On Saturday April 30th Mary Pozzi and I will be departing South Bend, Indiana in the 2011 Tire Rack One Lap of America; themodern evolution of the Cannonball Run – a coast to coast, pedal to the metal race across the country. Today the race is “legitimate” for lack of a better word – consisting of 3,600 miles of highway driving and 18 individual competition stops at some of the most famous and challenging race tracks in the country – all over the course one week.
We’ll be starting at Tire Rack Headquarters in South Bend, IN on Saturday morning and we’ll be in Peru, IN that afternoon for an autocross competition before heading to Summit Point, WV on Sunday for two time trials on the road course. Monday morning we race twice in Kershaw, SC before the day’s third event at the BMW Performance Center in Greer, SC that afternoon. Tuesday morning we race on the high banks of the world famous Daytona International Speedway before driving to Gainesville, FL where we compete on the quarter-mile dragstrip in a low time drag race followed by a full on bracket race. Wednesday we race twice in New Orleans, LA and Thursday we race twice at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, AL before making a 700 mile trek north to Joliet, IL of Blues Brothers Fame. After two final road course time trials at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet we make out last transit stage back to Tire Rack Headquarters in South Bend, IN; one week – 3,600 miles.
We’re doing all of this in the OPTIMA Batteries OneLapCamaro – a custom built 1967 Camaro RS that brings together some of the best products, technology, and engineering available today. Powered by a modern LS7 engine making over 600HP and backed by a 6-speed manual transmission our 44 year old muscle car should be more than capable of performing along side with the foreign and domestic supercars which dominate the event. Right now it looks like the Camaro will be the oldest car in the field but we won’t know until the green flag drops on Saturday. Regardless we’ll have some tough completion as we fight to defend our Vintage American ClassChampionship that we won by a scant 5 points last year.
Why do we do this? Why do we spend more than 100 hours behind the wheel of vintage tin over the course a single week? I have no idea… I guess the same reason that people climb mountains, jump off bridges and swim across channels… because it’s there? Maybe… But I know it sure isn’t because it’s good for us…
This year though, one of the reasons that we are doing the race is the goal of raising money for a worthy charity – Autism Speaks / Cure Autism now. We’ve set an aggressive goal of raising $5,000 for this very important cause and we need your help to meet this goal. Please take a moment to give what you can at the 2011 OneLapCamaro – Aurism Speaks website. This is a registered charity and all donations go directly to the organization.
Over the week that we’re racing we’ll be updating our website – www.OneLapCamaro.com/live - with real time GPS tracking and blogs. We’ll try to update everyone with Live Video on the site http://qik.com/onelapcamaro - we’ll postvideo timing on our blog and, technology willing, should have some very cool updates throughout the week. Even if the “live” video aspects proved elusive, we’ll have recorded HD video updates daily if we can stay in one place long enough to upload the video; we’ll have links on our blog and our Facebook page – www.Facebook.com/TheOneLapCamaro.
I hope that you’ll tune in over the week and hope that you will show your support for The OneLapCamaro Team through a donation to Autism Speaks.
Please forward this email to any car buff that you know and we’ll try to let everybody feel our pain over the week. Right now, it looks like the weather will ensure an interesting few days…
Thanks
James Shipka
Mary Pozzi
The OPTIMA Batteries OneLapCamaro Team
Car #65 – 2011 Tire Rack One Lap of America
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