Ride along on One Lap with your name on a STICKER

Pictured is Jim presenting Heather Hibshman, Executive Director of the Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition with our official picture of last year effort. Our team was recognized as a Grassroots supporter by the Coalition for our fund raising efforts where we raised over $2000 dollars for 2011. This year Rick is scheduled for a back operation and will not be able to go along but will continue to help raise funds for the Pa.Breast Cancer Coalition and will be puting stickers on his Corvette as well. I encourage you to not delay in making your donation for $10 or more and we will put a"Pink Ribbon" sticker on the car with your name or a loved one's name and you can "ride along" on our One Lap of America and help a great cause at the same time. At this point we are ahead of last years fundraising and are hoping for great things.

Just a quick update on our preparation, we have been going over everything on the car and even did a shakedown run to the Rolex 24 hour race in Daytona and it worked flawlessly and even got reasonable gas mileage. Gas mileage has decreased as the engine power has increased, so we are hoping the predicted major increase in fuel prices doesn't happen before our event in early May.

The entry list is growing and is now up to about 70 vehicles with an amazing mix of vehicles and classes. From Hondas Mini's and VW's to Corvettes Porsches, Vipers, Ferraris, Jaguars and BMW's and every thing in between.Many of the race tracks we will go to will be new to most of the participants. The format gives us one lap to learn the course and then three laps of Time Trial. The Time Trial is much like a qualifying lap in Nascar in that you are not going wheel to wheel with other cars but racing against the clock as are the other cars.

Please make any checks out to Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition and send to Jim Roberts 14 W. Main St. Mount Joy, Pa. 17552

Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition is 2012 Charity for Jimbob Racing

Jim Roberts of Jimbob Racing announces that The Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition will be our charity again this year for our One Lap of America effort. We will again be accepting donations and will be placing a sticker on the car for each donation of $10 or more. Many people have donated and have their own name put on to show their support for the Coalition. Others have put the name of a friend or a loved one who has dealt with this terrible disease. Space is filling up, so don't wait too long if you would like to make a donation. Checks should be made out to the Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition, and sent to Jim Roberts at 14 W. Main St. Mount Joy, Pa. 17552. Please mark One Lap in the memo section of the check so we can keep track of the donations. If you see me or Rick cash is also acceptable, just let us know whose name to put on your sticker. Feel free to make donations to put several stickers on the car. With the stickers you can "ride along" on this amazing adventure and donate to a good cause at the same time.

Their Mission:
The PA Breast Cancer Coalition (PBCC) represents, supports and serves breast cancer survivors and their families in Pennsylvania through educational programming, legislative advocacy and breast cancer research grants. The PBCC is a statewide nonprofit organization that creates the hope of a brighter tomorrow by providing action and information to women with breast cancer today.

Please join us in raising funds for a very worthy cause.

Gearing up for One Lap 2012

This is my first post of the 2012 effort of One Lap of America. Thanks to all of you who follow along and I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to share the blog address with anyone you might think would also enjoy following this neat motorsports event.
I have included the map so you can follow along.

This year we again expect to log over 5,000 miles in total counting the trip to the starting point in South Bend and back. The official route will take us from South Bend, Indiana where we will compete in a wet skid pad competition then off to Plymouth In. to an asphalt oval event then to Joliet, Il. to the famous Autobahn Country Club Raceway all on the first day. At Autobahn we will do Time Trial laps that will set the seeding order for the rest of the event. By the next day we are due at MidAmerica Motorplex near Council Bluffs, Iowa by 8 am. Then off to tracks in Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin and back to South Bend. By the end of that circuit we will have traveled over 3300 miles plus the miles on each of the tracks, all from Saturday to Saturday.

The Brock Yates One Lap of America has it roots in the Cannonball Run of the early 1970's where the goal was to get from New York City to Redondo Beach, California as fast as possible. After a few formats of competition from 1985 to 1991, mostly road rallies while driving around the United States, the present style of One Lap of America was started in 1992.

Too many thumbs, some additional thoughts

I was not quite finished with my last post but I guess I had too many thumbs and somehow my last post got published without being finished. To see the whole post on the blog please go to http://onelapadventure.blogspot.com/ . Don't forget on the blog you can go to the bottom of the page and select older posts to see previous posts, even the last two years.

One additional point I wanted to make is that we have raised about $1700 for Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition to date. Our minimum goal is $2000 so we still have a little way to go. For anyone who would like their name, or the name of someone in Memory of, or in Honor of, we are putting names on the cars for a minimum$10 donation. Please make checks out to Pa. Breast Cancer Coalition. Donations can be sent to me at Jim Roberts 14 W. Main St. Mount Joy, Pa. 17552.

Be an Optimist and look for the positives

Just trying to look at the positives and take the optimistic view, here are some thoughts. I was analyzing the week and came to the realization that after the first event we were in 6th place, higher in the standings than any of the ultimate overall top 10 finishers. After my run at Summit Point I think we were in about 16th place, which was right on track for our goal of a top 20 finish. Unfortunately, when I caught the Porsche in front of me it took a couple of corners to get around him and I lost a few seconds or we might have been another position or two better. At this point I was 20 points behind Scott in the overall scoring. Of course it all went south after that with the engine problem. Wait a minute, I said we were looking for positives. The early analysis shows a hole in the number 5 piston, at least it's not a fully blown engine. We suspect at this point that it may have been an injector that was working, but at less than 100%.

Scott Breneman's parents offered Rick and I a ride back to Mount Joy to pick up my other Corvette. We got home about 4:30 loaded the car, checked the oil, antifreeze and air pressure and were on our way by 5pm heading for South Carolina to catch up with the group. The 92 coupe has not been used as a track car for several years and is stock except for some Dynomax mufflers, but it was up to the task.

Another positive is that my transit driver Rick Stauffer worked out very well as a partner. After an initial getting used to the heavy clutch and cam in the yellow vette the highway miles went well. Rick has a very good awareness and comfort in traffic and from a personality standpoint we got along great.

My co-driver from the last two years, Scott Breneman meanwhile was doing great. After a slow start at the Wet Skid pad he started putting some good runs together and stayed in the 14th or better position for most of the week. After the Dry Skid pad was in the books he had finished the week in 13th position overall, his best finish ever. Congratulations to Scott and Nick.

Another positive is that we were at the closest point to home, only 2 1/2 hours away, and we were able to get a ride home with Scott Breneman's parents who had come down to see him run. We were the only team to get another vehicle after the first one failed and continue on, even though we stopped earning points.

We Made it Home

We made it home on Sunday morning after stopping at Summit Point, West Virginia to pick up my trailer from my 2000 Yellow Corvette that has been sitting down there since I had engine problems there last Sunday.

From the numbers, we put on 1372 miles on the 2000 Corvette, 4017 miles on my 1992 Chrome Alusion Purpleen Corvette. In addition we rode home 127 miles (to pick up the other car) with Scott Breneman's parents who had come down to see him run at Summit. That totals 5516 for our One Lap effort. The 5389 miles we put on the two Corvettes averaged 21.64 miles per gallon which includes both the highway and track miles. The 2000 was getting 18.5 mpg and the 92 averaged 23.0 mpg. We used 249 gallons of gas and I just heard on the news that gas is expected to go down in price (now that we are back).

While we were gone we passed through 16 states east of the Mississippi, got 0 tickets and had no mechanical problems on the road. We did hit one road alligator (hunk of big truck tire) and missed a deer by inches. Some of the roads were very rough and we scraped a couple of times and bent one of the mufflers down a bit. Not sure if the bent down muffler was from the rough roads or the road alligator. Speaking of mechanical problems, I will go down to West Virginia tomorrow and retrieve my 2000 and try to figure out what failed in the engine.

There was an interesting mix of vehicles in this year One Lap with BMW being the most prolific make. Next to the BMW's were the Porsches and then the Mitsibushi Evos, Corvettes and of course the awesome Nissan GTRs. There were a couple of Dodge Vipers and Roush Mustangs, and a few Miatas, Audis and Subarus. Also in the mix was a Honda Civic with a turbo charger as well as a super charger, another Honda with national champion Andy Hollis driving, a factory sponsored Dodge Challenger and a host of other neat and or eclectic vehicles.

This was my third year doing One Lap and it was a great weather week for our effort. We had some rain while driving but none while we were at a track competing.

Check back for a few more of my thoughts and I will let you know what the engine problem was.

Geat Run at Autobahn Country Club Raceway

At Autobahn Country Club Raceway outside of Chicago, near Joliet, Ill we ran both the North course and the South course. On the 1.4 mile North course I was only able to gain about 5 seconds on the car in front of me, but on my South course I caught the new Camaro in front of me in the middle of the third lap and made a pass near the kink on the back straight. They work hard to send the cars out with enough separation so that passing during your time trial is unusual. Even though I am running exhibition it still is a rush to make up the distance and make a pass. I was certainly out classed on tires since I have my old all season tires on the 92, I now wish we would have stopped at Summit Point on the way south after we retrieved the other car and swapped tires to the high performance summer which are better for the track.

Only 105 miles to South Bend this afternoon and we get a little time to decompress after mostly 600 to 700 mile nights. Tomorrow we will finish with the Dry Skid competition and after that the awards banquet then a 600 mile run to Pa.