View source

From Trackpedia

You do not have permission to edit pages, for the following reason:

You can view and copy the source of this page:

[[Image:OLALogo.png|One Lap Logo]] ==Schedule== *May 5th - Wet Skidpad, Oval, and Autobahn Raceway, Illinois (<b>143 mi travel</b>) *May 6th - Mid America Motorplex, Iowa (<b>452 mi travel</b>) *May 7th - Miller Motorsports Park, Utah (<b>984 mi travel</b>) *May 8th - Pueblo Motorsports Park, Colorado (<b>682 mi travel</b>) *May 9th - Hallet Raceway, Oklahoma (<b>570 mi travel</b>) *May 10th - O'Reilly Raceway Park, Indiana (drag & bracket racing) (<b>683 mi travel</b>) *May 11th - Mid Ohio Sports Car Course, Ohio (<b>247 mi travel</b>) *May 12th - Dry Skidpad @ TireRack HQ, Indiana (<b>261 mi travel</b>) <b>Note: Travel denotes distance from previous event site.</b> == Team Profile == The team was founded in early 2007. Doug's other two team mates from the 2006 One Lap of America were blessed with family growth and other commitments. So he started off in search of two other competent drivers to take their places, what he found instead was Ken and Devin. :-) He wisely chose to search for help within the Clemson Sports Car Club and found an alumni member and student member that fit the bill. Doug chose Ken for his NASA Time Trials experience, and Devin for his autocross skill. Both will come in handy during this adventure ===Drivers=== Doug Wind - Age before Beauty, owner of the Trackpedia.com SRT-4, and main competition driver. Doug will be driving all of the events not listed below. Doug is also a graduate of Clemson University (but in a previous decade - and he won't say which one...) Devin "Conecy" Clancy - hasn't met a cone he likes yet; good thing there won't be any that "count" out there on track. Slated to drive at Miller Motorsports Park and both Wet and Dry Skidpad events. He is also known as the "Ragin' Cajun" due to his New Orleans roots and is a current Clemson University Junior majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Ken "Angry Texan" Brewer - the next best thing to come out of Texas since Ross Perot. This real live version of Yosemite Sam is slated to drive at Hallet and be the drag racing specialist. He is rumored to drive wearing cowboy boots for racing shoes and a 10 gallon hat for a helmet. Ken is a Clemson graduate with a degree in Financial Management with an emphasis in Real Estate. And we can't leave this section without a shout-out to the real Team Manager and Leader, Sheila Wind, who has helped tremendously by preparing a giant guidebook for the event, as well as taking care of things like hotel reservations, etc. Thanks again Sheila for doing all the behind the scenes work and being "team mom" for the 3 of us!! ===The Car=== Doug's SRT4 It's just a stock Neon; we swear! [[Image:TrackpediaOneLapTeam2007.jpg|Team Picture]] Doug (Left), Devin (Center), Ken (Right) The Modification List: *<b>Engine</b> **Mopar SuperCenter 2.4L long block **Mopar Stage 3R w/ toys **Stage 3R wastegate **AIS intercooler w/ Stage 3 sprayers **Rage Tech ported intake manifold **Iceman 60mm throttle body **Rage Tech UPP pipe **Samco hotside hose **Greddy BOV **Denso ITV-22 sparkplugs/wires **Iceman cold air intake **MaxxFab Side Exit Exhaust (SEE) w/ a Magnaflow muffler *<b>Electronics</b> **Tach driver **Summit's premium battery relocation kit **Optima red top battery **AEM UEGO Wideband A/F gauge **Autometer EGT pyrometer gauge **Autometer 30psi boost gauge. *<b>Drivetrain</b> **Mopar short throw shifter with booger bushings. **ModernPerformance shift knob **Centerforce clutch **Forward motion motor/transmission mounts *<b>Exterior</b> **IPP Gen 2 Carbon Fiber hood **APR Carbon Fiber wind splitter **Hella FF50 driving lights *<b>Interior</b> **Sparco Alcantara steering wheel w/Momo hub **Custom 6 Pt cage w/ removable door bars by Race Car Builders of South Florida **FIA spec. roll cage padding **Viper seats fitted with Carbon by Design harness locators **Simpson Platinum 6 point cam-lock harnesses for driver and passenger w/ custom mounts **Passenger side airbag delete tray *<b>Suspension</b> **Koni 8611-Insert based Coilovers **Eibach custom springs **Ground Control camber plates **DC Sport strut tower bars **Hotchkis tubular swaybars front and rear with proper endlinks **Rage Tech solid lower control arm bushings **Energy Suspensions Polyurethane on all remaining bushings *<b>Wheels</b> **O.Z. Superleggera 17”x8” wheels (16.4lbs) w/35mm offset **Yokohama Advan Neova tires - 245/40/17 **SkyTek (by ARP) racing wheel studs *<b>Brakes</b> **TCE BBK w/ 13" slotted 2-piece rotors up front and 1-piece slotted rear rotors **Wilwood 4 piston calipers up front **Wilwood performance brake pads **Stainless steel brake lines front and back ==The One Lap of America Challenge== Schedule Link: http://onelapofamerica.com/history/schedule.shtml?y=2007 Rules and Classing Structure: http://onelapofamerica.com/rulesForms/rules.doc Specific Tire Policies: http://onelapofamerica.com/rulesForms/tirePolicy2007.doc 2007 Entrant List: http://onelapofamerica.com/history/entrantList.shtml?y=2007 Summary: You're given one set of tires to drive your car to all the events and then do the competition timed runs while you're at each track. Competitors have very little time to learn the tracks, typically just a track walk and one warm-up lap before competing. You're then ranked on your times and assigned points, person with the most points wins (either within their class or overall...). Between the limited amount of time to learn each track, the challenges of reliability or lack thereof, and the limited time you're given to reach the next event, One Lap is considered one of the most difficult automotive challenges known to man. ==Our Account of One Lap 2007== during the event, click here: http://www.trackpedia.com//forums/showthread.php?p=23492 Upon our return, we'll clean up our entries, add any bonus material, and host them below. If time permits during the event, we will transfer entries from the forums onto here, but you're best bet for updates is undoubtedly the link above. Don't forget to join the Facebook group! Post Event Copy/Paste from messageboard to here as follows: Pre-Event Graphics: [[image:OLOA_07_graphicsday_1.jpg‎]] [[image:OLOA_07_graphicsday_2.jpg]] [[image:OLOA_07_graphicsday_3.jpg]] the 6' long MoparSuperCenter stickers were the real PITAs... esp where it went over the door handle..... Graphics - as done as we can do them until we get our packet of required ones at registration Brakes - done just a bit of reinstallation around the front end (bumper, splittler, fender liners, lights) and we're good to go, we're hoping to head out of Greenville SC for TireRack HQ by lunchtime and arrive in time for drinks & a hearty meal Day 1 – Driving to Southbend, IN By: Devin Clancy Common knowledge for any One Lap veteran and a lesson learned quickly for any rookie is that the main competition ender lies not on the racetrack but rather the roads separating them. We got a brief taste of that today. Like any true grassroots motorsport enthusiasts, we waited until the night before we left to do some much needed maintenance to the car and apply sponsor graphics, and like any such night tends to go… nothing went according to schedule. For instance, two guys trying to apply a six foot graphic that conveniently crosses directly over a door handle takes time, a lot of time, especially when you have to do it twice and they’ve never done anything like it before. Fortunately for us, we believe in the credo that stickers are indeed proportional to speed. After starting at 6 pm and applying graphics until 2:30 in the morning we were able to get a quick nap in before waking up at 7:30am in order to head back to Doug’s in order to get the maintenance portion of our list done. Honestly, what better way can you think of to start an event that tests the limits of you and your car’s endurance by not sleeping? Brilliant, eh? Yeah, we’re good like that. During maintenance, we encountered a few minor setbacks, like the tire sidewall barely resting on the spring perch without the suspension compressed. Some screwdrivers, hammers, and cursing came together in a last minute fit of fury through Doug’s hands in order to make clearance for the tire. That and other problems solved, we finally got the trailer loaded and got on the road at 5:30 pm. The original plan was to leave at noon. Off to a great start… … but the fun didn’t stop there. It’s at this point that I should probably tell you that in a last minute fit of genius and planning, we decided to bring one of Doug’s old BMX bikes from the days when he was still moving without a walker ( ) in order to allow us to walk tracks quicker if we were in a time crunch. Having no room left in the car or trailer, plus no bike rack, we decided to tie strap the bike on top of the trailer. Now it’s at this point that I should also probably tell you that we didn’t inspect the 14 year old straps because we were rushing to leave at that point (hindsight is 20/20 by the way). Well ~70 miles into our trip, in Asheville, NC, it started to pour. In an amazing bit of foresight, Doug quickly turned around to check the state of our securely mounted bike, which, to no surprise now, was getting ready to fall off of the trailer. We quickly got off of the interstate and pulled toward a gas station, only to have the bike finally fall off of the back of the trailer in a decently busy intersection. A Chinese fire drill and some strange looks later, we had the bike wrangled and were sitting at the gas station. Lucky for us, we had exited at the exit I live off of in Asheville when I am working, so I knew exactly where to go in order to get new, non-frayed/non-broken tie straps. (Thanks for the St. Joseph’s Lucky Bean, Mom, it is velcro’d to the roll cage!) Still, though, the road’s hazing ritual was incomplete. About 2 hours after the bike incident, the car threw a check engine code, TPS Sensor issues. During our reading of the code, I got under the hood to investigate a burning smell, only to be greeted a fire-red glowing exhaust housing on the turbo. Ken was previously powering up a series of hills, but not being familiar with turbo cars, he was unaware of the massive affects this would have on EGTs due to the increased load placed on the motor. Simple fix: less throttle on the hills. We monitored EGTs for a good while after the stop, and everything is fine, thankfully. As for the TPS, well it’s still giving us problems, so we’re just going to have to disconnect and reconnect the battery every time we run the car until we can sort it out. As for the drive to Southbend, IN, we abandoned ship tonight at midnight in Georgetown, Kentucky due to us all wanting some much needed sleep. We will get back on the road tomorrow morning and hopefully make it to Southbend by noon. Devin Pictures: [[image:1_day10002.jpg]] [[image:C_day10021.jpg]] [[image:6_day10023.jpg]] Yeah, you need spares... of everything [[image:3_day10001.jpg]] And it needs to fit in our U-Haul/Delorean Trailer. [[image:8_day10012.jpg]] Ken packs enough clothes for a small army, only forgetting to bring his palm tree branch for fanning. I guess that's why they call him Princess. [[image:6_day10007.jpg]] The lucky bean... being lucky! (Yes, I'm aware it looks like gum) [[image:D_day10010.jpg]] The culprit and the carnage... [[image:0_day10028.jpg]] [[image:B_day10030.jpg]] Coming soon to a highway near you! [[image:F_day10016.jpg]] Sticker Day Day 2 - Arrival, Tech, Driver's Meeting, and "Sticker Day" By Ken Brewer One detail to add to Day 1: We finally had the car loaded, everything hooked up, and everyone in their initial seats. I go to pull away from Doug’s driveway and stall the car not even one inch into the trip. What a great start eh? At any rate… The day started off great this morning, we all forgot to set the alarm clock… but we didn’t sleep in too bad and were up, ready and on the road by 8:30am. It was a big case of “I thought you did it!” Despite the later than planned start, we arrived in South Bend, IN (home of Notre Dame) around noon and finally bumped into some other competitors on the road before we stopped for lunch. Friday before the event is fondly referred to as “sticker day”. We soon found out why. After going through registration, signing a bunch of waivers, releases, and photographer permission slips, we were handed a giant stack of required stickers that took a few hours to apply to the car before we went through tech. We managed to get them all on and get through tech just before the big pre-event driver’s meeting. One of the first questions posed at the driver’s meeting was “who hasn’t done this before”. It seemed like easily more than half of the people at the meeting were new to this kind of ordeal. The rest of the meeting covered topics such as flags, passing procedures, routes from track to track, a quick reminder on the rules of the event (both on and off track) and a few general procedures. After the meeting, we swapped on new brake rotors and pads on the front of the car that Doug bedded in specifically for One Lap at NASA Ohio-Indiana region’s event at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course a few weeks ago. From there, we left to eat and drink at the party at the host hotel in South Bend. The biggest surprise of the day so far to me has been the wide range of cars attending the event. They ranged from the giant RV driven by some Yagermiester employees to a Porsche GT2 driven by 3 time event winner DeVia, and everything in between. Some of the standouts, in my opinion, were a Ford GT, a pair of Lotus Exiges, a variety of C4 and C5 Corvettes, a 2nd generation MR2 (that I need to find out more about of course…), a group of Subaru STis of various levels of preparation, a team driving a retired Police Interceptor with a trailer made from the front half of another Crown Victoria, a Lotus 7 clone that exposes the driver to the elements due to its fully open cockpit design, and lastly one of the most ridiculous Subaru Imprezas I’ve ever seen complete with a newer generation STi drivetrain, homemade rear diffuser, very wide wheels (on the order of 18”x9.5”) and rugged universal fender flares that look more at home on a Jeep than a racecar. That old (circa 1997) Subaru definitely looked all business to me. There were also a surprising amount of paddock girls skating around in various skimpy outfits. We might have to talk to them a bit more… . Today was also a chance to meet some of our fellow competitors and friends we knew from other car stuff that the 3 of us do. After drooling over the hardware that will be used over the next week, Devin broke out a huge stack of Clemson tiger paw stickers in a plethora of colors. With a twinkle in his eye, he grabbed a handful and began walking around the Tire Rack parking lot. You’ll see more in the photo post below… Tomorrow we face a triple header of events with the Wet Skidpad tests at TireRack HQ, the ¼ mile oval at South Bend Speedway, and a few laps at Autobahn Country Club a short jaunt from South Bend. From there we will be traveling to the hotel we’re staying at for the night near Mid-America Motorplex. Thanks for all the support and interest so far! Trust me when I say the best hasn’t even started yet!! - day 2 pictures - Day 3: Wet Skid Pad, Oval, Autobahn Country Club By: Devin Clancy Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! With three events in 7 hours followed by a 450 miles dash to Pacific Junction, Iowa, the first day undoubtedly sets the tone for the rest of the event. The festivities of last night are quickly forgotten in the wave of adrenaline that ensues when the green flag drops. Today we ran three events: the wet skid pad, a “po-dunk” ¼ mile oval, and Autobahn Country Club. Wet Skid Pad First at the plate was the wet skid pad, which I was slated to drive. The wet skid pad is an event at a dedicated skid pad in front of Tire Rack’s building where cars will drive two laps clockwise and two laps counterclockwise with the best lap in each direction entered into a fancy equation that produces lateral grip (G’s) numbers. These numbers are averaged in order to get the final grip score. Now, I’ve had a lot of low speed/wet 10/10ths driving experience from autocross, but the fact that I had never driven Doug’s car in a competition environment, much less around a wet 200ft circle with sprinkler splashes contantly in my face weighed heavily on my mind. One thing that did help the situation, though, is that for this particular 200ft skid pad, there was nothing to hit besides grass and TireRack.com signs… Excccelllennntt. After setting the double adjustable Koni’s on full-soft in rebound and compression and disconnecting the front sway bar per the advice of Speed World Challenge driver, Brian Smith, we were finally ready to start this event after two days of anticipation. I set out with a simple plan in mind: keep my line as tight as possible no matter what and drive it as fast as it will go before it starts to understeer. But like all simple plans… shit happens. Imagine my surprise when I took the car to the limit of traction and then the back end began to step out mid corner under load! Our last second front sway bar disconnection had biased the suspension just enough to turn our stereotypical plow machine into a dirt tracker (OOPS). So after a small “dirt track’n it” exhibition, our averaged lateral G’s in both the clockwise and counterclockwise directions averaged to ~.82 G’s, and I was bummed because the car had a lot more in it. My disappointment was mitigated slightly after I found out that was good enough for 21st overall and 3rd in class. Random Oval Three miles down the road from Tire Rack, in a part of town that you would never expect to find an oval (you know, one with more junkyards than homes, more mullets than genes in the pool), there it was, a genuine example of a good ole’ boy racetrack (see pictures), and I thought, “just my kind of place,” seriously. While Ken and Doug were unloading our cargo onto the beautifully landscaped dirt and rock paddock, I made my way up into the grandstands to check out the track, and oh boy what a track it was. The track was a ¼ mile, semi-freshly sealed but still broken pavement oval. To make things more interesting, there was a defined racing line around the track where the surface sealer had been worn away, so there was only one fast way around the track. A couple people that I watched seemed to be driving in a conservation mode in order to just make it past this sketchy track, so I figured it would be a good time to put my foot down, even though, at this point, I was still not truly familiar with the car. Go big or go home, right? We set the car’s suspension up in a true oval fashion since we only had to run in one direction and, because the track was so short, set the boost to a conservative setting just because we felt more power wasn’t necessary. In hindsight, we probably could have run more boost, but ah well. The car was fast enough for a 10th place overall and 1st in class finish! Game on. Autobahn Country Club Next stop was Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Illinois. Unfortunately, the roads separating the oval and Autobahn would deliver us some unpleasant news. It all started when Ken, being Ken, proceeded to completely top off our tank at a gas station outside the oval even though we all just had a talk about how much gas to put in the car so we would make in to Autobahn (100 miles from the oval) with barely any gas in the tank as not to dilute the race gas we were going to put into the car. Therefore, due to a lack of gas cans present and being in a hurry, we decided to turn the boost up full wick and attempt to get the worst gas mileage we could (constant fifth gear 5 second pulls, windows down, A/C on, etc.). We were doing our part in the fight against global warming. Well at one particular toll booth, I rolled into the throttle in second gear only to have the car pull increasingly more to the right the more throttle I gave it. Fortunately, Doug has this same problem last year, unfortunately, it means the control arm is loose, hooray. Eventually we make it to Autobahn, and after fixing the car’s problems, Doug gets geared up to go lay down some fast laps on a course he’s never driven before, but he did have time to ride it through a couple of times on our ever handy BMX bike. Feeling comfortable, confident, and young again Doug makes completes his warm up lap and finds himself lined up behind a built Mustang and a C4 Corvette. The green drops and Doug takes the first couple of turns at a stellar pace and disappears into the back half of the track. When he emerges onto the front straight, Doug has caught the Mustang and proceeds to blow by him and disappear into the back half of the course on Lap 2. Two-thirds of the way through the second lap, Doug ran down and passed the C4 that had started in front of the Mustang. Here is probably a good time to remind you that starts in One Lap are standing, and each car is staggered by ~12 seconds, track dependant. Therefore, when I saw this, I knew Doug was on a flying set of laps. Doug’s great effort for the first time on this track was good enough for 20th overall; unfortunately, everyone else in our class stepped up as well, so the finish was only good for 5th in class. Doug’s need for speed didn’t end there, though. After leaving Autobahn, Doug officially christened the trip by being the first one to be pulled over by a cop (77 in a 55). Thanks to some smooth talking and sad puppy faces, Doug was able to convey to the officer, who thought we were drag racing across the country, that we were actually keeping the racing off of the streets by doing it all on racetracks across the country, and that the only reason he was going faster than the posted speed limit was in order to guarantee more sleep at the next hotel. Amazingly, Doug was let off with a warning even though the officer said he was going to have to write a ticket for that speed. We think Doug should go into sales  Finally, the best news is that after three events, we are currently sitting 11th overall and 2nd in class! Today’s Results (Cliffnotes): 1. Wet Skid Pad (21st overall, 3rd in class) 2. Oval (10th overall, 1st in class) 3. Autobahn Country Club (20th overall, 5th in class) Total: 11th overall, 2nd in class. Sorry for the long post, but a lot happened today due to the three events that took place, and we actually care about keeping you guys updated. NOTE: This blog was uploaded from a rest area because we may or may not have wireless internet tonight due to hotel wireless problems from the thunderstorms in the area. Therefore, pictures may not be posted until tomorrow, but rest assure, we will get them up. Devin - day 3 pictures here - Day 4 - Mid-America Motorplex, The Battle with Mother Nature, and The Long Haul By Ken Brewer Today began like the rest of the days proceeding… too early for comfort. We had arranged at check in to have a late checkout, which allowed us to leave our clothes and such at the hotel, a mere 2 miles from the track. It had continued to rain throughout the night and finally started relenting once we arrived at the track. That move to leave our clothes high and dry was a good one. We arrived at the track and began to bleed the brakes when an air raid siren sounded and an announcement came over the track’s PA to take cover due to a tornado warning for our immediate area. Luckily the tornado never materialized and we went on with preparing the car for the now only session at MAM. Doug ended up driving in the 3rd run group with 4 of the Subarus, a VW Beetle, and the Audi S6 driven by TC Klein. The people in the first 2 groups were all competitors that were ranked higher than us, and we all faced a fairly wet track, with large puddles in some straightaways and braking zones. We gained ground on 2 of the Subarus, but the Audi and the other 2 Subies outran us by just a touch. When we left, we were about 13th out of the 24 cars that had run so far according to the stopwatch, notebook, and math of Ray Krowlewicz, Jon Krowlewicz’s father (and I know I most likely misspelled their last names, apologies in advance!). Ray is quite the character and a very awesome guy to hang around if you ever get the chance. He is also a human timing system, and is impressive to see in action to say the least, with accuracy relative to the official results in the tenths and hundredths of a second range with just a stopwatch, notebook, and lightning fast stopwatch finger. Ray also competes in mega marathons in the 24-48 hour and beyond range. As we were leaving there was a dry path beginning to develop, which meant that we were sure to get dropped in the rankings as the competitors behind us got to face more favorable track conditions. We ended up 31st overall for the day, but improved to 10th overall and 2nd in class for the entire event so far due to one competitor ahead of us receiving a DNF due to mechanical issues with his Noble M12 and the another receiving a DNF after a mild excursion, a brush with the tire wall, and one buried in the mud Corvette. We left the track with Doug at the wheel, and rain began to fall throughout that tank of gas and lunch. I was next up and as soon as I entered the interstate the rain relented, but I got to face some of the most boring sections of interstate known to man, I-80 West out of Omaha and across most of Nebraska. There were lots of farms and about 180 miles of interstate that hardly turned, and that was about it. At one point near the end of the tank I spotted a few hills, and was so excited I pointed them out to Devin, who just stared blankly back at me with that “are you kidding me?” look on his face. Apparently having his attention brought up from video editing to see a few mild hills was not as exciting to him as it was me. After that tank, it was Devin’s turn and about 10 minutes into his stint we started hitting hills and mountains. We caught up to one of the chief event organizers Brock Yates, Sr., during the mid point of Devin’s stint at the wheel. Brock’s co-driver decided to see what his C3500 Dually had in comparison to the SRT4 and Devin was forced to downshift to pull ahead before we reached really less than legal speeds. Some guys get all the luck. At the end of Devin’s tank it was time to refill not only the car but our stomachs as well. As we filled the tank we were approached by a middle aged gentleman who wanted to know what was going on with all these cars that were “blowing my doors off all day”. Doug explained the event to him as I filled up the tank and Devin ran off to wrangle and tiger tag a tumbleweed. And I’m supposed to be the Texan here... at any rate. At dinner in the attached “Burger Bell” (combination Taco Bell and Burger King), we ran into Brock Yates Jr., one of the other chief event organizers who informed us that I-80 eastbound had been closed behind us due to “blowing snow”. As we left and got further into the Wyoming Mountain Passes with Doug at the wheel we saw why. You’ll also get to see why when Devin’s photos are up from today, words can’t describe how picturesque this scenery was. I am still in amazement. Currently as I write this in “the office” its 9:41 Mountain Time, and we’re still in Wyoming and about 300 miles short of Toole, Utah and our hotel near Miller Motorsports Park. Doug is spray washing the car to make sure it is presentable, and Devin is on the phone. We’re hoping to still get a decent amount of sleep despite the nearly 1000 mile trek though some extreme weather we’ve faced today. We’ll update you as to how Devin does at Miller as soon as possible. Until then, enjoy your day! - Day 4 pictures here - Day 5: Miller Motorsports Park By: Devin Clancy Well I almost died today… a couple of times (Please resume breathing mom, it’s not as bad as it sounds, sort of…). Today started out as a brisk clear morning about 25 minutes outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. After a scant 3 hours of sleep following getting in at 3 a.m. local time, we loaded our things into the car and made our way to Utah’s relatively brand new $85,000,000 motorsports facility. If there was heaven on Earth, I think we found it. Not only is this a world-class race track, it’s surrounded by the most beautiful scenery these eyes have ever seen. Being secure in my manhood, I can say that it almost brought a tear to my eye; it was just that spectacular. Although, that feeling of amazement was quickly worn away during my bicycle laps of the East Course, which reminded my Louisiana-sea level lungs that they were at some obscene altitude at which they were never designed to operate. The shot sidewall on the rear bike tire didn’t make things any easier. After catching my breath, and Doug and Ken setting up the car, it was time to start the morning session. The majority of the people on One Lap had never been to Miller before, so today was a great day to put your foot through the firewall, and put some distance on our competitors, and that’s the mind set I was going out with. We were sent out in the third group behind an M3 and in front of a Ford GT, which didn’t seem too thrilled about being lined up behind our slow Neon. Two laps into the session, I had passed the M3 in front of me (which was sent out around 12-15 seconds before me), and the Ford was nowhere to be seen in my mirrors. “Great!,” I thought, “this session is going really well,” so I keep pushing. On the last lap of the session, the brake pedal started to feel slightly spongy. No problem, only around 8 turns remained, with only two more hard braking zones. Got through the first braking zone with no problem, only one left to go. Pumped up the brakes on the straight, good pedal feel, reached my brake marker, hit the brakes, and the pedal hit the firewall… shit. With the rocky Utah landscape quickly approaching I downshifted, tried to slow the car down, and then came to the realization that the car was headed off. Once the car hit the rocks, my one goal was to get the car back on safely track in order to not this session’s time completely away. I let the car rotate in the gravel, mashed the gas, and pulled the car back onto the pavement. I’m told I left a spectacular dust cloud that was worthy of blotting out the sun, but I’ll have to wait for pictures in order to be sure. (Video of said off can be found here: http://clemsonscc.com/Gallery/media....70508051637690 . I have no idea how to provide just the downloadable link, and I am way to tired to try, so if someone could figure it out, that would be grand ) I was sure I had ruined that session’s time, but the effort was good enough for 12th overall, and 2nd in class. The guy in front of us in class, Matthew Ball – White STi, was two seconds ahead of our time and 8th overall. Losing at least 4 seconds with that off, I wonder what might have been, but playing the what if game is not my style and there is still one session left in the day: The Grand Course (~4.5 Miles and 23 turns of track utopia). First things first, though, we re-bled the entire brake system and changed the front rotors in order to make it, hopefully, a little more reliable under braking on this much longer course that features more hard braking zones than the East Course. At this point you must understand that Miller is a very high speed track that rewards having some big brass ones, and I have no problem with tracks like that. What I do have a problem with is attempting said tracks without brakes, and boy was I in store for a ride. Our morning effort had been good enough to land us as the first car out in the second group for the full course session. Being fairly confident that our bleeding (we thought water had gotten into the master cylinder when we bled the brakes in the rain at Mid America) and rotor swaps had cured the problems of the morning, I went out in an attempt to make good for my off during the morning. Lucky for me, everything worked just like it was supposed to ……. for a lap and a half. At that point, the brake pedal felt like cooked pasta and continually wanted to shake hands with Mr. Firewall. Pumping the for my life between every corner, I made the judgment call to soldier on for the next one and a half laps because, lets face it, One Lap is about putting up every day during every session or going home with your tail between your legs. That being said, the next one and a half laps were undoubtedly the scariest time I have ever spent on a race track. The feeling that goes through your gut when you are approaching a turn at 140mph, after pumping brakes during the entire straight, only to have the brake pedal go almost all the way to the floor is not something I would recommend experiencing. Good thing I started that braking zone early... I managed to hustle the car around the remaining lap and a half by pumping the brakes for each turn and pitching the car into every turn in an attempt to have the tires slow me down. After a number of “Oh Shit” / “Hey Ya’ll Watch This” moments, I finally made it to the checker and was able to resume breathing. At this point, I would also like to thank the lucky bean for the obvious reasons  Despite the departure of the braking system, the laps were good enough to land 7th overall and 2nd in class (behind by .7 seconds). For having never driven this car on track (sans the oval) and losing brakes half way through, I'm content with that finish Makes you wonder how fast this car could be with functional brakes, which we will hopefully soon find out. Amazingly, our problems weren’t the worst of the day. Steven Rankins had a two piece rotor completely separate (the hat from the rotor) while entering a particularly fast section of the track. Needless to say, he DNF’d that session, although he was able to find some stock replacement rotors and get back out for the afternoon session. Luke and Doug in the TopSpeed Subaru had a motor eat itself due to passing all it’s oil out while they were running full bore on track. It’s unknown whether they are going to attempt to replace the motor or just call it quits. We, on the other hand, were able to locate some Castrol SRF in order to completely eliminate the brake problem, since we believe the fluid currently in the calipers is not suited to handle the heat dissipated from the rotor due to our all-out race pads, which may be a tad too aggressive. Cliffnotes: Morning: East Course; 12th overall, 2nd in class Afternoon: Full Course; 7th overall, 2nd in class Overall Current Standings; 7th overall, 2nd in class Next stop, Pueblo Motorsports Park, with Doug back at the wheel. Devin - day 5 pictures here - Day 6: Mechanical Madness By: Ken Brewer Last night was one of the more intense passages from track to track so far. These western towns are spaced out quite a bit, and combined with the route we took that didn’t involve any interstates and we found ourselves in the wilderness nearly stranded between towns with nearly no gas. We drove up hills fighting to stay out of boost and we coasted down the hills in neutral trying to save as much gas as possible to have any chance whatsoever to make it out of the middle of the national forest we were in. We found out that if you ignore the gas light in an SRT4 long enough it will blink and chime at you when it really decides its almost empty. We did make it into the next town, but we did have to tap into the reserve gallon stored in the trailer. We had to drive past 4 closed gas stations before we found an open one to fill up… again. We’ve given up trying to keep track of the number of fill ups, but we think that even Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear could outdistance us on a tank of gas in his Ford GT (for those of you that remember that episode anyway…) We were all feeling the effects of fatigue and sleep depravation over the treks so far, and after the intense adventure in gas mileage racing we ended up having to take a roadside nap to make it safely. We arrived at the hotel around 2:30am after the delay. It was another early morning for us as we had to look over the brakes to make sure the fluid issue Devin had at Miller would not manifest itself again. We flushed through the old fluid and found out that Castrol SRF has a purple tinge to it in direct sunlight. The first session went well with Doug at the wheel with no fade to be found at the slightly renegade style track of Pueblo Motorsports Park. The front straight is very Brainerd-esque with a medium speed sweeper leading onto the dragstrip and shut down area that let the cars put on a symphony of exhaust notes for the crowds which included Doug’s brother Tom and his mother Elaine who drove down from Denver to visit and cheer the team on. We placed 8th overall and 3rd in class for the session, getting edged out by Matthew Ball’s STi and the other SRT4 in class by just a little bit of time considering we are all scored on 3 combined consecutive laps. With the car behaving that session and a long break before the next one, all that was left to do was wash the car. This brought on a frenzy of other people who figured it was time they washed their cars too. In true One Lap fashion we let our fellow competitors borrow some of our washing equipment, but with a little bit of a twist, as we required them to allow us to affix a Tiger paw in exchange. You’ll see more in Devin’s pictures. Towards the end of the car washing frenzy a strange exhaust note was heard, one we all had not heard since early in the morning at Miller Motorsports Park. We all looked towards the paddock entrance to see the Top Speed Subaru Impreza with a full new model STi swap. You might remember it from the pictures; it’s the red one with the big homemade diffuser hanging underneath it. They had spent all afternoon and night swapping out their blown engine for a new one just to get back in the event. They were met with cheers and applause from all. The second session went fairly smoothly as well, with Doug driving the Mopar Super Center and Trackpedia SRT4 to another 3rd in class and 9th overall. The other SRT4 unfortunately had a DNF due to an intercooler hose popping off, causing the car to run on next to zero power. He was able to limp the car back into the pits and their team quickly fixed the issue, but it was too late for them to make their run as they had already began an attempt earlier. We spotted an issue of our own as we switched from track to street pads for the haul to Oklahoma. A motor mount bolt that was cut about 4 threads too long had been rubbing the oil pan and finally rubbed enough for a hairline crack to develop and create a decently significant oil leak. We decided to take a page out of the “Rob Summer’s Racecar Fabrication Handbook” and fix it ourselves with America’s favorite metal repair putty. Doug’s brother Tom took me to the Checker Auto Parts store down the street for some quick dry JB Weld and supplies to change the oil since we would have some forced downtime, as even “quick” JB Weld recommends 4 hours curing time. Not leaving anything to chance and epoxies, Doug called up our friends at Mopar Super Center to have a spare oil pan overnighted to Hallet in case our patch doesn’t work adequately. They were able to come through and get everything to FedEx, even though it was 5:35pm their time. While we waited for the patch to cure we took a few moments to walk around the paddock and talk with other competitors who suffered setbacks as well. There was a gentleman with a fairly new and beautiful sounding M6 that had broken an upper control arm in the morning session, patched it with some heim joints and threaded rod scavenged from a local hardware store, and then had the hub carrier fail somehow due to the makeshift repair during the second session.. He was waiting on the required parts to be brought in from the closest BMW dealer. Of course the dealer didn’t have the part in stock, and was less than receptive to disassembling a car to give him the parts, so he bought the car outright and told them to take the parts off, put on new ones when they arrived and he would fly in later to take the car home. Yes, he bought an entire spare M6 just for the parts he needed to finish. The competitors parked next to us in an E46 M3 were suffering from a blown power steering hose and was waiting on someone to bring it to them from that same closest BMW dealer. Their parts arrived in an Escalade that is competing in the SUV class that made the run to that dealer and back to bring parts back from that guy’s brand new M6 that now sits somewhere in Colorado missing most of its left rear suspension and the power steering hose they had on the shelf for the E46 M3. While we were waiting on the JB Weld to finish curing with everything else as packed as we could, Devin and I discovered that next to our paddock were 2 stakes driven into the ground about 20 feet apart. On further exploration and just randomly happening to look in the right spot while chatting with the nearby teams working on their mechanical issues we found 4 horseshoes and began to play the game for a few minutes. The fun didn’t last as it was soon time to finish up on the car and hit the road for Hallet Motor Racing Circuit near Tulsa, OK. We were 4th from last to leave the track with a 595 mile trek head of us, complete with time zones working against us with the change from Mountain time to Central time. On the way we heard through the grapevine that we were 5th overall and now 1st in class for the event with the other SRT4’s DNF. That is how quickly the standings can turn if your car has the slightest issue, and it could have very easily been us instead. I’m sure that team will be in full attack mode to make up for lost ground. And in the middle of typing this entry we just had a fox run into the side of our car at 10:55pm central time, 2 miles into Oklahoma just after leaving Arizona. Doug and Devin spotted the animal jogging along side the road when it started to turn and head towards the side of the road. Devin moved over a lane, but the fox panicked and tried to cross in front of us to no avail. All I know is I heard “Hey look a… OH CRAP *wham*” complete with the back end of the car jumping off the ground as the animal met its maker most likely. We thought about picking it up, but we didn’t want to recreate the deer scene from Tommy Boy. Unfortunately we can no longer claim that no animals were harmed in the making of this production. Hopefully PETA doesn’t come after us, as it really wasn’t our fault. As close as they can tell in the pitch black darkness of the Oklahoma prairie he hit us just ahead of the rear wheel and everything else happened from there… we were not able to spot any dents or dings, but we’ll know more tomorrow in the sunlight. Currently we’re projecting that we will be running tomorrow purely on car sleep, and might or might not have the luxury of a shower to begin the day. Red Bull was invented for the night and day we’re currently facing. Cliffnotes: Overall: 5th Overall and 1st in Class Morning: 8th Overall and 3rd in Class Afternoon: 9th Overall and 3rd in Class Visit www.moparsatthetrack.com for more pictures and daily video updates from every event! - day 6 photos here - Day 7: Hallett Motor Racing Circuit Sorry for the late update guys, we had no wireless last night or today. I am uploading this in the parking lot of a Ryan's before we go in to eat on our way to Mid Ohio. The picture upload from Day 7 is ready but it won't be up until tonight due to wanting to get to the hotel fast. At that time we'll put up the blog and pictures for today as well if I can service our broken Koni shock in time. By: Devin Clancy If you couldn’t tell already, One Lap is defined by highs/lows, elation/defeat, and ultimately good and bad days. How a team deals with the lows separates the competitors from the event participants, and ultimately defines a winning or losing team. Yesterday is what I would define as a bad day with the crack in the oil pan, a seized front Koni rebound adjustment (stuck on full soft), the kamikaze fox, the sunburn, and the lack of sleep, but in the end we are still in the competition and are all still friends. Despite getting to the hotel at 4:30 A.M., and Doug and Ken only getting an hour and fourty-five minutes of sleep (I got zero sleep in an attempt to catch back up on the blog), we emerged from the hotel room with a sparkle in our eye and the spirit of competition. Why? Because we were sitting in 5th place overall and first in class… in a damn Neon. Funny part about our position is that no one seems to realize that we’ve crashed the Top 5 party. For instance, as we were filling up with race gas today, Leh Keen, the driver of the GSC Supra, which is sitting in 3rd overall, came up in a rush trying to jump the line to the pump in order to get to grid in time. He didn’t realize we we’re two spots behind him. That’s fine, though, as flying under the radar is fine by us, but I am getting ahead of myself. Hallett is a 1.8 mile, 10 turn, tight and technical road course near Tulsa, OK, and the location for the competition debut of Ken in the Trackpedia.com SRT4. Just like myself at Miller, this was Ken’s first time ever driving the car in competition at a road course, but unlike me, Ken has no experience in any cars similar to our little black beast. Like handing Michael Jordan a baseball, we weren’t expecting Ken’s crossover to a new platform to mesh instantly, but with a driver of Ken’s caliber, we were expecting him to catch on quickly, and he didn’t disappoint. With all of our repairs holding steady and no sign of oil leaks, Doug and myself prepped the car for Ken while he set out on a last minute track walk. Upon Ken’s return we were greeted by Trackpedia-regular Mike “Mad Mike” Halley who graced Ken with his intimate knowledge of Hallet acquired through decades of experience driving, working as track maintenance, and instructing at this race track (Thanks again Mike!) With our number called fifth for first run group, the reality of our situation still hadn’t sunk in, but when we lined the car up, our overall standing reality hit like a swift punch to the gut. Being 5th in line behind a 650hp Hennessey Viper driven by a Pro, a 3 time One Lap winner in a TT 996 Porsche, a 600hp Supra driven by one of the current best drivers in the Rolex GT series, and an M6 was something we would have never expected if you asked us 7 days ago, but there we were, and it was time to rock. A bit overwhelmed by being thrown in with the Big Dogs with an unknown car, Ken caught a break when we were told the first group would only be 4 cars. Not only did delay provide an emotional relief for Ken, it worked to our competition advantage since it had rained previous day and as the minutes rolled by, the track was becoming more and more dry. Confident in his knowledge of the course, Ken went out to a still damp track and adhered to the most important order of the day, keep it on the black stuff and bring the car home. Ken’s effort produced a respectable 22nd overall and 5th in class finish. Upon his return, Ken and I set out to go look at some of the corners he felt he was slow in and watch in-car video while Doug grabbed a bucket and some soap with the idea in mind that if Ken was going to be slow at least the car should look fast! (This statement is by Ken’s own admission in jest, so don’t shoot the messenger/out-of-context-er ). After paying for a lunch we later found out should have been free, some of that good ole Texas Whoop-Ass-ness finally found it’s way out of Ken, and we knew it was time to stick him in the car and grid him up again for the afternoon session before he started going all Walker: Texas Ranger on everybody. With the Chuck Norris Zen on his side, a feeling for the car, and an understanding of the track (we were running the same track configuration as the morning), Ken went out in an attempt to quell some of the overall and class point’s bleeding done in the morning session. Like we expected him to, as we have every confidence in Ken’s driving ability, Ken went out and improved substantially from the morning session (to the tune of 14 seconds on total time). Being back to his gear banging, hard charging style, Ken was able to produce a time which was good enough to land us 11th overall and 3rd in class in the session. With a 700 mile drive in front of us and a time zone change that was not in our favor, once Ken returned at the pits, we quickly piled everything into the car and trailer and lined up at the track gate in order to get on the road. Before we exited the track, we picked up the new oil pan that MoparSupercenter.com was able to overnight to us for morning delivery, no problem. There is a reason that these guys are the best in the business. Many, many, many thanks again to www.moparsupercenter.com As fate would have it we merged onto the interstate leaving Hallett with a Ford GT painted in the classic baby blue and orange Gulf colors right behind us that was also leaving Hallett after spectating all day. Now, er had originally left Doug’s house with the mutual understanding that in order to conserve gas, be safe, and avoid tickers, we would all just simply ignore anyone who tried to race us along the route. At that moment, though, we made a new rule: If the car is worth over $100K, we have race gas in the tank, and all parties involved are in agreement, then in the immortal words of Bruce Willis, “Yippe-Kai-Yay *Expletive* *Expletive*.” Lucky for us, the www.moparsatthetrack.com media van was right behind us. Watch their site for video, that is all. With our repairs holding up, the car running well, and 7 events left to go, it’s looking as if the battle for class lead and overall points positions are going to come down to the wire. Hopefully we’ll continue to make a good showing and keep all you guys and gal proud! Wish us luck! Devin - day 7 photos here - Day 8 – Indianapolis, America’s Home for Speed We arrived at hotel in Indianapolis at 2:30 local time after receiving a standard ovation for Devin’s parking skills in the hotel parking lot. A group of people hanging out around the building were in amazement at how Devin whipped the trailer into a tight parking space, up and over the rear curb, and had the car centered in the spot. If there is one thing I’ve learned on this trip, it is that some people are pretty strange. With the continual lack of sleep starting to really set in we almost slept through all the alarms this morning, so we’ll be setting more tonight just to be safe. We also had our first real decent meal of the trip along the 250 mile stretch to Mid Ohio. At any rate, let’s get to the updates. Our replacement shock arrived at the track and will be installed tonight. We have managed to limp the car along and place well despite having to leave the front shocks on the softest rebound setting. With the class battle getting even more intense with the Steven Rankins / John K STi and Matthew Ball STi starting to close in on us as well as Greg’s SRT4 continuing to do well, Mid Priced Sedan is starting to draw some heavy attention even from competitors outside of the class as well as all the folks following along at home. One of the people paddocked next to us today described it as a “dog fight”. One Lap is competition, but part of what makes One Lap fun are all the stories you hear along the way. We had met this guy at the start of the event that somehow ended up competing in a new Shelby GT-H edition Mustang. When asked if it was an actual rental or a look alike we were asked which version of the story we wanted. At any rate, he didn’t make it to Hallet or Indy, and I heard today from some people that knew him that Hertz somehow saw on “GPS tracking” that the car “was doing things it was not designed to do”. The last I heard, he was trying to make arrangements to find a substitute vehicle to finish the event with. I have to give the guy props for trying. We also heard through the grapevine that the guy with the M6 didn’t end up having to buy the car after all to get the suspension parts he needed. Some of the dealership middle management had prepared the paperwork for him to buy the car but some dealership higher-ups overruled their decision and let him buy the parts instead. I’ll see if I can find out what dealer it was so you can buy your next BMW from them but as far as I know it was a dealership not too terribly far from Pueblo Motorsports Park, most likely near or in Denver. And on a side note, that car is by far the best sounding car out there. Hopefully the melodious tone of the exhaust translates to video well so you all can enjoy it as much as I have. That high revving V10 combined with whatever aftermarket exhaust and the rapid-fire shifting SMG transmission is absolutely incredible. Our first Session went well. The start line of the road course was on top of the dragstrip’s actual finish line, providing increased levels of traction for the standing starts of the 3 lap runs. While watching the first group of cars I noticed that these street tire machines were cutting through the thin layer of traction compound and rubber laid down on the track, exposing the much less grippy concrete beneath. Luckily I was able to assist Doug in lining up on untouched areas both sessions which allowed us to launch this little front wheel drive tire smoker as well as the all wheel drive guys. That certainly helped us, but we still finished 2nd in class a scant 0.034 seconds over 3 laps behind the Continental shod STi of Steven Rankins, and were 12th in the overall standings for the session. The second road course session went smoothly for us with a 2nd in class to Matthew Ball’s STi, and 12 overall again. With us placing very near the top every session and having different cars top us each time, we are able to maintain our class lead so far. The session did not go so well for some fellow competitors unfortunately. Greg was fighting a loss in power in his SRT4 and was using the cars handling to attempt to make up for the disadvantage. He misjudged the very high speed, Brainerd-esque turn 1 and spun into a tirewall loosing most of the speed he had, but still impacted the wall at around 60mph. The car is very banged up cosmetically, the chassis appears to still be straight, but there are also some broken suspension pieces (that might have possibly contributed to the spin) that will sideline the car for the event. Greg was unhurt in the incident thankfully, and it is a real shame to have a fellow competitor that was putting up a very strong effort get sidelined like that. Greg’s rental fits into the Mid-Priced Sedan class, so he should be able to collect some points and finish the event with a decent result despite the massive setback. The overall leader Bryan Smith in the Hennesy tuned Dodge Viper also had a terrible second session when he lost the clutch and the overall lead when he was unable to limp his car home after smoking the clutch down the entire front dragstrip straight at the end of the first flying lap. Its looking like DeVia in the 996 TT may take home his 4th consecutive title if he can finish the rest of the sessions respectably. With Doug already having 2 practice launches at this strip during the road course portion, we decided to let him have a shot at the low ET round. I spent most of the morning on the phone and calculator figuring out what our dial in should be based on our special bracket setup that we tested at Greer. Right as we’re preparing for the regular drag runs, we find out that the bracket portion has been cancelled due to all the wrecks and delays and instead everyone was given 2 shots at their low ET passes. Doug was “granny shifting and not double clutching like he should” on the first pass, losing some ET when the car blew the tires away in 2nd gear. With a small adjustment and a bit of drag racing coaching we dropped some time, but not a whole lot and ended up with a 13.542, 28th overall and 5th in class. A lower 13 would have bumped us up a lot both overall and in class, but we wouldn’t have had enough in the car for the 12.4 required to top Mid-Priced Sedan. The track prep for the drag racing start line was far from stellar, which played in favor of those pesky AWD cars as well. But we’ve got 3 more events and with the standings as close as they are now, things will get interesting tomorrow at Mid Ohio. I am pretty disappointed that the bracket was cancelled; we had a setup and plan that would’ve gone a few rounds and really helped us recover from the not so great showing at the low ET round. We also had the Ultima GTR sneak past us in the overall standings with a slightly better showing at the road course sessions today and a 13.0 quarter. We are definitely within striking distance, especially if they don't have much Mid Ohio experience The top 5 in Mid Priced Sedan currently are: 1st #43 Matt Ball STi – 585 2nd #51 Doug Wind SRT4 – 580 3rd #45 Steven Rankins STi – 575 4th #44 Dan Schaut STi - 500 5th #55 Greg Hagopian SRT4 / Rental Magnum – 475 5 points are awarded for each finishing position (there are 11 in Mid-Priced, making 1st place worth 55 points, 2nd place 50 points, etc) We got into the hotel at a semi-decent hour this time, but wasted most of the time trying to replace the Koni insert to no avail. They did not send us the proper tool to remove the special mounting nut that holds the insert into the housing so we had to put the “unadjustable” shock back in. Hopefully we get enough sleep to not be delirious tomorrow and make the most of these next 2 rounds. Doug has driven this track recently whereas Matt Ball has never been here, and Jon & Steven’s team has some experience here, but its been a few months and Jon has never driven Steven’s car at this track. The cards are stacked in our favor to regain the class lead we hope. - day 8 photos here - Day 9: Mid Ohio By: Devin Clancy Theoretically, today should have been the most nerve-racking, nail-biting, horror show of a day that could be expected at the end of a week like this with the in class competition only separated by 10 points from first to third. In reality, though, we’ve haven’t had a more peaceful, more confident, more prepared, and less eventful day the entire week so far. The reason for being able to breathe before each session was that Doug had been to Mid Ohio a scant 3 weeks prior to the event, while some of our competitors had never been here before. Good news for us and bad news for them is that Mid Ohio is a difficult track to execute well since the majority of the corners are blind, and the track really takes at minimum one or more days to get the feel for. With all of our daily routine duties done last night while we were attempting to service our broken Koni, we only had to unload the car, strip the seats out of it, drain the gas tank, and clean the windows. I know you would have never guessed it, but it’s nice not to be working ‘till the 11th hour on the car right before it has to go out on track We had to drain the gas tank because Captain Jackass over here (that’s me) filled up our gas tank last night when we stopped for gas around 75 miles from the track. Now knowing how to jump the fuel pump relay, we were able to drain all the gas out through the Schrader valve at the end of the fuel rail. So, in an attempt to take no chances on our upcoming session, I ran the tank practically dry, the idiot light was blinking at me, and then we put 4 gallons of 112 in the tank. With a tank full of boost juice and the confidence to go 110% into the first corner, Doug went out for his first session looking content, and boy did it show in the times. Putting no less than 6 seconds on the closest in class competitor, Doug went out and ran 6th overall and 1st in class for the morning session. Not only did this result now tie us for the class lead, but it regained our 5th place overall standing as the car that had occupied the spot thanks to our drag racing results, an Ultima GTR, finished 20th overall in the same session. Note to self: Pre-running difficult tracks is an absolute, no questions asked, must if at all possible. When Doug returned to the pits, we shared the good news with him from our unofficial stopwatch gymnastics, and in return he told us that the car was fuel starving in corners on the last lap of the session due to the fact that when he pulled up the starting line, the gas gauge was on ‘E.’ When we drained the pump gas out of the car earlier in the day to an extent we normally wouldn’t go to, we forgot to account for the volume of gas in the reservoir and filler tube. No big deal, thankfully, so we put some more gas into the car and went to lunch with the confidence that even with problems, Doug is much faster than the competition on this track. At lunch, the inevitable occurred when a bunch of racers are sitting on a park bench in the sun with food in front of them … smack talk, although we didn’t start it this time. Matt Ball decided that he was easily going to run 10 seconds faster overall than his morning time. We wondered if he was planning on attaching his car to our rear bumper. The smack talking did not end there, though, as right before our session, Matt decided to bring an energy drink called “Whoop-Ass” to our garage and proceed to open it in our faces. Cute, but maybe opening a “Whoop-Ass” Expresso in our faces would have been more intimidating. Stone Cold Steve Austin would not be amused. With Doug looking more relaxed and confident the closer the session got (for those of you not in the know, Doug is usually bouncing off the walls), we knew that he was in his zone. Running exactly to plan, Doug went out and finished 1st in class and 12th overall while conserving the car and simply trying to bring it through the checkered flag. Doug’s time was still 3+ seconds faster than anyone in our class, and we were content, I guess, with that result. With access to covered garages and a pitiful 4 hour drive to South Bend, IN, we took our time packing the trailer while making some adjustments to the suspension in order to aid in our dry skid pad effort tomorrow. Even though we were one of the last cars to leave and we took our time making the drive, we still arrived in plenty of time to relax, eat a steak dinner, and get a full night’s sleep. After endless meals served through the driver’s side window of our car, it was nice to eat something that felt like it wasn’t coating our insides with grease. After 4000+ miles, numerous mechanical and physical ailments, and 16 timed events, first and second place in mid-priced sedan, us and Matthew Ball, respectively, are only separated by 5 points… this is what racing is all about. Cliffnotes: Morning: 6th overall, 1st in class Afternoon: 12th overall, 1st in class Overall: 5th overall, 1st in class. Devin - day 9 photos - Day Fin: Dry Skid Pad By: Devin Clancy For making a 4000+ mile, week long loop around this great country, I can think of no better poetic justice than to have our entire competition come down to a 200ft circle at the same spot that we started at no more than a week prior. Despite many competitors being locked into their class and overall positions barring a catastrophic failure, our positions in class and overall were subject to drastic change pending our final performance. With the One Lap group photo planned for 8:00 a.m., we got an early start to the day with Doug waking up at 5:45 a.m. in order to wash the car. Show before go, right Doug . Now sporting a clean car, we headed to tire rack in order to make sure we got in our rightful spot in the group photo: right in front . Look for the August issue of Car and Driver to see our little Neon sitting side by side with some very stunning and very fast cars. After the media portion of the day, it was time to finish prepping the car for the skid pad. Now you may be asking yourself, didn’t they already prep the car for the skid pad at Mid Ohio? You would be correct, but that prep was suspension related. The current prep at hand involved something a bit more… dramatic. We didn’t intend to carry out this plan unless necessary, and what do you know, the Boxer4Racing guys were just as crazy as we were, as you’ll see in the pictures. A little elbow grease and a lot of laughter later, an SRT4 minus a hood, wing, trunk springs, trunk lid, interior, and a couple other odds an ends emerged from our parking spot. This diet was an attempt to lower the center of gravity of the car and shed weight in order to generate a higher G load. We wanted to remove all the doors as well, but we figured that we didn’t want to spend all afternoon reassembling the car when we had a 600 mile drive home. Jagermeister, unfolding their portable sound stage and releasing a screaming, death-metal band onto the stage surrounded by enough sound power to make us all deaf, set the tone for the afternoon; that is after they took their bus on the skidpad and generated a respectable .2 G’s without flipping over . Much in our favor, the cars were sent out to the skid pad in reverse of their current overall standings. Therefore, I would know exactly what I would have to run in order to secure first in class and retain our spot overall. I couldn’t ask for a better setup. I didn’t get my nickname “Conecy” for no reason. I’ve been in far too many “make-it-clean-and-fast” last run situations in autocross to get nervous about only having one chance while putting everything on the line. Fully expecting Doug’s car to pull over 1G with the fantastic Koni suspension that is on the car, I was elated to hear that Matt Ball’s Subaru only pulled a .9XX. The door was wide open. After my run, I found out the Doug’s car had three-wheeled itself around the entire circle to lay down an impressive 1.014 G’s averaged between counter-clockwise and clockwise directions. This result was good enough for 2nd in class, behind Jon K in Rankin’s car, and 9th overall. 8th overall was now 4 consecutive time One Lap winning Mark DaVia, who pulled only a thousandth of G higher than us. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have played with the throttle as much as I did, but that is neither here nor there because… WE JUST FINISHED FIRST IN CLASS AND FIFTH OVERALL!!!!!!!!! As we expected, the Ultima GTR that was behind us on overall points placed much higher than us on the skid pad (for all of you out there expecting the Neon to our corner the purpose built race car, we’re sorry), but what we did not expect was the usually poor performance of the M6 on the skidpad, which allowed the Ultima and us to leap frog him into 4th and 5th positions. Fortunately, the M6 made up for a poor showing at the skidpad with some of the best drifts I have ever seen, we’ll get video up later, during the gross display of horsepower contest that followed the actual skidpad event. Besides the amazing continuous drifts of the M6, the GSC boys took out their supra and melted their tires off, which looks surprisingly easy when you’re pushing 600+ whp. After worrying about your tires over every crappy road, pothole, and construction zone, all of which this great country has an abundance of, it felt like a proper sendoff to see some R-rated tire abuse. The only thing left to do was collect our hardware and hit the road for another 600 mile leg of driving with a big comfy bed of a racetrack at the other end. The banquet that was thrown at the end felt like a surreal ending to a non-stop, cannonball of a trip. During the week, without a second to spare, we would scarf fast food down, pump gas while washing windows, checking oil, etc., and dart through traffic like we owned the highway. After that kind of an adventure, slamming on the brakes in order to have everyone enjoy a catered meal while trophies are handed out makes you feel like you’re watching yourself from somewhere else because, honestly, you really haven’t stopped cannonballing in your head. This week has been without a doubt one of the best weeks of my life while being one of the most grueling. We had a media crew ask us to describe One Lap in one or two words to someone who had never done it before right before we hit the road home. After thinking about what I told them in my tired, delirious, and elated state, I don’t think I could have said it any better. One Lap is purgatory. It’s somewhere between heaven and hell on earth. Without a doubt, you will experience the highest of highs one moment only to be followed by the lowest of lows the next. It’s something that, one you have done it, you will understand why people have this addiction to the event while understanding that it is absolute, unbridled torture every day. That torture, though, brings out the best in people and allows what seems like an impossible event on paper to actually be conquered. I was honestly sad to see some of the people I had met this week pack their cars up and drive away knowing they weren’t heading to a race track, and I was even more saddened when we had to drive away. These people were my community of brothers and sisters for a week, and even though you never met them before the event or even didn’t get to meet them during the event, they would gladly give you the shirt off of their back if you asked for it. With that, I’d also like to thank everyone that has been following our daily exploits. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed writing it. If you have any suggestions for improvements or comments in general, feel free to let us know. In the next couple days, we will be adding video from the event and transferring everything to the Wiki page for future reference, so stay tuned as there is still some more content to come. My external hard drive broke due to my clumsiness on the last night of the event, so once I can rescue those video files, they will be uploaded. Finally, we'd like to thank our sponsors: -Thanks to John at Trackpedia.com for taking a chance on us, and allowing us to show him what we could do. John, we can’t thank you enough! -Thanks to MoparSupercenter.com for being there for us when we we're in a bind with parts before and during the event. They delivered service without question, complaint, and hesitation. -Thanks to BoostedMopar.com for allowing us to carry your name on our race car and hopefully do you proud. -Thanks to TCE for being there for us when we were almost out of pads halfway through the event and for supplying customer service above and beyond what you could possibly expect from a business. Only 356 days left! Devin - end photos -

Return to OneLap2007.