Open Road Racing Reports

Of course, we couldn’t hit the wet spots on straight-aways early in the course. Oh no, that’s no fun, let’s run into wet roads during the toughest turns on the course only 15 miles from the finish of the first leg. These are turns I worked hard at when we ran 120 & 125 mph. Now it’s wet and I need to average 130 mph. Needless to say we were losing time faster than Ford losing money. At one point Deana tells me I’m 4 seconds slow, so I’m accelerating as hard as I can between turns (for the first time in 20 races, I actually had to hit the brakes before some turns). I’m totally focused on the roads and can’t watch my speed but I think I’m doing ok, only to hear I’m now 10 seconds slow! Arrghh! It’s not panic time but I know if I don’t get under 10 seconds before 5 miles out, this leg is going to be way off. I tell Deana I’m going to drive as fast as I can safely until she’s tells me I’m close. After some harrowing, butt puckering turns, I finally hit target speed with only 2.93 miles left and we close the first leg only .5 seconds fast.

At this point I thought we had an interesting first leg. Well, a good friend of mine runs an old Winston Cup NASCAR in the Unlimited Class. He and his wife smacked a full grown buzzard at 170+ mph. It caught the upper corner of the passenger A-pillar (that’s the column that holds the windshield). It literally peeled the metal back on the car at that corner. It didn’t break the windshield though, so they kept driving. Well, with their full face helmets, neck braces, and head supports they couldn’t see what really happened. When they crossed the finish line and slowed down, Marsha, the navigator, unfastened her window net and PLOP! Buzzard head in her lap! When they got to the grid area the car was a mess: buzzard head in the floor board and buzzard body and guts in the back of the car. Yuck!!! They got the car cleaned up, taped up the damaged metal, rinsed off their suits and finished the race though. In fact they set a new course record by averaging 172.584 mph with a high trap speed of 213 mph.

We were hopeful the second leg would be a little easier. NOT! It was raining at the start line! About half way through the tough turns, which mercifully are near the beginning now, Deana informs me I’m not even on the page. In fact I’m 40 seconds slow. A big smile creeps across my face because I know when I get out of the last tough turn I’m going to need to drive very fast to make up 40 seconds. Oh darn. I fly out of the last turn at 150 mph grinning ear to ear. But wait; Is that a corvette I see up ahead?!?! Yes, it is! Well, if I need to drive fast to make up time, might as well drive faster and run down a corvette. Deana gives me permission to run him down but not to pass unless he acknowledges me. I punch the rotary up to 160 mph and set my sights on catching him before the next set of tricky turns. It was not to be though. I get to within 100 yards or so and Deana informs me that I’ve made up my time and tells me to back off to 130 mph. Rats!!! (we discovered at the awards banquet that he never saw us coming)

September 17 2006 The Silver State Classic Nevada

5 Open Road Races down and 1 to go. The Silver State Classic Challenge went off without incident, but not without multiple car failures. As this was the fastest we've ever run in an event, we're pleased to say we were not one of those that broke down.

Objective: Average a perfect 145 mph over 90 miles for an arrival time of 37 minutes & 14.7 seconds

Results: Average speed - 144.9566 mph Time 37 minutes 15.16 seconds (.6692 seconds variance) for 3rd Place (1st & 2nd Place were off by .4232 & .4462 seconds, respectively)

The team that I captain, Team Invaders, took 2nd Place in the Team Challenge.

The Mazda Motor Sports/QuickBooks RX-7 was back to running like a top. In fact, for the first time ever, we left the start in a smoking burn-out. Not intentionally, just not completely used to the new engine yet and it got away from me a bit. The highlight or interesting part of the race came when we got to the canyon about 69 miles into the 90 miles. There's an off-camber curve right before you go in the canyon that we warn all rookies about. We tell them if there's a curve that can cause them to wreck, this is it. We advise them they can go below their minimum speed there and not get DQ'd. The same goes for going through the canyon, aka, The Narrows.

Well, Deana and I go barreling through the off-camber curve at 130 mph and negotiate it just fine. Feeling somewhat self-confident after that, I shoot into The Narrows at 110 mph. I'm apexing the turns just right, accelerating at the right times, etc. etc., and really feeling the groove, so to speak. We get near the end of The Narrows and I'm feeling so good that at 115 mph I drop into 4th gear and accelerate hard through the last turn and hill and past the exit of The Narrows at 145 mph.

Yee Hah!! Yippee!! I've negotiated The Narrows faster than I've ever done before. I'm pumped up and riding high and then I hear those dreaded words, "Nice driving, but you're way hot. Slow down to 132 mph." NOOOO!!!! Adrenaline & common sense briefly fought in my head at the thought dropping from 145 mph down to 132 mph but of course I did it. I could swear though, jackrabbits and buzzards were laughing at me in the road as they waited until the last second to scurry out of the way thus avoiding the vaporization that would have surely been their fate at 145 mph.

Seems our course timing notes didn't account for increased familiarity and skills in The Narrows. They were based on me going through at 100 mph and losing 25 to 30 seconds. Going through at what turned out to be 115+ lost only 5 seconds and put us 25 seconds ahead at the exit. We'll adjust accordingly next time.

There's one event left in the 2006 Open Road Racing season, The Road Runner Open Road Race next month out of Ft. Stockton Texas. After a 2nd Place and two 3rd Places, we're going to go all out to try and dial in a 1st Place to end the season on a high note.

Thank you again for your support and I'll see most of you tomorrow morning.

Blue

ps Actor John Schneider, who played Bo Duke in the "Dukes of Hazzard" and Jonathan Kent (Superman's father) in "Smallville", was at the event and gave the racers a preview of his upcoming movie, Collier & Company. He also found time to autograph Duncan Fisher's die-cast metal replica of the General Lee. Sorry ladies, no pictures this time.

Subject: Pony Express 130 Open Road Race Summary

Happy Tuesday All,

The Pony Express 130 Open Road Race went off without incident. 4 cars broke down (including a brand spanking new 505 horsepower Z06 Corvette) and 2 folks were DQ'd, but no wrecks. Decent turn out of 84 cars total.

Objective: Average 140 mph over 129.9 miles in 55 mins 40.286 seconds
Result: 139.972 mph in 55 mins 40.96 seconds. Slow by .674 seconds which was only good for 6th place and no podium trip L.

Unlike the last event where there were only 2 cars in our 135 mph class, this time there were 15, yes 15, cars in our class. No other class had more than 7 cars. We thought moving up to 140 mph at this event would be challenge enough due this being the longest race of the season and the extended canyon run. Little did we know that every road racing veteran and their daddy (the 3rd place team was a father/son combo) had decided to run 140 mph.

We didn't back down though. Several fellow racers and team members tried to talk us into going back to 135 mph which only had 5 cars. We probably would have placed there since 2nd place was a whopping 3 seconds off, but we really wanted to run with a large, tough crowd to see how we'd do.

How tough? Well, the folks that took 3rd and 4th were tied last year for best overall times of the entire 2005 season. The guys that took 1st Place were "statistically" perfect: 140.000 mph, .010 time variance. Seven out of 15 cars were under 1 second off. When Deana and I considered the competition, the road, and the speed we had to drive to actually average 140 mph (we spent an awful lot of time at 150 mph+), we were happy the Mazda Motor Sports/QuickBooks RX-7 finished under a second off.

Next month we return to the scene where we blew an engine in May. We plan to avenge ourselves. At Deana's insistence, we're running it at 145mph (I so love that woman). There's a fellow that always dominates that class and she wants to take him out. She figures what better way to bounce back from such a close and tough loss than to take on one of the "ringers" at a higher speed in the next race.

Really don't have a colorful story about the actual drive, but I did have an interesting experience as a qualifying instructor. One of the rookies assigned to me was an elderly chap in a 1969 Ford LTD. I wish I had my camera phone with me. The car was white with red & orange flames from nose to tail. NASCAR style tires and engine so big the hood literally would not close at the back. I get in the car and there's a classic bench seat with deteriorating upholstery, a lap belt, ashtray full of cigarette butts, a pine tree air freshener hanging from the window and an old guy with a motorcross helmet and ski-goggles. I'm thinking, "This is gonna be fun.."

Well, during pre-run chitchat, I find out this rookie had his NASCAR racing license before I potty trained. The monster under the hood is an $8000 beast that would probably propel most cars well past 200 mph, but they've geared the transmission to run in the 90 mph class.

Our turn comes and he flips some switches and brings the engine to life. It's so loud in the car we have to scream at each other. He informs me that his speedometer doesn't work and that he'd be driving by tachometer. He's done the math and concluded that 4000 rpm will be 95 mph. We head down the road and by 1 mile in I know even my bad ear is going to be ringing for the rest of the day. He sails through the speed trap and the display shows 97 mph. Pretty close. We turn around, run back and he decides to shake it out a bit and runs the whole leg at 105 mph (his can't exceed 110 or he'll be DQ'd).

I signed his card and wished him and his co-driver good luck, provided they could get a transmission fluid leak fixed. Well, they got the leak fixed and ran the event. They used their wrist watches and kitchen egg timer set for 86:35. No GPS, no speedometer, and no stop watches. At 90 mph, they missed their time by only .195 seconds and won Best Overall in the Hand Timers class. Yeah, it's a cool sport.

Thank you for your support,

Blue

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April 28/29 2007 Big Bend Open Road Race

September 17 2006 The Silver State Classic Nevada