Back from One Lap of America (long even by MY standards!)
05-12-2001, 05:54 PM
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Hey people-
I just got back from Painted Post, NY where the One Lap start/finish is based.
We had a great time, even though we had some problems with our car. I've proved to the Nissan community that we can run with the Vipers in this event- all I need is some good technical support and backing to make this thing a reality.
To recap-
Day One
We hit a cone on the first lap, giving us a 10 second penalty and dropping us from 11th to 22nd. We were so mad that the next event we went MUCH harder and clawed our way back to 5th overall in that event...
Day Two
This was Drag Race and Top Speed Day. We expected a mid 12 second ET run for about a top 10 finish, but never expected a 11.9 ET @ 119mph... which netted us a 2nd overall and our first top three finish. Then the bizarre started to happen in the bracket race... I wanted to just win one or two rounds of this event- there were 8 total, which would be very hard on the car. Needless to say, we started winning round after round- competitors were red lighting or breaking out on us... The easiest round was the semifinal- we had bye... the easiest 5 points we would gain on any of our competitors in the whole event. The final was against a "stock" RX-7, and he redlighted too! This was the first overall win in competition for my GT-R in the One Lap, but it came at a huge price that we later came to find out... The third event of the day was the Michigan International Speedway event- 3 laps including the infield. Our car had no undertray which really hurt in this top speed run- we had to make up the time in the infield. Our top speeds on the oval was round 150mph, plus or minus 10mph, while the Vipers were a solid 20mph faster... but that didn't matter- we didn't lose too much to them- with only the eventual Overall Winner and Runner Up finishing ahead of us in this stage. This was a good day for us- a Second, a Win, and a Third solidified our overall standings. Only a couple of other cars had better days overall- Spencer and Brian's Viper (they are Michelin test drivers with a factory backed Dodge Viper ACR- can you say Hotshoe Drivers?), and Ron and Pat Adee's Viper (overall winner in 1998). Not bad for a first year car...
Day Three
Topeka was the location of the next round- Heartland Park... I don't remember much of this event- we were starting to go into automatic race mode... We came in 7th in the first event, with some time lost due to a handling problem we finally narrowed down to wheelspacers used to clear the front brakes (improperly backspaced wheels) that we couldn't correct until after One Lap. Oh well... The second event was bad... we had an intercooler pipe interconnect blow off, and we were on idle through most of that round. 20th place, not happy. In addition, we had a knock sensor that was warning us afterwards. Not a good omen...
Day Four
We got to the Motorsports Ranch bright and early that day- and managed to get going early on the car prep. I was worried about the knock sensor's high values, but we had no choice but to run the car. Halfway through the first lap, the engine started to give way- but we pressed on... When the car finally pulled into the pits we knew the car had some serious problems- high pitched squeaking that sounded like metal grinding up inside the engine was not a good sign... and when I opened up the hood the big splash of oil along the inside of the hood and firewall told me our 2001 One Lap of America was over. BUT- even with a broken motor we STILL managed a 6th place in that morning event... At the time, even with our "problems" we were sitting in the top 10 with oodles of points to spare...
We decided to fly back to Chicago that evening and get the S2000 and race as a non- points scoring entry from then onwards- re-conning the tracks for future reference, and also to watch the drama unfold. We also had some good side bets going with the S2000- with my co-driver's dad, and also with others- it was a good time and took the disappointment out of our minds. In fact, several of the journalists mentioned us in their updates just for showing up in the S2000 the next day, which I thought was funny- something along the lines of "you guys are certifiable" to "you're nuts" to "You're true Lap Dawgs now!" to "cool car!- but what happened to the white thing that was spewing oil yesterday?" All in all, we were present for every event, and were competitive with the S2000 (top 20 overall in times, as opposed to the top 5 placements we were expecting with the GT-R).
Hopefully next year we will be as competitive, but also make it to the end of the event... I know that the Renntech will be sorted out- something like 800HP at the wheels is rumored to be available at the rear wheels of that scary car... and I've also heard rumors that Spencer and Brian want to run against each other too in similarly prepped Vipers too, so the competition will be much higher. Yikes!
Thanks to several of my friends who happen to be in the auto industry- Eric Hsu of XS Enginering for helping us tune the engine, Sean Morris of MotoRex for taking up ALL the slack everywhere when it came to getting goofy and weird parts that noone else wanted or needed, Scott Zellner of King Motorsports for the lift time and energy to help me when the Nissan does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for his Honda/Acura racing program, Emmanuel Crouvisier for co-driving the car to the good finishes it had up to the breakdown, Tommy Chen and the boys at Speed Trial USA and Phil Mirenda of CGI Motorsports for giving us test and tune time at the tracks at the expense of their reputations, John Ruther at Northstar Motorsports for getting us the Pagid orange pads airfreighted from Germany at the last second, to our overnight stay in Cleveland... As y'all can see this is not a one or two man show, and many people were involved with this. I hope those who read this recognise the time and effort they put into my small One Lap program, and how a first year grassroots team can be competitive with the "Big Dawgs". A Big Thanks also goes to Team Threesome for giving me your rear brake pads for my little red S2000, and to Greg and Brad (Greg's Brad...) for picking us up at the airport and getting us to the S2000 for the overnight trip to Road Atlanta.
I also wanted to say thanks to the S2000 community and the support we got from members who showed up and gave us encouragement. Thanks!
I just got back from Painted Post, NY where the One Lap start/finish is based.
We had a great time, even though we had some problems with our car. I've proved to the Nissan community that we can run with the Vipers in this event- all I need is some good technical support and backing to make this thing a reality.
To recap-
Day One
We hit a cone on the first lap, giving us a 10 second penalty and dropping us from 11th to 22nd. We were so mad that the next event we went MUCH harder and clawed our way back to 5th overall in that event...
Day Two
This was Drag Race and Top Speed Day. We expected a mid 12 second ET run for about a top 10 finish, but never expected a 11.9 ET @ 119mph... which netted us a 2nd overall and our first top three finish. Then the bizarre started to happen in the bracket race... I wanted to just win one or two rounds of this event- there were 8 total, which would be very hard on the car. Needless to say, we started winning round after round- competitors were red lighting or breaking out on us... The easiest round was the semifinal- we had bye... the easiest 5 points we would gain on any of our competitors in the whole event. The final was against a "stock" RX-7, and he redlighted too! This was the first overall win in competition for my GT-R in the One Lap, but it came at a huge price that we later came to find out... The third event of the day was the Michigan International Speedway event- 3 laps including the infield. Our car had no undertray which really hurt in this top speed run- we had to make up the time in the infield. Our top speeds on the oval was round 150mph, plus or minus 10mph, while the Vipers were a solid 20mph faster... but that didn't matter- we didn't lose too much to them- with only the eventual Overall Winner and Runner Up finishing ahead of us in this stage. This was a good day for us- a Second, a Win, and a Third solidified our overall standings. Only a couple of other cars had better days overall- Spencer and Brian's Viper (they are Michelin test drivers with a factory backed Dodge Viper ACR- can you say Hotshoe Drivers?), and Ron and Pat Adee's Viper (overall winner in 1998). Not bad for a first year car...
Day Three
Topeka was the location of the next round- Heartland Park... I don't remember much of this event- we were starting to go into automatic race mode... We came in 7th in the first event, with some time lost due to a handling problem we finally narrowed down to wheelspacers used to clear the front brakes (improperly backspaced wheels) that we couldn't correct until after One Lap. Oh well... The second event was bad... we had an intercooler pipe interconnect blow off, and we were on idle through most of that round. 20th place, not happy. In addition, we had a knock sensor that was warning us afterwards. Not a good omen...
Day Four
We got to the Motorsports Ranch bright and early that day- and managed to get going early on the car prep. I was worried about the knock sensor's high values, but we had no choice but to run the car. Halfway through the first lap, the engine started to give way- but we pressed on... When the car finally pulled into the pits we knew the car had some serious problems- high pitched squeaking that sounded like metal grinding up inside the engine was not a good sign... and when I opened up the hood the big splash of oil along the inside of the hood and firewall told me our 2001 One Lap of America was over. BUT- even with a broken motor we STILL managed a 6th place in that morning event... At the time, even with our "problems" we were sitting in the top 10 with oodles of points to spare...
We decided to fly back to Chicago that evening and get the S2000 and race as a non- points scoring entry from then onwards- re-conning the tracks for future reference, and also to watch the drama unfold. We also had some good side bets going with the S2000- with my co-driver's dad, and also with others- it was a good time and took the disappointment out of our minds. In fact, several of the journalists mentioned us in their updates just for showing up in the S2000 the next day, which I thought was funny- something along the lines of "you guys are certifiable" to "you're nuts" to "You're true Lap Dawgs now!" to "cool car!- but what happened to the white thing that was spewing oil yesterday?" All in all, we were present for every event, and were competitive with the S2000 (top 20 overall in times, as opposed to the top 5 placements we were expecting with the GT-R).
Hopefully next year we will be as competitive, but also make it to the end of the event... I know that the Renntech will be sorted out- something like 800HP at the wheels is rumored to be available at the rear wheels of that scary car... and I've also heard rumors that Spencer and Brian want to run against each other too in similarly prepped Vipers too, so the competition will be much higher. Yikes!
Thanks to several of my friends who happen to be in the auto industry- Eric Hsu of XS Enginering for helping us tune the engine, Sean Morris of MotoRex for taking up ALL the slack everywhere when it came to getting goofy and weird parts that noone else wanted or needed, Scott Zellner of King Motorsports for the lift time and energy to help me when the Nissan does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for his Honda/Acura racing program, Emmanuel Crouvisier for co-driving the car to the good finishes it had up to the breakdown, Tommy Chen and the boys at Speed Trial USA and Phil Mirenda of CGI Motorsports for giving us test and tune time at the tracks at the expense of their reputations, John Ruther at Northstar Motorsports for getting us the Pagid orange pads airfreighted from Germany at the last second, to our overnight stay in Cleveland... As y'all can see this is not a one or two man show, and many people were involved with this. I hope those who read this recognise the time and effort they put into my small One Lap program, and how a first year grassroots team can be competitive with the "Big Dawgs". A Big Thanks also goes to Team Threesome for giving me your rear brake pads for my little red S2000, and to Greg and Brad (Greg's Brad...) for picking us up at the airport and getting us to the S2000 for the overnight trip to Road Atlanta.
I also wanted to say thanks to the S2000 community and the support we got from members who showed up and gave us encouragement. Thanks!
Thanks for the report.
05-13-2001, 06:01 PM
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Hi Everyone-
One more bonus!
We (the GT-R, that is) made the C&D One Lap screen saver!
Now all the maniacal automotive fanatics can download the pictures of the goofy and/or cool One Lap cars for their screen saver for free at the C&D website ( http://www.caranddriver.com )so that they don't have to plot to stalk us for the rest of the year until next year's One Lap...
Again... Thanks Tony Swan! If you're reading this, I promise not to make fun of your Mercedes Benz marshmallowmobile again. For those who don't know, Tony Swan, the Executive Editor of C&D magazine, LOVES the Honda S2000 and had very positive comments concerning the Mugen SS2000...
Elistan, CG and Greg-
Racin' is racin'... it isn't a race until someone drops out- Dan Kary & Paul Gerrard in the RennTech Mercedes was the first casualty in the second round when Paul DNF'ed the second Glen event. At least we made it to Texas- the absolute farthest point from homebase this year! Doh! Don't dream it- live it... sign up for next year's event- from what I understand Greg may be up for it with Mr. MG himself, and CG, you should make this dream come true- it's worth every lost minute of sleep that week. Elistan- I should be back in Dallas some time in the next two weeks for work- let's get the Dallas group together for a night of goofin' off...
One more bonus!
We (the GT-R, that is) made the C&D One Lap screen saver!
Now all the maniacal automotive fanatics can download the pictures of the goofy and/or cool One Lap cars for their screen saver for free at the C&D website ( http://www.caranddriver.com )so that they don't have to plot to stalk us for the rest of the year until next year's One Lap...
Again... Thanks Tony Swan! If you're reading this, I promise not to make fun of your Mercedes Benz marshmallowmobile again. For those who don't know, Tony Swan, the Executive Editor of C&D magazine, LOVES the Honda S2000 and had very positive comments concerning the Mugen SS2000...
Elistan, CG and Greg-
Racin' is racin'... it isn't a race until someone drops out- Dan Kary & Paul Gerrard in the RennTech Mercedes was the first casualty in the second round when Paul DNF'ed the second Glen event. At least we made it to Texas- the absolute farthest point from homebase this year! Doh! Don't dream it- live it... sign up for next year's event- from what I understand Greg may be up for it with Mr. MG himself, and CG, you should make this dream come true- it's worth every lost minute of sleep that week. Elistan- I should be back in Dallas some time in the next two weeks for work- let's get the Dallas group together for a night of goofin' off...
05-13-2001, 08:12 PM
#7
Registered User
Originally posted by GTRPower
Elistan- I should be back in Dallas some time in the next two weeks for work- let's get the Dallas group together for a night of goofin' off...
Elistan- I should be back in Dallas some time in the next two weeks for work- let's get the Dallas group together for a night of goofin' off...
Trending Topics
05-19-2001, 04:29 PM
#9
Great effort by you two, and better results are sure to come. I enjoyed meeting you both at MIS. Sorry the Nissan didn't handle the 'top 3' pressure but since the factory's making a financial come-back maybe they can offer support like they should. Glad to see the desire to finish in the S2k is receiving the news it should. Just one complaint (my opinion only) - - how could you take the beautiful brute shark like face of the S2k and turn it into a grinning clown!! Ugh!! 
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