We are on our way!

We had a nice long drive yesterday, only one of many 600 plus mile runs we will have this week. Got to South Bend around 7:30 last night so we had time to get a good meal. That's real important since much of this week the menu will be fast food. The ride out was uneventful except my Valentine 1 radar detector failed so we stopped and Rick bought an Escort. I guess that was only fitting since Escort is one of the national sponsors of this years event.

The picture above shows Rick and I next to the loaded car before leaving right after the storm and tornado warning on Thursday morning. You can't see the little tire trailer on behind from the angle of the picture. The other picture shows me finishing up the decal application process. We are required to have all the decals for the national sponsors before we go through tech.

Tomorrow the real fun starts, in the morning we will do the wet skid pad competition. Wet skid pad consists of doing two laps around one direction on the skid pad with the sprinklers on then a keyhole turn and two laps the other direction. Your best lap in each direction are added together and divided by two to get your average speed. With that speed they calculated your g force. Unfortunately there are alot of all wheel drive vehicles and they certainly get the advantage in this event.

There is an impressive mix of vehicles entered in this years race. There are three Vipers, six Corvettes, three Nissan GTRs probably 4 EVOs and a bunch of BMWs and Porsches, a couple Cadillac CTSVs, a new Challenger with retro style Rally driving lights that must be the size of small dinner plates. There are also a couple of Hondas one of which is twin charged, both super charged and turbo charged. Several Mazdas including a new Mazda 2 which comes stock as a 2000 pound car with a 105hp engine. This car however has a transplant drivetrain from a Mazda Speed3 and now has over 300hp and has Charles Espenlaub as its driver. Charles has several wins as a professional sports car driver. There are many other cars from vintage Camaros to Rousch Mustangs, a Jaguar XK, a VW TDI and an Ultima GTR which is a botique Lotus sized sports car with a big engine and many more. You can find the whole list at http://www.onelapofamerica.com under 2011 entrants list.

After the wet skid pad we head to Grissom Air Force Base and compete in a large autocross on the runway in the afternoon, then off to Summit Point in West Virginia for two track events on Sunday. Keep checking back and watch for more updates. Wish us luck.