Killer Curves 2021 | Lolly's

Cruz teaches a weekend course called “Curve Therapy,” aimed at drivers who’ve been humbled by the pass. Students range from teenage thrill-seekers to retirees who bought Porsches for their midlife crises. All of them arrive with the same expression: bruised ego, slight tremor in the hands.

“They thought they knew how to drive,” Cruz says with a smile. “Lolly proves otherwise.” Not everyone survives the lesson. The local volunteer fire department has a nickname for the ravine: “The Taker.” Wrecks happen about once a month, though only a handful make the news. Most are single-vehicle accidents—a Mustang that entered a 25-mph turn at 60, a pickup truck that misjudged the decreasing radius of “The Corkscrew,” a tourist in an RV who tried to take the hairpin wide.

“It’s a brotherhood,” says Frankie No-Last-Name, a retired trucker who’s run Lolly’s over 4,000 times. “You don’t master these curves. You just get a little less bad at them. And when you hit that last straight—the run down into Blue Summit—and your brakes are hot, and your knuckles are white, and you didn’t die? That’s not a drive. That’s a prayer answered.” There’s talk of straightening the worst sections. The state says it’s a safety issue. Locals say it’s an insult. lolly's killer curves

There’s a stretch of asphalt in the eastern Ozarks that mechanics don’t talk about, but their customers do. It’s not on any official tourism map, and the state highway department refuses to acknowledge the nickname. But if you ride a motorcycle, drive a stick-shift coupe, or pilot a lumbering 18-wheeler, you know exactly where it is.

The road begins innocently enough at the valley floor: a two-lane ribbon with gentle sweepers and forgiving shoulders. That’s the trap. By the time you hit the first serious bend—a blind, off-camber left known as “The Widow’s Wink”—you’re already committed. The asphalt tightens. The guardrails, dented and scarred, shrink to knee height. The drop-off on the right side vanishes into a ravine choked with oak and kudzu. Cruz teaches a weekend course called “Curve Therapy,”

By J.D. Rook Photography by Elena Mendez

For now, the curves remain. They are killers, yes—but they are also teachers. They remind you that some things aren’t meant to be easy. That speed without respect is just stupidity. And that a road, like a person, earns a reputation one corner at a time. “They thought they knew how to drive,” Cruz

The curves that made her famous are now a proving ground. From above, Lolly’s looks like a tangled rope thrown over a mountain. From the driver’s seat, it feels like a math problem you have to solve in real time—or die trying.