Spring Mountain Raceway
May 6, 2003
"Hail to the Kings of Pahrump"

The Hope. The Glory. The Scandal.  The Redemption. The Truth!

Some updates from yesterday.  I was so ffing tired that I couldn't figure out the Daylight Savings Time switch.   I have one of those alarm clocks that gets the exact time off of radio waves.  In my sleep deprived state, I rationalized that the clock wouldn't update for the time change, so I set it to Mountain Time, yet kept the wakeup for 5:00 a.m. PST time.  HA!  I will fool the clock.  After the alarm goes off, and I stumble into the shower.  I stumble out of the shower, and realized that I woke up two hours early(4:00 a.m.), instead of one hour early.   Totally confused.  Damn, it's only Day 1.....
 

The "Joe Dirt" Comp Coupe makes it the OTC just in time!

Mumford had problems with Raceaflais the past few days.  Rumor has it he dropped off his motor home two weeks ago to get it serviced so it would be ready.  The moron motor home folks didn't change oil until the day before he was to leave, and then discovered a hydraulic leak.  No hydraulic parts until next week. Bummer.  Right before last year's OTC, Mumford's five year old nephew was in the driver's seat of the RV and accidentally pushed the "Air Parking Brake Release Button".  The motor home was parked in the driveway that had a big slope on it.  Which sent the motor home rolling down the driveway, across the street, and crashing into the house across the street.  So he couldn't use the motor home for last year's OTC either. 

The Track Map for Pahrump

He took delivery of the Viper Competition Coupe a couple weeks ago, and tested it out.  But it comes primered, with no paint.  BP says you figure if lots of auto magazines are going to be at the OTC, you don't want your car looking like a "Joe Dirt" car, and you should get it painted.  The day before he is to leave for the Rupert Test day, the car still isn't completely painted yet.  So he misses the test day, and has to find something to replace the RV as his tow vehicle/hotel room.  And he still needs to get his car that is sitting in a paint shop in Arizona.

Mark Dalen, DJ Johnson, and John Morris

I didn't get to drive the S2000 at the test day, as Erik and Jason were working on suspension tuning.  I was getting used to the NSX on the track, and also trying to help BP (minimally) with registration, sign in, and handing out the OTC T-shirts.  Erik spent about 20 hours the past few days trying to figure out how to mount the wing on the NSX, and make it look as perfect and sturdy as possible.  He looks at Jason's Active Aero Big Ass Ugly Wing, and he sorta thinks that Jason spent 10 minutes on his mounting procedure.  Erik kinda of gives that impression that he doesn't want to be seen driving a car with a Big Ass Ugly Wing on it, for fear that Autoweek will get a picture of him in it, (with the Shark's Teeth in front also), which will destroy his professional racing career.  (grin)

Big ass wing, shark's teeth.  I didn't have time to put flames on the car.....

David Kennedy's car (Supercharged S2000 in U2) and my S2000 (Normally Aspirated S2000 in T3) will be swapping the wing back and forth for the OTC run groups. 

Kennedy's Supercharged S2000, using the AABAUW

Erik looks at how Rylan mounted his rear wing on his S2000, and almost has a heart attack.  Rylan uses about 50 washers.  But I am sure if Rylan had Erik mount his wing, and then realized he would spend 20 hours the night before the OTC practice session waiting for Erik to mount it perfectly, Rylan would commit suicide.  But hey, its OTC time, and people are thrashing to make it to the event...so people are improvising to solve any problems that they are having.

Rylan's wing mounting that almost gave Erik a heart attack

Terry and Charles had problems also.  They were heavily favored to win U3 (slicks and you can trailer your car) with their Lotus Elise 340R race car.  They were so heavily favored to win, that they scared off people out of U3.  Last year, the Lotus motor blew up and bent all the valves, etc.  This year, they finally got all the parts from Britain.  They started putting everything back together, and discovered more problems.  They can't get parts in time to fix the other problems, and as a result, they ditch the Lotus and decide to go with Terry's Spec Miata.  The rest of U3 breathes a big sigh of relief.  Morale of Story?  Cheater cars from Britain require more than a year to fix if they break.

Mark and Trevor Allan

Some last minute Cheating Bastard techniques spotted are Young-Kyu Yoo and his co driver Ramon LeFrancois add a third driver to their two car team.  They pick up Roger Foo, of World Challenge Fame to help them out. 

Young-Kyu Yoo, Ramon LeFrancois, & Roger Foo

The Patrick Lindsey/BP team also picks up James Sofronas, another World Challenge driver, to help with driving duties at a couple of the tracks, like Willow Springs.

5:30 a.m. Sunday morning:
Okay, gotta pack up, get 30 gallons of race car at the Rebel gas station, and off to the track for Day 1 of the Open Track Challenge.  Everyone is eagerly waiting to see what is gonna happen when we strap on the AMB transponders so the computer can tell us to 1/1000th of a second our lap times.  People have spent the entire year building their car (and mortgaging their house) to prepare for today.  It is time for the fastest amateur drivers, some professional drivers, and many World Class Cheaters to duke it out to see which team will be crowned Kings of the OTC!  The current reigning champs are the Ondrack/Salter team, and we are all out to replace them this year! 

View of tire trailer from middle facing back

At the track:
All the time that people put into there cars this years, all the practicing, all the new go-fast parts, are working out great.   Records are being SHATTERED.  Remember that we total up our three fastest laps during the day and match those against each other to determine who is the fastest team at each track.

We look at our competition for U1, and Erik and I decide to not run the first session, because we think it is a little too cold, and the slicks won't heat up enough.  Instead, we decide to let them pick up the dust off the track, save our car and our tires, and find out what lap times that we have to shoot down.  We smugly sit out the session, observing the competition with stop watches, checking out to see who is fast and who is not.  People come up to us asking why we didn't run.  We just reply with a smile on our face, saying, "Strategy".

Air jacks included!

Erik goes out in the next session.  Most of the people run a little slower in session 2 and 3 than in the first session, because ahh.....the first session has the coldest air, which was best for the motors.  Also the track got hot quickly, which made it a little on the greasy side.  I drag Erik down in Moron Racing.....looks like we shoulda went out in the first session.  Damn!  But we still turn in some good laptimes, the both cars are running real good.

View of middle to the front

For Unlimited One, last year, Top Time of the Day went to Mumford/Provost:

Our lap times from last year were:

Take a look at how many people beat Mumford/BP's time from last year:

Analysis of results:
We were about 5 seconds faster than our lap times from last year!  Hurrah!  I attribute most of that due to the fact that we finally found some slicks that fit the NSX (17x8 front, 18x10 rears) which are much faster than the Hoosiers, the rear wing, and the engine running better.  Unfortunately, Mumford/BP are 6 seconds a lap faster than last year!  First place this year by DJ in the Radical was uh......11 seconds faster than last year's fastest time.  Ouch!  There are 12 cars that are faster than the fastest lap from last year.  If only I woulda had the slicks LAST YEAR, we would have won the OTC....as we would have picked up 2-3 seconds at each track, and crushed everyone.  So it looks like to win overall next year, instead of figuring out your 2004 car, you need to figure out what would be your 2005 car, and build that a year early.  Cause all the rest of these Cheating Bastards will start working on their 2004 car on April 17th of this year..

Telly Chang and Eddie Lee

Three people in U2 also ran faster than Mumford did last year.  Smith/Arnold was the "sleeper entry" this year, meaning that people really didn't know much about them and didn't think they would be fast, but they ended up smoking U2 by a full second per lap.  Kennedy/Rhoades in the Comptech Supercharged S2000 take 2nd, with Wayne/Rick taking 3rd in U2.  Wayne's car also has doesn't have a limited slip differential in the car, so he is just spinning tires around the tighter turns.  If they had the right diff in the car, they would probably gain a couple of seconds there.  Wayne and Rick realized that since Jason is driving my S2000, and Kennedy's S2000, he is getting double the seat time that they are, which they feel is a Cheating Bastard advantage, as they got beat today by Kennedy's S2000.  Wayne and Rick start insisting that instead of having Jason sleep in our motor home at night, he should instead sleep in the trunk of Kennedy's S2000.  They also jokingly start calling him a "traitor" or a "spy".  <big grin>

Bill Cardell, Rick Weldon, Gary Sheehan in the souped up Miata

In U3, Rylan's normally aspirated S2000 that weighs 2320 lbs (It has been stripped down like the local Pahrump "ladies attire") blazes lap times faster than Mumford ran last year.  Surprisingly, they beat the Coffey/Lampe 240Z car.  Coffey and Lampe do a "DOH!" and forgot some spare tranny/differential parts back in Southern Cal.  So they drive back after Day 1 like we did last year to get parts, and return early in the morning back to Vegas for Day 2.

In T1, Rupert shatters the Touring record set last year by 2 seconds a lap using the Mosler.

Last year, for Touring 3, the top three finishers at Pahrump were:
 

This year, the T3 ran the following times:

We shattered the T3 record for Pahrump by a second a lap.  We knew that the Olsen car got upsized one class to Touring 2 this year, so we knew we wouldn't have to compete with them.  We figured if we could beat the Hull/Arnold time of 1:58 from last year, we should be good to go.  Notice how close the race was for 2nd place in T3, as there were four cars within 1.5 seconds of each other.  The S2000 felt really good, I think I ran 1:56's in my session, and I didn't get any practice yesterday in the car!

From the outside

So good news is were are close, and are in the hunt for a podium finish for overall.  AND, there ain't gonna be a Radical parade doing a 1-2-3 overall finish like Audi does with their ALMS race cars, 'cause Mumford/BP, Messley/Me ain't gonna let that happen!  Mumford has another hydraulic problem, this time with the fan, and only can run two sessions today at Pahrump.  Apparently the radiator fan is powered by the power steering pump on the Viper Comp Coupe, instead of an electric motor.  But fitting is bad, and leaking.  So radiator fan doesn't work.  And neither does the steering....Rumor has it that he was about ready to throw in the towel, as first his RV breaks, then his car isn't completely painted, and now the car won't steer.  Messley talks to him and said he could probably fix it tomorrow at the track, providing that Paul can dig up someone with the right hydraulic fittings. 

Robinson/Humke Z06

The Pahrump track is a tight, high speed autocross type of track, so we were pleasantly surprised that we stayed at least within striking distance of the Radicals.  We thought they were going to toast us here.  And we are only a second off of the Comp Coupe time at this track.

Charles and Merlene Fletcher, the fastest Husband and Wife team at the OTC!

All three of our cars seem to be running fairly well, so hopefully our good luck streak will continue.

Peter Guagenti and Bill Arnold

More later, off to dinner.  I am already thinking of a new Pulp Racing Cheating Bastard Trophy to engrave for this year's OTC.  It will go to the fastest car that is "Street Legal" in America.  The Radicals don't qualify.  The Viper Comp Coupe isn't legal to drive on city streets.  My NSX is licensed, registered, and I have driven it home to my house.....

More later, off to dinner..

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