5/7/05 Tire Rack, IN
THE END!! We made it! 5 One Lap's under my belt! Richard and Neil are official Lap Dogs! Other than some cosmetic changes, the car made it in one piece!
Well, almost the end. The most exciting event was yet to come! Our chance to trophy was riding on the dry skid pad. We were 10 points ahead of the Schaut STI and a screw up here would give them the win. We wanted to make sure we completed our comeback and placed 3rd in class! Richard disconnected the front sway bar and we headed out to an empty parking lot to practice going in a circle really fast. We checked tire temps and adjusted pressures. We were set! This event was run in reverse order so we would be 14 from the end. Richard took off to warm up the tires and pulled up the line with a few minutes to spare. The Schaut STI pulled 0.930 on the skid pad, we had to better this. Richard takes his runs, we hold our breathe and then ........0.959g's!! We did it! 3rd in class after reaching a low of 11th! 14th overall after starting 62nd!
The excitement in our class was not over. The top 2 were separated by 10 points as well. The EVO needed to finish 2 places higher than the SRT-4 of Dale Seeley. The results were: SRT-4 0.961, EVO 0.960 and us with our 0.959. The SRT-4 won the class! The EVO finished second and we placed third.
Congrats to Lake Effect Racing for an outstanding performance in their great SRT-4. You always hate to lose, but it is easier to lose to a class act like theirs!
5/6/05 Nelson Ledges, OH
This was the long haul of the event,770 miles. About half of last years longest segment, but still a haul! We ended up stuck in traffic and using up 2 hours of sleep time. There was a 2 semi accident that shut down the interstate completely. After wandering around trying to find an alternate route for a good while, we find away to cross over to another Interstate and get going again. We step up the pace again and arrive at the hotel about 3:30am. We request the usual 6:30am wake up call and crash.
As most of you might have noticed, sometime in the week, our web site stopped getting updated on a regular basis. That was partly due to a lack of connectivity and partly because sleep started taking priority!
We get up early and head out to the track. We want to arrive early so Richard can ride the track and figure out which way he needs to turn. He obviously figured it out really well as he placed 1st in class in both events and pushed us back up to 3rd in class again. We had lost our 3rd place standing after the stunning wet weather driving of Dan the day before. He ended up 14th overall and 12th overall.
This was one of the first days we were really able to socialize and hang out with our fellow competitors. It was a great time and reminded me why I do this crazy thing year after year. There we were sitting, conversing and joking with 3 of the 4 cars running in the top 4 in our class team members. Giving each other advice, talking smack and just having a good time. I even had to pull out the Super Soaker to cool a few people off.
The reason we were able to do this is because we hid our tools from Richard. Neil and I found out that Richard is a tinkerer. He can't leave anything alone, always tweaking, adjusting and changing the car. It was hard to learn to drive the car because it was always different. In the end though we finally got him to leave well enough alone and all was great!
5/5/05 Roebling Road, GA
We arrive at the hotel about 2am. It is a little cloudy but nothing that looks to threatening. When we get up in the morning and open the door to walk out, we are welcomed by RAIN! You would think that we would welcome rain, being that we are in an all wheel drive car, but we couldn't be, considering our poor performance on the wet skid pad.
This was also when Richard decided he would like to try going back out on the rack again. I was a little nervous, but knew he could do great! And he did, placing 11th overall in the 1st session and 7th overall in the 2nd session! The surprise of the day was the remarkable performance of Dan Schaut in a basically stock STI placing 2nd overall!! He put on a rain driving clinic! WOW!!
5/4/05 Virginia International Raceway
Today was a very good day! VIR is a beautiful place and we made reservations to stay at the Lodge that is located right on the track's property. This was one of the wisest decisions we could have made. No rushing to get to the track, no getting up an hour early, beautiful 5 star facility and much, much more. We arrived at the lodge around midnight and just hit the sack.
We got up about 7:00am and we ready to go by 8am. Since check out was not until noon, we keep our room so we could come back after the first 2 track events and get some rest. There will be 3 time trials at VIR. One on the South course, one on the North course and one using the full 4 mile course! This is one of my favorite tracks and runs through some beautiful rolling hills. We ran the South and North courses in the morning, had a break for lunch and then ran the full course.
The car seems to be running better and better! The power was good and it seems to be handling well. This is definitely a high horsepower facility and we were looking to make up a few spots. Although with all the big power Vipers, Porsches and Vettes, it would be interesting.
I ended up placing 19th on the South course, 17th on the North course and 16th on the full course. Not super results but consistent and clean! Still enough to move us up on the totem pole.
We pack up and head out. We are having some clutch issues and we decide to stop by a dealer to see if they can help out. What a remarkable group of people! The dropped everything and came to our rescue. They had everything ready to replace our clutch, unfortunately our clutch (order the day before) was missing in action! Fortunately it turned out we didn't really need it. We had a leak in the braided clutch line that was fixed by tightening it, bled it out and adjusted the pedal. Everything worked perfect now! Thanks to Chuck Thompson, Jeff Lackey and Mike Robinson from Bob Dunn Subaru!!
5/3/05 Summit Point, VA and Mason Dixon Raceway, MD.
Summit Point - What a day! This time we decided to start down and finish up! I had a nice first run except, for a cone ,darn it on the first run, and then a completely clean run in the afternoon. I may not be the fastest out there, but I am having the most fun! All the tracks have been great! The car is being a little temperamental on the long transits, but perfect on the tracks. We placed 26th in the morning and 13th in the afternoon.
We had plenty of time before the drags and stopped to have a nice sit down meal. Our first of the week!! That was nice!
Mason Dixon Raceway - We arrive the at the Mason Dixon Raceway, with time to spare. Richard ran the drags and pulled a 12.785 and put us in 12th overall and 2nd in class. Unfortunately and fortunately he was eliminated in the first round of the drags. Unfortunately because you always want to win, and fortunately because we could quickly get back on the road!
We are now 20th overall and 4th in class!
The drags seem to have affected our clutch and it is getting harder and harder to shift in to gear! We make some calls to hopefully line up a dealer visit tomorrow.
5/2/05 New Hampshire International Speedway, NH
Richard drove NHIS and did extremely well in the morning, placing 9th, and kept us on our upward swing. Then on his second session, one of the cars put down some fluid on the track and caused Richard to touch a tire wall. It was on the drivers side so he was trying to even out the car. The good thing was that this happened on his warm up lap and he was able to come in, tape up the car and run, with a 10 sec penalty for running out of turn. That placed us 22nd overall.
5/1/05 BeaveRun, PA and Lancaster, NY
BeaveRun - I really don't know if I can take a whole week of this roller coaster ride! Once again fate frowned upon our fortune. The morning session went great and I placed 11th overall and 2nd in class. We are now 36th overall and 7th in class.
Now the afternoon session is a different story. I was lined up to be the first car in the 3rd run group, when Brock decided to run one extra car in the second group, me. The clouds were dark and it was beginning to drizzle. They send us out to the track as the clouds open up and it starts to rain, sleet and hail! And to make things even worse, the corvette in front of me blew his motor, spilling oil and coolant all over the track! I was 12 seconds slower than in the morning! And since it took 30 minutes to clean up the track, it stopped raining and the track was pretty dry when the next group ran. Our whole group as about 10-15 seconds off everybody else's pace. I finished 26th in the afternoon run. We still moved up to 32nd overall and stayed 7th in class.
Oh well. That is racing!
Lancaster - We arrive and it looks like it might rain. We are told to hold off on unloading because if it rains the event is canceled. The rain held off and we quickly unhook the trailer and take everything out of the car. Richard lines up and is going to be in the second pair of cars to hit the oval. Lancaster is a 5/8th oval and is run by 2 cars at a time. Richard is paired up with the SRT-8 and ran pretty even with him and placed 20th.
*Notes from the trip:
We have realized that our diet of fast food has made it necessary to keep a large supply of Tums or Rolaids readily available.
Onions are no longer allowed on any meal!
Richard and Neil are truly beginning to understand what the One Lap is all about. 2 hours of sleep a day!
Enrique
4/30/05 South Bend and Indianapolis, IN
Talk about a day of ups and downs! We started off the day with excitement, anticipation, and will become the staple of our existence, fast food breakfast! We arrive at Tire Rack and everyone is in full prep mode, cars are on jack stands, tools lie everywhere!
Since our car was so well prepared, we are able to spend time lightening our trailer load instead of wrenching on the car (that will come later in the day). We create a reject pile, and start throwing things out. 3rd set of tools, gone, 2nd and 3rd sleeping bags, gone, 3rd jack stand, gone, spare car, gone, (DOH!), etc....
Richard drove the skid pad and it looked like he did great, unfortunately the clock did not agree with our view and we placed 62nd over all. We are a little on the DOWN side. We hook up the trailer, load up whatever else needs to go and head to Indianapolis Raceway Park.
We get to IRP just in time to unhook, unload and line up! Richard did an awesome job and placed 8th overall!! We are behind another STI and an EVO, but who cares, 8th overall!! We are on an UPSWING! We add oil, check tires, hang out and wait for our next run.
Richard goes out for the second run, and is really smoking! He is gaining and has made up about 10 seconds on the Evo! Unfortunately Richard spots the Evo up ahead and gets a little too excited and doesn't see the tire wall running across the track in front of him! Darn tire wall forgot to look both ways before crossing! The good news was the Richard was not hurt! The bad news was the car would need a little work. Nothing mechanical, but the body work would need some stitching. Big DOWNER! I believe our hopes for a top ten and 1st in class have slightly diminished. But we refuse to give up the fight and will come back strong. Since Richard was actually able to drive across the finish line ( about 7 minutes after everybody else) we actually scored points and beat 7 cars who DNF'd.
Click here if you would like to watch the in car video of this exciting moment! Just scroll down to Dynocomp STI crash video.
The car is back together and we are in the hotel near our next track in Pennsylvania! We are in the 50's over and 11th in class, out of 17. Nowhere but up from here!!
Enrique
4/29/05 South Bend, IN
The car is all "stickered" up, new rotors and pads were installed and driver meeting was attended.
It was great meeting up with old friends and making lots of new ones! We kind of missed the welcoming party at the hotel, as we were stuck at the Tire Rack swapping out rotors and pads. We found out a few days before we left that the cross-drilled rotors were slightly cracked, so we installed some Brembo slotted one instead. Also put in new Ferrodo DS3000 pads while we were at it.
There are tons of incredible cars running this year! 2 Ultima GTR's, a Radical, a handful of Porsches, several Vipers, the usual dozen or so Vettes, 4 or so Evo's, at least 4 STI's, and some SRT-4's as well. Oh yeah, a bunch of BMW's too. We will try to get some pictures of some of them posted up tomorrow.
We have the wet skid-pad and Indianapolis Raceway Park tomorrow and are really looking forward to getting on with it!!
Enrique
4/28/05 St. Louis, MO
We have been on the road for a little over 24 hours non-stop now. Thankfully everything is going well (knocking on wood). Weather hasn't been cooperating too much, but we are just considering it practice for the main event. Although, I guess we won't have 2 couches and a bed during the main event! I think we might be getting a little spoiled!
We should be arriving in South Bend, IN around 6pm CST tonight, right on schedule. We just don't know who's schedule.
Neil and Rich are still in good spirits and looking forward to the start. Although this long non-stop drive from AZ to IN has made them a little more conscious of what they are getting in to. Fortunately everyone is still on good terms! I call this the honeymoon phase. We will see how we do after a week or so...
From the road, Enrique
4/19/05 Arizona
Good news, I actually sat in our One Lap car for the first time this weekend! It is together and running great! On Sunday we installed the hitch and wiring for the trailer and put together our list of things we are bringing along for the trip. The list is LONG! Which is why there is a trailer involved. What happened to the good old days of bringing only what you could fit in your trunk or hatch?? Bah, who cares when we can carry a bike, extra tranny, driveshafts, EZ-UP, tent, sleeping bags, lots and lots of tools, aluminum floor jack, air tank, grill, fridge, porta potty (OK, we are getting carried away, no porta potty!), etc... ;-) Although it does kind of take away from the "run what you brung" feeling of the event it seems to be the norm now.
The team rookies are excited and lucky this will be a short Lap of America! There is nothing like the rude awakening of a 1300 mile transit section! This years longest is a measly 700 miles. With the average somewhere around 400 miles.
We will be heading out to Indiana for the start April 27th and will post more updates as things happen..
Enrique
