Schaut Speed Racing Blog

The final track for the 2010 One Lap of America is Nelson’s Ledges.  It is claimed to be “The fastest track in the US”; highest average speed with sweeping corners and a long curving back straight.  Nelson’s is fast and bumpy.  And today it’s also cold and green.  Overcast, breezy, and with dampness in the air the clouds are threatening rain.  Just something to throw into the mix…..  Afterall, it’s all part of One Lap!

Dan will take the last 2 time trials.  We arrive at the track and Dan takes off for his track walk.  Nick and I tackle unloading the car, setting the suspension and conduct a much needed tire rotation.  The Michelin PS2s are grippy, but also wear fairly quick.  We’ve been pushing the car hard all week and the fronts are worn considerably more.

The rain looks like it will hold off for at least the first session.  Dan heads out, the low temps and lack of grip show a bit as on the recon lap, he gets a bit loose coming onto the front straight.  Green means go, but its not the fastest line!  He gets the car back under control and lines up to start his hot laps.  They wave him off and he rockets away into turn 1.  I’m watching from the front straight near the final turn – line looks much better this time.  2 to go.

Next lap around, with more temp in the tires and more confidence in the track, Dan carries more speed through that last turn. A bit too much….  2 wheels in the dirt, and little swagger through the green stuff (that grass was too tall anyway?), back on the black stuff and he carries on…  whew!  Let’s not do that again!  I love racing, but don’t need this kind of excitement right now!

He finishes off with a clean last lap and heads in.  Talking about the session, the slickness caught Dan in a few other spots.  This took a bit of time away, but not much.  It put us in 17th position for the AM session.  Still in 10th overall and 1st in class.  A little further from 8th and 9th, but also further from 11th.

With that excitement over, I head up to an observation deck to watch some of the other cars in action.  Remember that little cliché?   Lap 3 ends in the grass for one of our competitors.  A supercharged mustang blows a motor coming through the kink on the back straight – HUGE amount of white smoke pouring out the back to the car.  He safely pulls off the track near a corner station, leaving a good ¼ mile plus of smoke in his wake.  Soon you cannot even see the car.  I hear someone yell “Fire” through the cloud.  As it dissipates, you can see some flames coming from the tailpipes.  Yikes!  Soon the safety crew get the flames out as the driver makes for safety.

The culprit?  One of the pistons disintegrated, opening up a gapping hole for oil to be sucked into the exhaust (majority of the smoke, and cause of the fire).  The loss of the piston also created some issues with the connecting rod – which poked a rather large hole in the side of the block.  The corner workers came by a bit later to hand the driver the wrist-pin from that piston….   Unfortunately, this cars One Lap is done.  The drivers have found a way back to South Bend where they will pick up their truck and trailer and head back to pick up the wounded beast.

With the track cleaned up and lunch consumed (narrowly avoided another burger, with a hot dog…), we take a look at the data, make a plan and get Dan ready for round 2 of this roller-coaster of a track.  Much cleaner session, and faster.  On track with the BMW 335 of Brian Hair and Robin Sparrow (who beat us in the morning), Dan manages to close in and run some solid laps.  We don’t have results yet, but it looked to be another top 15 finish for Schaut Speed Racing.  Great way to finish up the time trials.

We now head back to South Bent for the final event.  I will be running the dry skid-pad tomorrow.  Or wet skid-pad if it decides to rain…  We are sitting in a very good position, with the Luxury sedan class wrapped up (it is no longer feasible for the Porsche of Bill and Todd to overtake us, even if we don’t run) and in a solid 10th overall.  A decent finish tomorrow and that is where we could stay.  Since it is a nice easy 300 miles to South Bend, a group of One Lappers have stopped at a local pub for start trading war stories of this past glorious week.  With that, this blog entry is done.  I’ll post pics up soon, but for now, my presence is requested inside….

It’s never over until its over.  Cliché, perhaps.  But it’s true.  Entering the last day of time trials, we sit a solid 1st in class and 10th overall.  If something as simple as a spin happens, we can catch 9th, maybe 8th.  But 11th, 12th and 13th can easily catch us too.  Anything can happen.  All we need to do is keep up with our consistent finishes and we will stay in the top 10.  Assuming all goes well for our competitors, 10th is where we will stay at the end of today.  Oh, and of course, we need to get to the track….

The end of yesterday was an interesting and unexpectedly eventful one.  I took over after filling up with gas and headed back down the road.  30 minutes or so later, the low tire pressure light suddenly turns on…  uh oh.  We’ve driven through a lot of construction, the tread on the tires are getting low….  Luckily we have a spare if needed, but its one of last years tires and won’t have the grip.  So I pull over and we check the tire for damage.  Not able to find any clear signs, we pump the tire back up with air, waiting and watching to see if the light comes back on.  2 miles down to road it does.  We just lost 10 psi in 2 miles…  Something is wrong, as we are losing pressure FAST!

Luckily we were coming up to an exit, so I slowed the car and pulled off the highway so we could safely unload the trunk and change the tire.  I get out of the car and I look at the tire – and see what looks like the end of the tire pumps chock….  Lucky for my co-drivers, it wasn’t – instead it was the valve stem itself.  Somewhere along the last 3300 miles or so, the outer portion of the valve stem, which screws onto the part inside the wheel, had worked loose.  And with that tight, the rubber seal was not compressed and doing its job.

As a precaution (as a racer, you get in the habit of checking all similar parts when something goes wrong), I check the others.  All are loose; the left front was just the first to start leaking!  Yikes!  With the valves tightened back up and pressure regained, we once again hit the road.  Disaster is adverted and we can continue on for our quest for a top 10 finish.

It’s still light out, and we are only 110 miles from out hotel.  For the 3rd time this One Lap, we are on schedule (even with our little extra stop) to get in before the sun sets.  We do some searches and opt to stop a bit early for a nice sit-down meal.  Youngstown Crab Co.  Man was it good!  I’m going to call it the 2nd best meal of the week!  This place even had a couple of giant parrots AND a lobster claw game!  It is one of those “skill” (er, blind luck?) games where you position the claw above a stuffed animal and drop the claw – only for live lobsters!  For $2 you could get a fresh cooked lobster!

It was a good thing the food was so good, since the hotel ranked far down with the low of the low….  I’m rating this one just slightly above New Jersey.  But with the worst breakfast….  Oh well, its all part of the One Lap….