Tuesday, May 13, 2014

One Lap by the Numbers

I just wanted to share a few numbers about our One Lap of America effort.  We traveled 4336 miles, a little short of our expected distance.  When we lost the day after running at Memphis we were not able to run at the NOLA (New Orleans) Motorsports Park two roadcourse events or the two events in Mobile, Alabama at the asphalt circle track.  With those miles included we would have completed close to 5,000 miles.  The route book calls it a 3323 mile long event, plus another 1200 miles to South Bend and back, plus miles on the tracks and back and forth to motels, etc.

By the numbers--one millimeter of clearance on the PoorVette
front tire, a 944 Porsche with a Corvette engine 
On the fuel mileage front, we only achieved 16.64 miles to the gallon compared to last year at 17.29 mpg.  One of the reasons for less miles per gallon is that we started popping out of 6th gear after leaving New Jersey.  With some 1700 miles left to go, all the highway miles would have to be in 5th gear.  Another thing that holds down the mileage is the track miles are probably averaging about 6 mpg. and while on the road we were towing a tag-a-long trailer carrying tools, spare parts and spare tires.  Not to mention that the engine is a little modified.  In total we spent $996 on fuel and $118.58 on tolls.  The highest price paid for hi test gas was in Dawsonville, Georgia at $419.9 and the lowest was in Alabama for $3.659 for an average price of $3.829.  One of the numbers that was most impressive was the VW Jetta TDI (turbo diesel injected) which averaged 43 mpg for the trip.

Our longest transits were day one at 641 miles from Tire Rack to Grissom Air Force Base, to the National Corvette Museum, then to Memphis Tennessee in the same day.  The overall longest was on Tuesday when we started in Dawsonville, Georgia, completed 2 events at Atlanta Motorsports Park, drove 147 miles to the BMW Performance Center in Greer, South Carolina.  We then finished the day (and night) going 651 miles and ending up in Millville, New Jersey for a one day total of 798 miles.

One thing we didn't count but certainly noticed is the amazing number of road construction areas or the miles of orange barrels.  Another items too frequent to count was the potholes which are certainly more noticeable in a car with a tightened and lowered suspension.  I'm not sure that my wheels are still straight, but I don't know how we didn't damage
a tire on some of those holes.

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