie is was 60 degrees and sunny. The morning route took us through a mountain range with road elevation of 10,000 feet. There were heavy clouds on top of the range. As we approached the top, snow was at blizzard level and accumulating rapidly. We had about 4" of fresh snow for a while until we descended into rain. Few in this group had all-season tires. I had a fresh set of Michelin Super Sports. It seemed like tread depth was the primary factor in vehicle control. I had no problem whatsoever in my Quattro but quattros with low tread all-season tread were sliding at times. Driving in snow was a TT West first, a milestone I hope never to repeat. Later in the week we had small flurries some days at higher elevations but no accumulation nor ice.

Time of year is a major issue for our 2017 route because of the weather extremes. Spring was not an option because some of the Sierra Nevada roads are not plowed until late May while temps in Vegas and Death Valley are 100+. The last week in September is a good compromise of low 90s in daytime Vegas and 30s at night in the mountains but we still could get caught by a freak storm.

I have stopped reserving blocks of rooms at hotels because about half of our folks either don't take advantage of the group rate or stay somewhere else. I select a host hotel, make sure they have enough rooms available, provide hotel information to the registrants, and then folks are on their own.

Our biggest trip logistics issue is often gas stations. Because of the vast unpopulated expanse between incredible attractions, 75+ miles between stations was common on some of our past routes as you are driving through Nowhere Utah. I carry a spare tire for my Mk 2 and will share it with other Mk 2 owners because a flat tow/repair is an all day event in the rural west.

 

Wow you really got lucky in the snow. On my other car I put too many miles on it for summer tires so I use good all seasons and even in 1-2 inches of wet snow they are pretty useless (not AWD). In 2013 when we were coming down from Mt Washington in 30 degree weather my Super Sports were sliding just due to the cold. I've planned a few trips out west that I never took but I've seen how small the window is in some of the places you go, the extremes are pretty wild.

It's interesting how different things are, with my groups they tend to want to stay together (for dinner too) and they're not really picky about the hotels. In the small towns where I knew they would never fill up I would sometimes skip the block but even then they still all stayed in the same place so now I do them everywhere because of the discount on the rate. The only couple who doesn't stay with us are vegetarians who prefer to be able to cook their meals themselves.

I'd be afraid to take any long trip without a spare, we had someone who needed it this year. Were not in big expanses of nothing but cell phones usually don't work and we could still be 50 miles from the nearest real town with help. I always get a little nervous when people do on your own drives by themselves.

Fuel is definitely easier for us but when there are people involved there are still little issues. Even with planned fuel stops and stations notated in the directions at times where I think they may be needed it still doesn't always work out because I've had people that didn't keep track of what they had. In 2012 I had one person who almost ran out and in 2014 one of them had to take the direct route for the last section on their own since the route we were taking didn't have any stations along the way. I make a point about telling them to always start the day with a full tank and to always check at lunch but that only does so much.

My biggest issue now is I'm running out of route ideas. I don't have as wide an area as you do so outside of the Appalachians there really isn't anywhere else I can go and I think I've gone almost everywhere worth going. I have 2018-2020 planned and they're good trips but alomst everything is recycled from past trips.

Have a great holiday BTW.