One Lap in a Yaris

South Bend to FL = 13 Hours

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sun, 13 May 2007 08:06:46 -0400

Rolled into a place called Marianna or something like that around 3:30am. We took an alternate route because we'd heard that part of I-75 was closed. The pleasant side-benefit of that detour is that it completely avoided the suck that is Georgia, and the drive through Alabama was quite nice. Good roads, sparse traffic. Lots of cops... but we weren't going fast enough to meet them. :)

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No more drive-by squirtings!

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 12 May 2007 16:48:24 -0400

Last One

This is likely the last One-Lap car we'll see on our trip back home. Cool car. He's also from Florida, and his Miata has a rotary conversion that was done by the shop Dan Rasp works at. Very slick conversion, those guys are good! I took a few other photos of it earlier in the week, here they are:

Wankel by Dan

Yep, it's a rotary.

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Headed Home

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 12 May 2007 14:12:28 -0400

You'd think they would know better than to give us something breakable!

We really gotta love this trophy... cuz it's all we got. No cash, no prizes, just a trophy... and lots of memories. Maybe someday I'll start actually remembering the memories, they're mostly a blur right now!

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Fireball guy" from earlier in the week... you'll have to ask us if you want the rest of the story:

"I'm a stunt driver. If these tracks were wet, I'd finish in the top 10!"

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The Car is the Goodness.

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 12 May 2007 10:50:09 -0400

I Love These Tires!

Okay, so at the dragstrip, we proved that this car has the best acceleration in our class (of the cars that didn't break) with a solid first place finish. Today, we proved that our car has the most grip with .97g and another first in class finish. It's all over now, and we finished second in class. Not sure what the overall position is yet.

Can I get a "woohoo"?

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The End of One Lap

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 12 May 2007 09:07:24 -0400

Us and a couple hundred of our closest friends

Ooooooh, a helicopter. (?)

(don't get me wrong, I support our troops, I used to be one... but what's a helicopter got to do with auto racing, and why did they have to spend $50,000 of my tax money to bring one here?) sorry for the rant.

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A New Day Dawning

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 12 May 2007 07:18:41 -0400

In spite of a day or two of REALLY crappy weather, most of our mornings on this trip have been things of beauty. This morning is no exception. Clear and sunny. Probably cold, but that will soon pass.

Looks like Loren's going to end up driving the skidpad today, as Jeff is still asleep. Not a problem.

Gotta get the car over there by 8am, though... which means scooping Jeff out of the bed and into the car...

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Back to South Bend

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Fri, 11 May 2007 23:24:57 -0400

So, we packed up around 2:30pm and headed for South Bend. Only about a 4 hour drive, so we took our time. The first part of the drive was on a pleasant 2-lane country road, and we were following some One Lappers in a Corvette and a GMC Cyclone. Did I mention that we came across a Super Soaker this week? (thanks, Michelle!) At one point, we got stopped out in the middle of nowhere by a looooong freight train. When we stopped behind the two cars we were following, Jeff hopped out and "ambushed" them. It was hilarioius! Sorry, I didn't think to take any photos. We've done "drive by shootings" of a couple other cars on the interstate, but that's not as fun. Oh, we got another Corvette driver as we were passing them rolling into a toll booth. His codriver (spouse?) cracked up, but I couldn't quite tell if he was too happy about it. Hope we didn't ruffle any feathers, we were just having fun!

Anyway, got back to South Bend, checked into the hotel, took a nap, went out for some barbecue... and now here I am. Jeff's out doing what he does best (well, okay, he's proven to be pretty good at driving the Sentra these past few days!), drinking and being sociable and I'm here doing what I do best... being antisocial and hacking on a computer.

The afternoon results have been posted, and with the exception of Amanda smoothly and swiftly leading the pack by about 6 seconds for first place, the rest of the class finished in exactly the tight group that I'd expected. Jeff placed 2nd behind Amanda. With the class points being what they are, that locks Amanda into first place. We should be solidly in 2nd place, all we have to do is finish the dry skidpad no less than 5th in class. That should be doable.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Sorry... I got nothin'. Maybe Jeff will pick up something at the bar?

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The Last Race

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:10:40 -0400

Jeff - Afternoon Session

Jeff finished the afternoon session without incident... which pretty well wraps up the whole week without incident. Not even a 4-wheels off incident that I recall. (of course, I'm not experiencing 100% recall of this week, and likely never will!) Watching the afternoon session, it was impossible to tell if any of the Econo class competitors had a clear advantage. Everyone looked good and kept pretty consistent intervals. Amanda kept things under control in sharp contrast to her morning performance, and that made me a little nervous... but we'd done all we could do. The deed was done.

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Morning at Mid-O

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Fri, 11 May 2007 10:33:52 -0400

Jeff - Lap 2

Jeff - Lap 3

Looking good this morning. Jeff learned the track quickly with a little help from an experienced Miata driver who caught up to him and spurred him into driving a bit faster. Amanda's diff has proven to be a major problem for her causing a lot of sloppiness and at least one good spin for her. Bad for her, but good for us... she only has to finish 4th or better in the remaining events to stay in first!

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The Final Road Course

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Fri, 11 May 2007 09:37:50 -0400

Here we are at Mid-Ohio. Got here a little later than optimal, so Jeff only got to walk about 1/3 of the track. This is one of those really fast and technical tracks, so Jeff is out now trying to watch other cars drive it to gain some insight.

We're holding 2nd place in class right now after the drag race event! Keeping that position will not be easy. We've got a pack of 4 cars/drivers in our class that are consistent and three of them have proven to be consistently very close to each other. The 4th is Amanda, and she's a wildcard at this point. She broke her diff yesterday, which means she won't be able to drive the car AS fast as she could before. But, she's good... and we haven't written her off yet.

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