Saturday, May 07 – Tire Rack Test Facility, South Bend, IN

So last night we all met up at the bar and for once during the whole event we felt we could have a beer.  But after going a week without, the first few swigs went right to our head.  We stayed and socialized for a long while and order pizza and around 10:30 made our way back to hotel. A little local news on TV and out.  We woke up this morning, showered, checked out and headed across the street to the Pancake House.  Once there we learned there a photo shoot at Tire Rack at 8, about an hour before we intended ot arrive.  So our leisurely breakfast was hurried and off we went.  Once there we jockeyed our selves in front the the photo line of cars and were marshaled up near the front so our car would appear prominently in the One Lap Year Book.

After the photo shoot, we found our parking spot and prepared the car for the Dry Skip Pad competition.  We will run on the same course we ran just last week at the start of the One Lap, but this time it’s clean and dry – a real tire eater.  Dave drove but we conferred on how best to attack the dry skid pad.  We both have considerable experience on a wet skid pad.  After all we a National Capital Chapter BMWCCA instructors and are graduates of the Chapter Instructor Academy.  The IA program is structured to makes us better drivers and the wet Skid pad is an important component of car control.  BUT this is dry.  One would think the same applies and yes it does.  But there’s more to it.  One is the start finish is 1/3 around the circle.  So you have to figure our how much grip you have by then.  Two is it’s all about time around the circle.  So not only going as fast as possible, you have to keep it in tight to the center.  Three, be smooth, looking for a constant speed, throttle, and constant tire squeal.  Four if it starts to push, where the front tires loose grip and the arc widens, use left foot braking while adding more throttle.  And Five, charge the finish. Open the wheel when in near the finish and mash on the gas, remembering the fix it after you cross the line and don’t hit a cone.  Oh yes, I guess that would be Six, don’t hit a cone, it’s a 10 second penalty.  Anyway Dave got us a 0.945 G’s and a 36^th place finish and earned us a move up one place to finish the One Lap in 48^th out of the 78 cars entered.  Not bad for a stock E36 M3 considering all the horsepower monsters we had to run against.

So after the skid pad event, we packed up for the trip home and headed inside for the Banquet and awards ceremony.  Good food, but anything cooked and more than 5 minuets to eat it is fantastic.  Seriously, they served us steak, green beans and baked potatoes.  The banquet was held in the monstrous Tire Rack warehouse and you could hear the forklifts running around but not annoyingly so.  The awards portion was excellent and hearing all the commodore and gratitude from all the participants was overwhelming.  So now we’re heading home and we should be in our Northern Virginia beds by 1 am, another one of our shorter transits.  The whole trip from home, One Lap all over, and back home was 5,288.  And Dave and I are still friends.

Friday, May 6, Autobahn Country Club Juliet, Juliet, IL

We arrived at 1:20 the night before and we each had several hours’ naps in the car on the way up from Alabama, so a 7 am wake up call was really okay.  The hotel was the worse of the trip and the breakfast buffet was as skimpy as I’ve ever seen.  But whatever, all we did is sleep and shower and check out and off to the track.  Well that was a challenge.  The information posted on the track’s website said don’t trust your GPS, use our directions.  The One Lap Route Book, which Brock provided us at registration and has been fantastic so far provided different directions than the track’s.  But both were not usable because, even though it was only 5 miles several bridges were washed out some time back and the detours were not well marked at all.  It looked like a Time Distance Road Rally because you could see one lappers everywhere going both directions.  Finally, we brought out the GPS and punched in a cross road near the track and shezzam, it found us and kept re-calculating each time we made a detour turn and pretty soon we had a following of one lappers and the track we found.  Speaking of the GPS, though for the last 2 days, the thing went into a funk near dusk both times.  It seems to have lost satellite reception for about ½ hour and then return to normal.  So were not sure how much longer it will last.  Anyway, the detour turned out to be good.  We hear 2 clucks from the front sway bar links.  We knew from snapping a link a Summit Point several weeks before the One Lap, that the clucking sound was something to notice and address.  Once there we jacked up the front end , removed both wheels and checked all 4 nuts.  And sure enough, we could get about a ½ turn on the driver’s end link attachment nut at the strut.

Autobahn is yet another beautiful facility.  For the most part, the terrain was flat and the surface was consistent, so the track was very easy to read.  In other words you could drive what you see.  Just keep your vision up and look as far forward as you could and it was pretty easy to drive harder and have confidence you were not going to get into trouble.  The other thing about this track is there was a lot of run off room.  One thing though, the pit-ins were not marked well at all.  We saw a Porsche blow pit in and make a U-turn at pit out.  That’s a 10 second penalty.  And that moved him to 37^th place for the event whereas he would have taken 4^th. 

Even so, you have one reconnaissance lap to run it at speed and then start your 3-lap race, it’s still difficult to run 10/10ths even if it your home track.  Greg ran the north course in the morning and felt he ran 9/10ths.  Dave ran the south course in the afternoon and felt he could only run about 7/10ths. 

They had opened up the South course after the afternoon sessions were completed for fun-runs.  Essentially it was open track.  But we were concerned that this bunch really does not know how to pass, so we abstained.  We made it this far and did not want to risk an incident.  So we once again loaded the car, but this time we only had a 110 mile transit to South Bend, so there was discussion and a consensus was reached to meet at The Pub in South Bend.  Everyone had the address loaded in their GPS’s and off we went, only to sit in Chicago rush hour traffic.  The transit time took about 2.5 hours, but we had plenty of time.

Thursday, May 5 – Barber Motorsports Park, Leeds AL

Last night, we had to make sure that we arrived in the Birmingham area with a full tank.  With all the tornado damage gasoline is in short supply.  Anyway, we arrived at the hotel last night around 10 pm and did not have to be at the track right next door until 8 am.  Were not sure how our bodies were going to handle sleeping all night in a bed, but as it turns out it was just fine.  After a good breakfast we headed to the track.

Barber is a top-notch facility.  The track has banked turns and the surface is excellent.  The timing a media building is huge.  The amenities are high quality.  Even the grounds are superb.  Others in our group described it as a golf course but for cars.  The BMW Car Club will be holding this year’s Oktoberfest here and it looks to be very well suited for the annual gathering and driving activities.

Anyway Dave drove this morning and Greg this afternoon.  And we both had good safe runs. 

It will take many weeks for the smiles to wear off our faces.  We left the track around 2:30 central time to begin our 691 mile leg to Autobahn near Chicago, IL.  I hope to be at the hotel around 1 am and with a 2 hour nap in transit, we should be in good shape for tomorrow’s runs.  In route, just north of Birmingham along I-65, we could see some of the damage from the road.

Wednesday, May 4th Grand Bayou Raceway in Belle Rose, LA

So we arrived at the hotel shortly after 3 am, central time and today schedule was pushed back and hour so we could sleep in until 7.  Sounds bad, but it was really okay.  We did not blog last night because while one was driving, the other was sleeping and we switched off every 2 hours.  So really we are good, we were probably more sleep deprived at the start back in Virginia trying to get everything done in preparation for the One Lap.

So we showered, breakfasted, and even washed the car and headed to the track.  Once there, we scootered the track and readied Greg for his morning run. 

At lunch we discussed the morning session and how Dave might better our position for the afternoon run.

Again we packed up and headed on down the road.  It looks like we’ll be at the hotel around 10 pm and we’ll be getting a full night’s sleep in a bed this time.

Tuesday May 3rd evening – Gainesville Raceway

We arrived at Gainesville around 6:30 and unloaded the car and filled out our Drag Race Tech Form and awaited the Tech Inspector.  The inspector looked out car over and made user we signed in all the right places.  Then we gridded the car and walked up to the driver’s meeting.  For the first time we’re seeing the immensity of this place.  They run the NHRA Gator Nationals here and it is huge.  The grandstands are humongous and on both sides.  The large tinning signs at the end of the quarter mile are so big you can easily read them for the starting line.

So Dave ran the Timing Set run and for a 15.1 and a trap speed of 90 mph.  Now it was Greg’s turn, he decide on a bracket time of 14.7 and sure enough earned us a loss so we could get on the road at 8 pm for our hotel in Donaldsonville, LA, some 680 miles away. Basically, if we won our bracket heat, we would have advanced to the next heat AND would have to have stayed there long er and not been able to get on the road. Even as it was we would not get to the hotel until 3:30 am central time. We heard the next day that the bracket racing went on for another hour and a half.  Lucky for us.

Tuesday, May 3rd Day – Daytona Speedway 24 Hour Course

We arrived at the hotel at 2 am and again heads on pillow and fast asleep.  We had an early 6 am wakeup call though because again we had to scooter the track.  Again quick showers and checked out. I asked the desk clerk at checkout where the track was.  Yes men do actually ask for directions when they’re late to a track event.  Her reply was, oh, you mean that one, as she pointed across the street.  Last night late arrival in the dark, I had no idea we were right there.  So, how do you know when it’s a short night? - when the same staff is still there in the morning that checked you in.   Breakfast was not provided so we stopped at the 7-11 and picked up juice and coffee.  We had bananas and breakfast bars we bought in a grocery store in South Bend, so off across the street we went to the track.

We were early and the garages were mostly empty.  We found our friends from Lynchburg, VA and unloaded the car, grabbed our trusty scooters and out we went.  We walked up the banked turn at the track’s finish line and began to scooter into turn 1 and all through the in-field course.  Just doing the in-filed course, we began to appreciate how huge the track really was and how incredibly steep the banking really was.  Our legs were sore just traversing entry into turn one from the banking through the infield and back out onto the banking.  We not get all the way around the track to see the bus stop or chicane at the end of the back-straight.  That will just have to wait until our recognizance lap to figure all that out.

So anyway David got a better night’s sleep than I, so he went first.  We have a better routine now to use his in-car video camera and review the video with the debrief form the morning driver to the afternoon driver.  Dave had a good run and was full of excitement from the thrill.  We both reviewed the video at lunch and they also opened the track for lunchtime driving and they set a 100 MPH limit, no helmets, so our we went, me driving and Dave in the passenger seat.  The banking in the turns is so steep that at 100 mph, you have to steer uphill.  Yes that means you have to steer right to go left.  Amazing.

Greg got his turn for the afternoon session and found the top speed of a stock E36 M3 to be 142 mph, that’s where it redlines in 5^th gear.  Many other cars here in the One Lap have gobs of horsepower and some were reaching 180 mph.  There was an Evo behind Greg and on the 3^rd lap, Greg gave him the point on the back straight.  However, the Evo lost it in the bus stop and crossed the track 3 times before getting it under control.  Greg gave him the line and took the bus stop offline, and kept our E36 safely away from idiot.

We learned late in the afternoon session that Wood and Robin were able to get their car repaired in Savanna in the morning and were on their way to Dayton and expected to get their afternoon run in.  They had hit a Armadillo near Savanna on the transit down.  They paid the local dealer form the parts and double the labor expense because they had ot cannibalize a brand new car to get them on the road.  As Woody and Robin arrived, Dave and I loaded up the car and headed toward Gainesville for this evening’s Drag Race event.

Monday May 2 pm – BMW Performance Center, Spartanburg, SC

We left Carolina Motorsports Park shortly after 3 pm.  There were sever mechanical delays during the day.  Not sure whether we’ll see the broken cars again in the one lap schedule because they looked pretty serious and will take some time to resolve.

Anyway it took about 2 hours to transit to the Performance Center.  There was quite a gathering there of spectators, probably around 200.  They gave us food, had an announcer.  It was a real festive event.  The performance Center test track is a complex set of segments that can be configured in many ways.  For the One Lappers, they had a 2 mile course with a huge banked sweeper at the start followed by a slow chicane and then several second gear tight turns leading the a ¾ mile straight.  Speeds were anywhere from 30 mph in the tight sections to over 100 on the straight.

Both Frank Patek and Steven Schlossman from the BMW National office in Greensboro, SC came to the event and both Dave and I were able to visit with them.  Steven found us a paddock space right in the spectator viewing area.  We setup our chairs and sat and enjoyed seeing the first and fastest runn groups run the course.  The runs were the same format as the other track events, except we just had 2 hot timed laps.  Anyway Greg squeezed himself in earlier than were suppose to run so we could get on down the road to begin our 479 mile trek to Daytona.

Monday May 2 am - Carolina Motorsports Park

Well we arrived at the hotel just after 10 pm last night, after conversing with some follow one lappers, and figuring out we needed to set the alarm for 5:45 we had heads on the pillow around 11.  Last as I was falling off to sleep, my youngest daughter sent me a text about Bin Laden but we figured we’d catch up on news Monday morning.  After a great night’s sleep, showered, dressed, checked out and breakfast at the hotel buffet, we headed to the track, about a 30 minute drive.

This track is the first of all to follow of new to us tracks.  After Summit Point in the schedule, neither Dave nor Greg has been to these tracks before.  So unlike Summit Point where we all ready knew the track and how to drive it well, all the remaining tracks are totally unknown to us.  So here’s the routine, study the track map, read the turn by turn descriptions and view u-tube videos, all these over and over again.  These are things you can do during the transits.  The other very important thing is to arrive early and walk (we scooter, good workout too) the track, look at all the turns in person, paying attention to rubber marks left on the track from use, analyze spin marks form other’s mistakes, but most importantly, recall all the descriptions and videos we saw and develop your own approach to how your going to learn the track at speed in one lap and race 3 and of course, keep the car upright, shinny and straight when you finish.  It’s a lot to ask.

Greg ran the first session in the morning.  During one of the runs after Greg, a Porsche dumped it’s coolant on the pit straight all the way through turn 8.  They shut the track down for 1.5 hours cleaning up the mess.  Porsche’s are not intended to have coolant anyway.  So we had a nice leisurely track snack bar lunch, yummy and free time to catch up on a few things.    Remember it’s all about the sleep.  Dave will run the second session around 1 pm.  Then pack up and transit to the BMW Performance Center Test Track at the US BMW Factory in Spartanburg, SC

Sunday May 1 Summit Point, WV

Well, we had a long night the day before, very long 550 miles beginning at 3 pm and ending at 1 am with our arrival in Winchester.  The last 100 miles were over some difficult 2 lane roads through the Maryland, and West Virginia panhandles trying to get from Morganton, WV to Winchester, VA all in the black of night and always looking for deer and small-town police radar.  In rout we saw 2 other one lappers pulled over.  Dave and I have vowed to not fall victim.

Even after a long trip and all we wanted to do was fall into bed we learned that our confirmed reservation was gone.  Apparently, with the Apple Blossom Festival, rooms were very scarce and what they considered to be well past late arrival, our room was gone.  Anyway while we were discovering our predicament, we witness the ladies of the evening being escorted to their next bookings at the same time Dave jumped on the cell phone and lined us up a room at the Windham.  So in the address went into the GPS and off we went across town.  Turned out to be a wonderful hotel, the best we’ll stay at this whole trip.  But we lost some important sleep time as we really did not doze off until 2.

We requested a 6 am wakeup call, which never came.  Somehow we awoke at 6:30, both showered, dressed packed checked out and eat at the hotel’s free buffet and in the car at 7:00.  30 minutes is all we needed?  Wow, we’re good.  A 30 minute ride to the track, off loaded the car, and setup a seating and table area under Woody and Robin’s pop-up canopy.   

In addition to our normal One Lap activities, we had many visitors over the course of the day.  Greg’s wife Debbie, oldest daughter Amanda, son-in-law Brian and the grandbaby, Madeline, second daughter Shannon and her longtime boyfriend Tyler all came up with a grill and food to feed 40 One Lappers and friends.  The National Capital Chapter Instructor Corps was also holding a skid pad day.  So many of our dearest Club Instructors came to visit and encourage us.  Anyway it was great to see all and it really meant a lot.

Greg ran in the morning’s run and Dave in the afternoon.  Both of us know Summit Point Main track extremely well.  Of any of the tracks we will run during the one lap race, this track will be our best shot to show our stuff.  Even though we were seeded 39^th, after the skid pad and autocross events we ended up 39^th overall.  Our frrist session today we finished 39^th.  So one could say we are meeting the expectations of the One Lap organizers that considered our car and experience.  But in the event , we can all ready see that most of the cars have way more horsepower and much better electronics than do we, our 12-year old car.

So we again packed up, said our warm goodbyes to all our family and friends and headed down the road.  Remember time is lost sleep.  So we’re tooling down interstate 81 and see that dinnertime will put us at Blacksburg, we called Dave’s youngest son Bret, Greg’s youngest daughter, Marianne and her boyfriend Andy and Scott Donaldson, fellow Tarheel BMW Instructor and Greg’s very long time closest friend and we all met at Ruby Tuesday’s near the exit.  Both Dave and I and our wives will be back in Blacksburg in less than 2 weeks for Bret’s and Marianne’s Graduation from Virginia Tech.  So again we said our goodbyes and once again headed on down the road because time is lost sleep.  Looks like we’ll be at the hotel by 10 pm tonight.  So it’ll be an easy trip in comparison.  Tomorrow we need to be at the track by 7am so we can walk (scooter, yes we have kid’s scooters with us) the track to learn as much as we can before we have to race it for our time and points.

Saturday April 30 Afternoon Autocross

We arrived at the Grissom Air Force Base area about 11:40 am.  The Autocross event did not start until 1:00 so we had a leisurely lunch at the Dutch Buffet.  Good food and cheap.  We left for the event about 12:30.  Good thing!.  Bit of a navigational mistake as the GPS took us in the wrong gate and the written directions referenced a water tower, yet we found 2 water towers.   But once we stopped and asked for directions, yes real men stop to ask for directions to a track, but that all. 

Anyway, once at the event, Dave dropped of Greg at the entrance so he could walk (really run) the course.  Walking the course is common practice to learn where all the cone and markers are and how to utilize and speed, braking and momentum during the competition.

The event was very well run by a professional staff.  The course was all concrete, smooth and consistent grip.  The course was challenging and well safely laid out.  The course map was published ahead of time in the One Lap of America Route Book the provided us at registration back in South Bend.  Of course all looking and the course layout and walking the course does little to prepare for running the course at speed where time staying on course and avoiding cones are the objectives.  In the end the time for your clean runs is what translates to One Lap points.

Greg’s first run was a 57.356, which wasn’t too shabby.  However, he missed a cone so he awarded a DNF (did not finish) which means the first of only 3 runs was disqualified.  We needed at least one clean run, so, Greg laid down a conservative 58.326 on the second run.  So with one good run in the books, Greg let is all out and turned a 57.075.  That minimum time is the time that will be used on awarding points.  We’ll have to wait and see how we faired in class and overall.

Dave had emptied the car while Greg studied the course.  He had everything ordered for re-packing the car which was about 5 minutes.  We found Robin and Woody, who were ready to leave and got on the road at 3:10 for Winchester, VA a 477 mile transit.  We expect to stop for dinner and arrive at the hotel about 1 am.  This is our first real long one lap leg of the 8 day of events.

Saturday April 30, Morning Skidpad

We awoke at 5:30 this morning.  Probably earlier than needed, but we wanted to benchmark ourselves on the time it takes to get up and ready, checkout of the hotel, eat drive to the track, unload and ready ourselves for the competition.  This morning we arrived at the Tire Rack South Bend Indiana at 8 am after we had breakfast at Pancake House of America restaurant with a whole bunch of other One-Lappers.

Once at Tire Rack we both changed into our race suits for the team photo and observed the first 10 or so cars run in the Wet Skid Pad time trail.  We thought the first most experience cars really were slow and not smooth.  We are seeded number 39 out of 78 entries.  The seeding is based on the experience of the Team, the car and years of running the one lap.  Since this is our first year, seeded 39 is pretty good.  Our challenge will be to hold or better that position throughout this 8 day endurance race.

The Wet Skid Pad time trial commences 1/3 the way around the first lap.  That’s not much time at all to figure out how much grip.  They time 2 laps one way, you turn around and then time 2 more laps.  They average the times and calculate the G-force.  Dave ran the Skid Pad and earned us a .771 G’s.  After our run that placed us in 21 st place overall, considerably above our seeding.  All of our National Capital Chapter Skid Pad experience paid off.  But there are the other cars behind us in the seeding yet to run and we did not stick around to find out our final position.  We’ll have to wait until the results are posted on the One Lap of America website.

So after Dave’s run, we packed up and headed to Grissom Air Force Base to compete in the Autocross event.  Greg has a number of year’s Autocross experience and will run in this afternoon’s event.  Anyway we left South Bend at 10:30 and it’s only an hour’s ride down the road to Grissom, an unusually easy transit.  Tonight’s transit to Winchester will be grueling.

After Registration - All Stickered Up

April 28 11:15PM - South Bend Arrival

Left at 8:40 this morning and made it to South Bend by about 7:45.  Pretty much drove the 622 miles straight through.  We stopped for gas/snacks and swapped drivers every 2 hours.  We had a late lunch at about 3:00 in Strongsville Ohio.  We made the trek with 2 other teams: Woody Hair and Robbin Sparrow (2011 BMW M3) and Brian Hair (E36 M3)  Brian was making the drive alone as he was meeting his partner in South Bend.

Drive was fun (yes you can drive for 10+ hours and have fun).  Had walki-talkies across the cars so there was a good running commentary about everything.  Saw lots of speed traps but kept things under the radar.  Weather was ugly in Washington and South Bend otherwise passing showers.  Got a bunch of pictures but these will have to wait till tomorrow as we are pretty tired at this point.

Tomorrow is an easy day.  Registration and Tech inspection, drivers' meeting and a evening party.  Saturday starts the events.

April 28th Getting ready

Technically it is now the day we are leaving for South Bend Indiana.  Planning to leave at 8:00 to meet up with Woody and Robin on the way.  Still finishing up packing and setting things up.  We have some of the decals on the car will add more Friday when we register.  We will be car #39 (see Our entry for the One Lap of America).  What started out as minimalist packing list has turned into a bunch of extras.  We now are bringing a table and tent (Greg dubious about the tent but willing to give it a go).  Still feel like I have a million things to get done before we leave but now clearly have no more time.  Should be a easy drive and plan to arrive at the hotel at about 6:00 PM.  Expect plenty of rain along the way.

Dave