Spring Mountain Raceway
May 12
, 2002
"Hail to the King of Pahrump"


7 Tracks in 7 Days to determine who really is the fastest driver/car combo

I have truly conquered time.   I call BP and tell him that I am driving up without the racecars as mine is still being worked on, and I won't be there until the 5 p.m. meeting for OTC registration.  I am supposed to be there to help him out, and by the sound of his voice, he is sweating that I ain't gonna be there on time.  I have 200 OTC t-shirts, decals, etc, and bunch of other stuff that is needed for registration.  We blaze up in the Cruise America RV, towing the go-kart trailer with about 30 tires in the trailer for Wayne and I.  We each have about three sets of race tires, a set of rain tires, extra tires for the truck and the trailers.  I cruise into the Nugget at 4:55 p.m. on Saturday evening.  Perfect timing. 

That night, I formally meet three other members of The Zen Five for the first time, BP, Mumzer, and Chavez.  Yeah, that's right, three of the partners in this "business venture" I have never met face to face.  I only had contact with them over the phone or email for the past nine months.   I've met JWL and Ryan before at the track.  Many of the people that entered are shocked to meet BP in person, as he is probably the youngest guy at the entire event.   Kinda like having a member of N Sync or the Backside Boys organizing the show.  


We brought 96 feet of support vehicles - Trailer, truck, go kart trailer, and rental RV

Registration goes fairly smoothly.  Some cool cars are at the sign in.  The competition looks like it is going to be FIERCE.

That night, Wayne kicks butt at the blackjack table for $700.  I am up $150 or so.

Erik, Larry, and Reuben cruise into the Nugget around 1:00 a.m., as they thrashed on the car all day to get the splitter and diffuser just right.  Wayne is starting to realize the having his car in the same trailer as mine my turn out to be a problem.


Turbo, with tire rack on the right, that fits ON TOP OF ROOF!

Sunday morning, Day 1 of the OTC:

Sunday morning we leave the hotel at 7:00 a.m.  The parking lot that was full of race cars and rigs is now practically empty.  Everyone is eager to get to the track early and secure a prime spot in the paddock.  All the work everyone has done for the past few months to prep their cars for OTC is about to pay off.  Let the racing begin!

Everything is off to a great start.  Drivers meeting goes smoothly.  Registration is complete.  Sponsor stickers are on the cars. We look like pros.  Except it is hard to put the timing loop at the entry of the Pahrump track.  Ryan is worried that someone might hit the brakes hard there, with the tires stopping on the wire for the timing loop, thus wiping out the timing loop.  So, he has to put it on the long back straight.   Unfortunately, since it is all the way on the other side of the track, with no easy way to get there during run groups, it is hard to get instantaneous times on the computer for everyone.  Everyone is trying to get an idea of where they stand in comparison to the other cars in the class and overall.  We pressure Ryan to get the lap times out more quickly.

In our group, Erik and I went out together for the first 5 laps to feel the car out since the aero stuff is on there now.  After that, I was going to do the next 5 laps of our 20 minute session.  We pull over in the hot pit, Erik jumps out, and I drive.  I can't get the car to move out of the pit.  The stupid clutch is slipping.  I get on the track, and I limp around for one lap, and come back into the pit.  Weird.  It worked fine for him, but I guess it got hot while in the hot pit.   Larry looks at it, says it just has to be adjusted, and we are back in business.  But I didn't get any laps in.  Erik runs 1:51.xx


Ready to duke it out at Pahrump.  (Click here for bigger)
Photo by Head On Photos

2nd run group.  I go out by myself, and within 6 laps, I get it down to 1:49.x before getting into traffic.  This is about 3 seconds faster than I ran last time at Pahrump when the car was suffering from overheating problems.  Sleeper car of the day goes to the Hardee/Allen Team, also running about 1:49.xx in their NSX with some nice Yokohama full race slicks.  Nice cheating bastard move on the slicks.  Pahrump is probably the strongest track for the Hardee/Allen guys as they have the most practice here. But great job by them.  Wayne is running 1:49.x in his 944 Turbo this session.

Wayne's car was getting a little hot, so he needed to bleed the cooling system,  He was using one of those big plastic oil drain containers to catch the coolant.   A little later, someone said there was a black plastic oil pan out by turn 2.  What moron did that?  I look for our black oil pan.   Uh oh.  Looks like Wayne jacked down his car, and forgot to remove the oil drain pan from underneath his car.  He drove out on the track, driving around through a couple of turns dragging the oil pan underneath his motor.  He must have hit a bump, and left the oil pan somewhere by Turn 2.

I used to think that RVs (recreational vehicles) were for 65 year old retired people that want to drive around American and see the tourist sites before they keel over.  This is the first time I have ever rented an RV, and let me tell you, it's the best damn thing ever for the track.  Air conditioning, refrigerator, microwave oven, shower, a place to relax between run groups, etc.  I tell Wayne that he's gotta buy one of these for the team!  We rented one from Cruise America, and it was something like $200 a day.  But when you have a full pit crew, and have to do seven tracks in seven days, it is definitely worth it.  We can cook meals on demand, relax inside with the air conditioning blowing, take a nap, etc.

Originally, a lot of us thought that we could just run one run group, or maybe two groups, post good times, and then head off to the next track and relax.  Unfortunately, this ain't the case, as everyone is getting faster and faster in each session, and no one is willing to risk giving up points to another team.


The Hardee/Allen NSX Team

3rd run group.  Erik goes out after changing stuff in the suspension.  He clocks a couple of 1:48.xx laps, and then we see a big dust cloud.  Hey, couldn't be Erik right?  He comes in a little later, car dusted and looking brown.  Apparently he went off.  He said that something is wrong with the right suspension link, and jacks up the car.   Apparently the stock link is failing.  He jacks up the back.  When Erik was working on the suspension, he marked all the nuts with a paint marker so he could easily tell if they move.  One of them did.  Apparently one of the bolts that had a "time cert" in it backed off, and the bolt is now stripped.  Great, first day, two things appear to be wrong with the car.  Raceaflais is after us.


Erik gets four wheels off at Pahrump

(photo by Greg Hardee)

I bust Erik's balls about spinning off.  "So you are about one second faster than me... and you are a pro driver... but you spin off the track in my car?  And you charge people for this service? "  <big grin>

We decide that Erik, Reuben, and Larry will take the rig with the cars back to Erik's shop in Huntington Beach (about a 8 hour drive), fix the NSX, and bring the cars back to Willow Springs in the morning for Day 2 of the OTC (about a 3 hour drive).  Wayne is now getting even more nervous about having his car in the same rig as the Flamemobile.

The scoring for the OTC is based on your three fastest laps for the day, and the final score for Overall King for today ends up:

1. Mumford, Provost 1:47.355 1:47.921 1:47.990 5:23.266
2. Hayashi, Mello, Messley 1:48.006 1:48.080 1:49.684 5:25.770
3. Ondrack, Salter 1:48.459 1:49.125 1:49.249 5:26.833
4. Bragg-Smith 1:48.043 1:48.698 1:50.124 5:26.865

So we got beat by the Viper ACR on street tires, but Mumford is pretty fast on this track, and we only got to run 2.5 sessions instead of our allotted 4 sessions due to the parts failing on my car.  If Erik and I each had one more full session under our belt, we coulda/shoulda/woulda took Mumford/BP down.  2nd isn't too bad out of 63 cars, and we did beat Rupert on his home track.....heh heh heh....

Dark horse Hardee/Allen are dialed into this track (which almost seems as if it is their home track), as they are sitting in 5th place overall in their NSX, running some nice cheating bastard full race slicks --  I think they are Yokohamas imported from Japan by way of Europe.  Wish I could get some of that rubber!  Unfortunately for them, they only have one pair of those slicks, and they are trying to strategically make them last for their banzai runs at each of the tracks.  I believe Wayne is sitting in 6th or so after the first event.

Amir's car was running fine.  He decides to go out for the 4th run group, and the F40 starts sputtering.  He decides to drive to Los Angeles to find a Ferrari mechanic.

Looks like we have a good battle going on so far for Death Race 2002: The OTC.  We are contenders, and we still have a chance to win it all.  We look around at our competition, and we figure they are lambs just waiting to be slaughtered by Pulp Racing.


Mini Cooper and NSX at the OTC