The Emira showed up on a Tuesday. By Friday morning I was 312 miles south of Charlotte, gas-stop coffee cooling on the dash, looking at the sign that said Deal’s Gap · 318 curves in 11 miles. The Carolinas Lotus Association run had been on the calendar for six weeks. The car had been in my garage for three days.
This is what 1,400 miles did to it.
The first pass
I’d driven Tail of the Dragon before — once, in a rental Mustang, in 2019. It was a lot. The Emira made it feel different. Not faster, not really — the speeds at the Dragon don’t go that high when you’re being responsible. But the way the chassis settles into the apex, the way the brakes work the second time and the third time and the eighth time without ever fading, the way the steering tells you exactly what the front tire is doing — that’s what people are talking about when they say “the chassis.”
The CLA run was 14 cars. Two Emiras (including mine), three Elises, one Exige, one Evora, an old-money ‘95 Esprit V8 that Marco from NYML had trailered down, and an assortment of Elans and Sevens that the rest of us could not afford. Trevor Goodwin was running point in a 2011 Evora that looks brand new and goes like a hatch out of hell.
We did three passes Friday morning, lunch at the Tapoco Lodge, two more passes in the afternoon. Pacing was sensible. Nothing dramatic happened.
The second day
Saturday was Cherohala Skyway and Hellbender 28. Different roads, different rhythm. Long sweepers, fast straights, the kind of drive where you can settle the car at 75 mph and listen to the engine. The Emira’s V6 sounds better here than it does on the Dragon. The Dragon wants the chassis. Cherohala wants the powertrain.
Somewhere around mile 40 of the Skyway I started to notice the brake pedal getting longer.
“The brakes are the only part of the car that you can’t replace at the side of the road. Treat them like they’re loaned to you.” — Dale Henley, OVLE chapter lead, in this magazine, 2019
I knew that quote. I’d read it three years ago in ReMARQUE. I’d read it again last month when I was getting ready for this trip. I had not, in fact, treated the brakes like they were loaned to me.
The regret
By the time we got back to the Tapoco the rears were cooked. Not warped — cooked. The pads had been transferring material onto the rotors at a rate the rotors could not absorb. The pedal was long because the rear pistons were having to travel further to reach what was left of the pad surface. The fronts were fine. The fronts are always fine. The Emira sends, by my count, slightly less than I’d like to the rear.
The fix was a tire change I hadn’t planned for (the right rear had picked up a screw on Saturday afternoon, unrelated and unlucky), and a careful, slow drive back to Charlotte on Sunday. The rears were swapped at the dealer on Tuesday. The car has 1,847 miles on it now. The rears were at 8% of their original thickness.
I am going to do this again next year. I am going to bring a different brake pad.
What I’d tell you
Three things, none of them new, all of them re-learned at expense:
- The Emira’s stock pads are road pads. They are very, very good road pads. They are not Deal’s Gap pads. If the calendar says you’re going to do five passes through anything technical, plan for at least one pad swap, ideally to something with a higher friction coefficient at temperature.
- Stagger the group. We did our second pair of Saturday passes nose-to-tail. The car behind you breathes the heat off your rears as much as your own brakes do. Give yourself space.
- Bring the chapter. I’d done this drive alone in a Mustang. I did it again with a CLA group. The second experience was 10x better, and not just because the Esprit V8 in front of me sounded the way it did. The drive is a road. The chapter is the reason to do the drive.
Next year, Cherohala first, Dragon second, fewer passes, better pads. Tapoco for two nights.
I am looking forward to it.
Samir Naidu joined Lotus Ltd. in 2016 and drives a 2008 Exige Cup 240 (his “track car”) and a 2024 Emira (“the daily that pretends not to be”). He is a member of the Carolinas Lotus Association.