One Lap in a Yaris

Videos

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:46:48 -0400

The videos we took were too large to try to upload on our slow mobile connection, and I don't have any video editing software, so we didn't post any video from the road. But, now I've uploaded some of them to the "One Lapper" website. They're not great, but at least they give a glimpse at some of the tracks we drove on.

Check out the videos.

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What about those tires?

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:42:43 -0400

Before the alphabet soup escapes my memory forever, we ran the One Lap on a set of 195/55-15 Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec tires from The Tire Rack. They were awesome! I think they maybe could have been a little better in the wet, but otherwise, I had no complaints about them at all... and they were good for .997 G's, had good steering response and no wear issues. What more could I ask for?

Here's a shot of the front tire after driving one autocross and the 1200 mile trip up to South Bend. Amazingly, even with nearly 3 degrees of negative camber, they showed no appreciable wear at this point. The tire has a brilliant stepped section on the outer groove that would make any uneven wear stand out.

NewTires

This is what we found while checking tire pressures on the last day of the One Lap before driving the dry skidpad event. D'oh! Removing it was not an option. If it was worse, we probably could have gotten them to allow us to get it fixed and run out of order. But, running it as it is just seemed like the "spirit of the event" thing to do. And so we did. Inflated it to 30psi and ran .997 G's on it!

Screwed

After running the skidpad and getting the tire fixed (thanks Tire Rack crew!), we rotated the tires. Not so much due to wear issues, but because Jeff's spin at No Problem flat-spotted the front tires and I wasn't looking forward to driving home that way! So, I took a couple photos while the tires were off of the car.

The rear tires showed almost no wear, and maybe half a mm more wear on the inside edge. The front tires are 1/2 to 2/3 worn, but the wear is surprisingly even. Again... with almost 3 degrees of camber, I expected some inside tire wear. I guess all of the track miles balanced it out.

Maintenance-wise, there's nothing else to report. The synthetic oil with 7,000 miles on it still looks new. Not a drop of oil was used on the trip. Front brake pads are less than half worn. The suspension all stayed tight. The car was simply flawless!

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Fuel Economy

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:37:43 -0400

The numbers are in! We logged all but one of our fuel stops. (Jeff was much better about remembering to do this than I was... I'm more of a fill-it-and-go kinda guy) Total miles = 6,472 Total gallons = 192.6. Overall average fuel economy including all of the track miles, highway miles, city miles, uphill miles, downhill miles, lost miles and everything else... 33.6 MPG.

But wait... we were running slightly shorter than stock tires, so the mileage that we used was not correct. The tires we used 0.3" shorter than stock. Correcting for that makes our total mileage 33.2 mpg. Still pretty good.

Worst tank was 27.7 mpg, but it was an early fill-up, so there were less highway miles to balance out the track miles.

Best tank was 39.2 (corrected to 38.7) from the trip up from FL where we weren't in a hurry and drove a full tank at 70 mph or less. That was backed up by a few tanks in the 38's and 36's.

Taking our total 192.6 gallons and adding a bit to make up for the tank we didn't document... call it 200 gallons. Average gas price was probably around $3.70 (disregarding the $8/gallon I paid for 1.5 gallons of 98 octane at Road America because I forgot to gas up before we got there). Total fuel cost for the trip = $740.

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Back in Florida

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:24:37 -0400

We just rolled in to Lorens. Ended up driving straight from Deals Gap to here, with just a quick stop for a nap and some breakfast at my favorite, Waffle House : )

I just wanted to say thanks to Loren for inviting me on the trip, It was well worth it! I hope to return to One Lap again in the future, and thanks to Loren's advice and guidance, I will be that much more prepared.

I still have to drive back to Cali, but I'll be resting in Miami for a few days before hitting the road again... It should be an easy cruise after the mileage we've done in the past week ; )

Hope to see everyone out there again some time!

-Jeff

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Tamed the Dragon

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:46:13 -0400

We hit the Tail of the Dragon right around midnight, and I got a good clean run at it. It truly is an awesome piece of road when you have it to yourself. I did catch up to a guy in a Mustang, but he was cool and pulled off to let me by. (I suspect he was a little embarrassed when he saw that he'd just been passed by a Yaris!) We stopped at the crossroads and chatted with some of the locals who were hanging there. (It didn't dawn on me until about an hour later that it was very likely the infamous "Killboy" and "Killgirl") I offered to drive back down the mountain (such a sacrifice for me... hah!) and let Jeff make a full run up the mountain, but he declined. It is admittedly an intimidating road in the dark if you've not driven it before. So, I handed him the keys and he drove the more tame end of the Dragon into Robbinsville, we got gas, and he drove us most of the way to Atlanta while I slept.

We're making good time on the trip home and should be there by about noon. I get to take an afternoon nap on my couch! How cool is that? (it's the simple things in life, yano?)

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The Dragon called to us

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:44:58 -0400

Deal's Gap. "The Tail of the Dragon". That section of US-129 where Tennessee meets North Carolina. Jeff has never been there before, and it's only going to add about 2 hours to our trip... let's go!

So, Maryville TN is programmed into the GPS and we're headed there. We'll hit the Gap around midnight, so there should be no traffic, it will be perfect!

We may or may not grab a hotel somewhere after that, it just depends on how we feel. We've got about 10 hours to go after that, so the more hours we get in tonight, the less we'll have to do tomorrow.

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Congratulations!

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:12:38 -0400

A hearty congratulations to all of the top 10 finishers, class winners, trophyists, special award winners, AND all of my fellow "losers" for getting through another One Lap of America!

PS: I just realized that Barry & Josh (those pesky Honda guys) actually tied with us in class points! Way to go, guys! I guess the tie-breaker must have been overall points where the autox and skidpad bumped us up a bit.

57th overall. Not quite the 55th goal that I'd set for myself, but close enough!

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14 Hours to go

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:06:53 -0400

Yep, it's all over and we're on our way home. 14 hours on the clock. We'll probably stop somewhere around midnight and get some sleep, that will put us home sometime Sunday evening.

Those last two events were real surprises! I know a lot of other people were surprised, but I have to say that I was, too! On the skidpad, my goal was merely to do better than I'd done in the Sentra last year (.966), I certainly never expected to get that close to 1.0 in the Yaris with no real development or testing... and no practice. I guess it just proves that once you know how to drive a skidpad and how to grossly set the car up, the big numbers are inevitable.

For car setup, all I did was set the tire pressures to a known good pressure (32 front/30 rear), set the front shocks stiff enough to give good feel, and set the rear shocks full stiff. (more rear stiffness transfers more weight to the outside front tire where it is most needed) The only other thing we did was run with a full tank of fuel and left the spare tire in the back to help balance the car better. Really, it's all the same stuff we did with the Sentra last year. It works. I wasn't surprised that I did well... .97 or so would have been expected, but .997... Wow!

The autocross was another story. As I mentioned yesterday, I drove conservatively AND I made a mistake that cost me at least a second. I carried first gear through the slalom and all the way through the first turn just to be sure I kept my speed in check and didn't overcook that section like Josh did, there was a good second left on the table there. As far as autocross runs go, it was pretty awful! When I saw that I'd finished 11th in that event, I was simply stunned!

I guess the autocross is sort of like the wet skidpad. People didn't take it seriously enough as an event (POINTS, Hello!), and it took a lot more skill than they gave it credit for. I heard of people going out and taking their ONE run on the autocross course without even walking the course first. I can't imagine such a thing. To me, that seems about as dumb as going out on any one of the race tracks we drove without ever having looked at a track map. Yeah, sure, you might get around it (or you might not!)... but you're sure as hell not going to be fast. And if you're only being given ONE shot at it... well, you get the point. Anyone who didn't walk the autocross course has no one to blame but themselves for their poor performance.

Gotta grab a nap before we stop for dinner.

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It's Over!

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:26:35 -0400

The 2008 Tire Rack One Lap of America has officially ended. Team Yaris came through in the end and thanks to Loren piloting us to an amazing 11'th place overall in the autocross and 15'th overall in the dry skidpad with a 0.997G run (both first in class!) we where able to finally squeeze by our friends in the four door Honda Civic into 4'th place in class and a very respectable 57'th place overall finish!

We are both very pleased with the results and had a blast! We may have not taken home any trophies, but the experience was well worth the effort and I'm sure we turned a few heads out on the road (and track).

The autocross event threw a lot of people off course due to the funky layout, but as Loren proved, if you studied the course enough and drove smart, the driver can really make all the difference. This morning while unloading the car getting ready for the skidpad, we noticed that the right rear tire was very low on pressure. After a quick inspection we found that we had picked up a wood screw somewhere along the road and had a slow leak. With only a few minutes before our run, we decided to air it up and run it as is... luckily it didn't hold us back and Loren surprised everyone with the amazing run. Thanks to the friendly folks at Tire Rack (Ed and Nick) for patching up the tire for us for the drive home! Loren kept the 2" long wood screw as a souvenir : )

We're now back on the road, headed for Florida, we have 1200 miles to travel and Loren is driving the first leg. Thanks for all the support from everyone who's followed the blog so far, I'm sure we'll keep on updating it as we make our way back home and I have lots of pictures and video to post once it's all sorted.

-Jeff

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Back where we started...

nobody@vox.com(Loren) — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:48:03 -0400

here we go 'round again.

I opted to just hang out here in the room last night and get some extra sleep for that 18-hour drive back home rather than head down to the bar and be sociable. Jeff ran out to Taco Bell for some dinner and did the same. So, both of us got a welcome 8 hours of sleep. Well, 8 hours less the time it took for the hoard of people who think it's cool to check into a hotel at 10:30pm run up and down the halls yelling and singing, slamming doors and that sort of thing... and then doing the same when they come back from a night out at around 1am. What's with people?

I guess I'll rant about the hotel while I'm bitching. We showed up around 9:00pm with a reservation for a non-smoking double room. Ended up taking a single room with a fold-out. (Jeff should be less happy with this than me, since he slept on the couch) What's the point of making a reservation??? If I do One Lap again, I think I'm going to stay somewhere other than the Comfort Inn in South Bend.

All of the results from yesterday haven't been posted on the website yet. All I know at this point is that Jeff was 6 seconds back from the Honda in the morning, and they've posted the afternoon results... about 3 seconds back there, which is good. Would be nice to see the actual times, though. No results from the autocross yet.

They did update the overall points. We're up to 59th out of 71 cars that started, so I guess that's good. Josh & Barry in the Honda are 40 points ahead of us overall... I wonder if we can sneak ahead of them at the skidpad? I think we're too far behind them in class points to get higher than 5th in class.

Time for a shower, then we're off to the Tire Rack!

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