Friday Update – Registration and Preparation
Friday April 29, 2011 20:10H
Well this is the first “official” day of the 2010 Tire Rack One Lap of America and the OPTIMA Batteries OneLapCamaro Team is ready for action!
The day started “late” (9 AM) at Tire Rack Headquarters with registration and the usual race track paperwork, waivers, and chit chat being the first order of business. Mary and I, along with “Team JD” – Jimi Day and Stephen Kepler – headed over to the massive Tire Rack facility after what was probably our last decent breakfast for the week and found our spots amongst the motley collection of One Lap entrants. As we found our way to the registration tent in the biting cold (it was around 39 but the wind chill made it feel closer to freezing) we took in the variety of entrants who had arrived before us – there was definitely something for everybody. Porsche GT3 RS? Sure – got 5 of them here… Nissan GTR? at least 3 ready to go. BMW? Lots. Porsche? Yep… everything from a vintage 911 to a Panamera. Mustangs? You bet – Roush brough three brand new supercharged deals. Looking around it was apparent that we had brought a knife (admittedly a very cool knife) to a gun fight and there were some really big guns in this fight – as Mary put it “frigging cannons”.
As the oldest car in the parking lot we’re clearly playing in a different pond now.
Registration was quick an painless – Brock Yates has the administration of the event down to a science – and in no time flat we had a pile of stickers to put on and a tech check list to review one final time. Putting the stickers on the car, however simple sounding an undertaking, was anything but quick and painless.
Somehow we needed three hours to get the car ready for tech.
James trying to do another…
Yes, there was a lot of talking while we worked – the One Lap of America is as much a social event (at this point) as anything – but before we knew it we were rushing to finished and get the car teched so we could relax and get organized because tomorrow morning we needed to hit the ground running.
Stickered up and ready for tech
Tech was as painless as registration – lets face it, the One Lap has basically no rules and if your going to drag your tin half way across the country for a week long even at the very least you should be able to pass tech. We did.
After tech was the drivers meeting and a quick snack and then we were “done” – at least at Tire Rack. We quickly hooked up the trailer and headed back to the hotel and started in on some mechanical issues that had come up over the course of the day. One of the trailer lights had to be replaced, the clutch pedal needed a quick adjustment, and we’re already chasing an electrical gremlin (sigh). When we pulled in to Tire Rack this morning I shut the car off and walked away to tend to the trailer. A few minutes later Jimi came over to tell me the headlights were on and they looked pretty dim. Trouble was, the headlights weren’t on… at least according to the switch. Yet they were. Hmmm… not a great omen….
Anyways, Pizza’s here and were going to try to get one last decent nights sleep. Tomorrow morning we kick things off on the wet skid pad followed by an autocross in Peru before heading to West Virginia tomorrow night.
Cheers for now.
James and Mary
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