Just completed my 5th BBORR, this time in the new GT. As always, it was a great week with good friends and lots of fun. A couple of other forum members either participated or came to watch - Ben Beckert ran his first BBORR, and Donny Mac showed up to hang out.
We arrived Tuesday evening after a wet and soggy drive down from Houston. Wednesday is the traditional day to cruise through the awe-inspiring Big Bend National Park, but the first half of the day saw torrential rain and flooded roads - but it's only a car, right? The unbelievable amount of dirt and mud that spread all over the car really showed up the aero, with long streaks running out of the doors all the way to the rear. Thursday morning was Tech, which the car passed easily (Chief Tech - "we need to look under the front lid", me - "OK", Chief Tech when seeing all the hydraulics and fluid reservoirs - "Err, yup, that looks OK"), then it was to the local school where all the kids came out to climb all over and inside the car - I think the record was five kids in the cockpit at once! All the crap got washed off on Friday when the Fort Stockton High School kids did their annual car wash.
Friday evening had us driving through downtown in the annual parade, throwing candy to all the kids on the route. Saturday dawned clear and bright and we were on grid and ready to rock by 07:00. The BBORR is a timed race where drivers must average a target speed through the course, which is a total of 118 miles - 59 down and 59 back. My class was the 150 (fastest allowed for a streetcar); the rules in this class are that you cannot run below 120 or above 168.
Our target time was 47 minutes and 12 seconds. My intrepid navigator Bill Swendsen was all primed and ready, but our intercom crapped out on us at the start line, so the trip down was, err, eventful, with us arriving at the half way mark way too early. I took one curve faster than anticipated at about 145, but the car just gripped and gripped, and as we exited, even without the intercom, I clearly heard Bill yell "YeeHaw!!!!" Our fast trip down meant an adjustment on the return trip. I was scared that we would be DQ'd because we were clocked at 168.5 through the speed trap - but that's still 168 isn't it?
We managed to get the comms working again for the return leg, and passed the line perfectly, or so we thought. At the awards ceremony that night we found that we were 1.7 seconds off target (that's 0.06% error) which was good enough only for a class 4th place. The first 3 cars were all less than 0.5 seconds out, but they all used GPS and computers (cheaters!), whereas our system relied on a trusty Walmart oven timer. My consolation prize was winning the People's Choice trophy. the trip totaled out around 1,800 miles, the car ran great throughout, so now it's down to cleaning it up and de-graveling it again!
in to get rid of all the new rattles!
We arrived Tuesday evening after a wet and soggy drive down from Houston. Wednesday is the traditional day to cruise through the awe-inspiring Big Bend National Park, but the first half of the day saw torrential rain and flooded roads - but it's only a car, right? The unbelievable amount of dirt and mud that spread all over the car really showed up the aero, with long streaks running out of the doors all the way to the rear. Thursday morning was Tech, which the car passed easily (Chief Tech - "we need to look under the front lid", me - "OK", Chief Tech when seeing all the hydraulics and fluid reservoirs - "Err, yup, that looks OK"), then it was to the local school where all the kids came out to climb all over and inside the car - I think the record was five kids in the cockpit at once! All the crap got washed off on Friday when the Fort Stockton High School kids did their annual car wash.
Friday evening had us driving through downtown in the annual parade, throwing candy to all the kids on the route. Saturday dawned clear and bright and we were on grid and ready to rock by 07:00. The BBORR is a timed race where drivers must average a target speed through the course, which is a total of 118 miles - 59 down and 59 back. My class was the 150 (fastest allowed for a streetcar); the rules in this class are that you cannot run below 120 or above 168.
Our target time was 47 minutes and 12 seconds. My intrepid navigator Bill Swendsen was all primed and ready, but our intercom crapped out on us at the start line, so the trip down was, err, eventful, with us arriving at the half way mark way too early. I took one curve faster than anticipated at about 145, but the car just gripped and gripped, and as we exited, even without the intercom, I clearly heard Bill yell "YeeHaw!!!!" Our fast trip down meant an adjustment on the return trip. I was scared that we would be DQ'd because we were clocked at 168.5 through the speed trap - but that's still 168 isn't it?
We managed to get the comms working again for the return leg, and passed the line perfectly, or so we thought. At the awards ceremony that night we found that we were 1.7 seconds off target (that's 0.06% error) which was good enough only for a class 4th place. The first 3 cars were all less than 0.5 seconds out, but they all used GPS and computers (cheaters!), whereas our system relied on a trusty Walmart oven timer. My consolation prize was winning the People's Choice trophy. the trip totaled out around 1,800 miles, the car ran great throughout, so now it's down to cleaning it up and de-graveling it again!
in to get rid of all the new rattles!
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