- Sep 1, 2005
- 704
QUEST FOR 200
They give me the five minute warning, and with trembling hands, I buckle in. With shoulder straps cinched down, I remove my nerdy lawyer horn rim glasses and pull the full face helmet on. A deep breath and we get the signal to roll. I enter the long taxiway, goosing the throttle to get a little heat in the tires and engine. I look in the rearview and the morning sun is glinting off my polished Whipple supercharger, pulley spinning right behind my head like that famous engine close-up in Mad Max. I line up, and my heart is thumpa bumping like the intro to the movie Le Mans. Cinch the straps again, and wait for my turn. In the car next to me is Skyrex, his flamed helmet visible. Is that music I hear coming from his window? Just like that, he’s gone, blistering down the runway at ballistic speed in his three way battle with Apollo and Aloha. Three minutes pass. Now it’s my turn. I swallow dry air, and they give me the signal. I’m off with a stout, frigid tailwind urging me forward.
First gear, get the car pointed straight. Head for the cones. Keep the speed reasonable as you approach the guy with the flag. Revs building, watch it, watch it…he waves the green furiously, and I nail it. Redline comes quick in first, but the Speed Kings (Apollo and Skyrex) have told me to redline each gear. So that’s what I do. 6500 rpm. Bam, now I’m in second and the mighty Whipple behind my head gives me jet-like thrust as those meaty Bridgestones squirm. The g meter in my bung tells me that I have unleashed the hounds of hell. A flood of adrenaline cascades again. Now third, more honey smooth power compressing me into the seat. I keep an eye on that faint white stripe. Tom said to stay just to the right of it. That’s what I do. My eyes are now flashing between the only two things in the world that exist for me: the tachometer and that faint white line. Fourth, pulling faster, faster. Now fifth. “Hold it to the floor in fifth until you hit the finish” the Speed Kings have told me. That’s what I do. But it seems like those big finish flags are way, way up in the distance.
My instincts are screaming to let off, but that little ribbon of steel inside me says no way, it’s time to slay the dragon. I keep it nailed, wide honkin’ open. I don’t look at the tach anymore, and I don’t look at the speedo. I look at the flags, approaching in the distance. I look at the gray blur of the tarmac, rushing, rocketing under me. I feel my magnificent, heroic GT hunkered down, pinned to the surface, devouring the vastness and splitting the cold air wide open like a hot red bullet. I don't blink. I don't breathe. The finish flags flash past, and I stay in it for just another second to make sure that I’m well past the timing lights. I didn’t come all this way to suffer premature deceleration.
Now, off the throttle, and on the brakes. Easy now, easy. The brakes are steady and sure, stripping the speed off the car as I approach the exit taxiway. I now steal a glance at the tiny gps suctioned to my window. It reads 205. I let out a choked, hoarse cheer, my eyes welling with…what? Tears? You gotta be kidding me! I call myself a stinkin’ wimp, sniff, then roll down the window, and the nice lady hands me the timing slip. 204.8 it reads. A warm rush of utter satisfaction consumes me. I look up and see my little Arizona/Utah cheering section, jubilant at the magic numbers that they have seen on the digital readout. Quest complete, and I didn’t embarrass myself or the tribe. Well, except for the wet eyes.
Before the day is over, I will run five times, each speed progressively faster as I learn the ropes. My final run of the day is a satisfying 210.1 mph. I could have made many, many more runs had I wanted to, but the pure adrenaline that has been running through my veins since morning has sapped me to exhaustion, and I sit back and watch the big boys battle. At the end, its Apollo who carries the day at an impressive 238.6 mph. However, his wife Monica is right there with him on the speed charts, as are AlohaGT and Skyrex. You guys are my heroes. There are many other of my GT brethren who slap the soup out of the 200 mark, and I tip my hat to all of them.
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE YET TO ATTEND A MILE EVENT
As is so often the case, there is no substitute for first hand experience. For some time now I have read about the various mile events and of the exploits of my fearless GT brethren (and sisters, as it turns out); of their fire snorting steeds and of seemingly impossible feats of speed. 266 mph! In a mile? From a dead stop? Are you kidding me?
After experiencing these triumphs of velocity vicariously, I finally had the opportunity to participate in a mile event. It turned out far better than I could have dreamed. I am writing this piece for those out there like me, who until about three days ago, had never driven at a mile event.
I will save the reader the full rant about how long I had been planning for Mojave, but I must admit that my universe pretty much rotated around it in the months prior. I bought new tires, I bought a new race suit. I bought a shiny red fire extinguisher and a race harness and a whole lot of other stuff, including a GoPro camera to film my exploits. My good brother had volunteered his mega motor home for the outing, and my wife, daughter, best pal, other brother and Dad were all in attendance. My office staff was on a state of high alert, demanding regular updates on my California quest for speed. This was a big deal for my little clan, and the number on everyone’s lips, spoken in hushed tones so that I would not overhear: 200. As the trip progressed, that number became a motto, a prayer, a virtual Gregorian chant. It had become my Everest. I dreamed of it at night and visualized it during the day. And finally I was there. Ready to dance the boogey with Dr. Danger and his band named Speed.
THE EVENT
The established Mojave Mile Shootout was scheduled this year for Sunday, April 10 at the Mojave Air and Space Port. In a stroke of pure genius, Tom, aka Skyrex, managed to arrange for a private rental of the facility on Saturday, one day prior to the official event. This allowed the GT community the rare opportunity to attend a speed event designed exclusively for their peculiar automotive pathosis. To save wear and tear on the equipment and enhance the chances of hitting 200, the rules allowed for a rolling start. The distance was bumped from 1 mile to 1.3 miles for the same reasons. Because the attendance was limited, the participants would be allowed to run as much as they wanted, without waiting in long lines. Sure, we paid a little extra for these luxuries, but as you will see, the cost/benefit ratio was overwhelmingly favorable to us GT jockeys.
The event was scrutineered and sanctioned very effectively by MKM Racing Promotions. While I may have previously entertained the naïve notion that we (meaning a ragtag bunch of Forum dudes) could put on a runway event without any outside help, the tech inspection, driver’s meeting and pre-run of the course was all it took to convince me that it would be utterly, absolutely impossible to do: the venue is so huge and the safety issues are so daunting that professional, experienced guidance and oversight provided by MKM was the difference between a great time (which we had) and a bunch of monkeys attempting procreation with a football. MKM kept the event moving, they gave us accurate timing, they were very well staffed and polite, and most importantly, they kept us safe.
After a very smooth and quick registration and tech inspection at the Mariah Hotel parking lot on Friday, we made our final preparations with a wary eye on the weather; it was cold, occasionally rainy and quite windy. However, judging by the uniformly slanted growth of the trees in area and the gigantic wind farm on its outskirts, it seemed readily apparent that wind and small town of Mojave go together like peanut butter and jelly. More on that in a moment.
THE FACILITY
Saturday dawned breezy and cccold. My thermometer read 38 degrees, but I’m sure that the wind chill put the temperature squarely between frigid and subarctic. Great for engine performance, but tough on the spectators. We made our way to the venue at a little before seven a.m., ice already forming at our nostrils. The Mojave Air and Space port is hugeantic. The main runway is nearly three miles long in total length, and the taxiways and grounds are so vast that it would be quite easy to get lost and starve to death before anyone knew you were gone. Luckily, there were plenty of signs and directions. We rumbled into the staging area, situated on a taxiway that was perpendicular to the main runway, and had a driver’s meeting, which was mercifully brief. We all then loaded into the beds of a few pickup trucks for a guided tour of the course. Again, I was impressed at the shear scale of the place. For a guy who has done all of his – ahem- speed exploits on public roads, it was tantalizing to look out on that smooth, incredibly wide runway. I mean, that thing was so long that you simply could not see where it ended when standing at the starting line. My pulse began to thump and I started to drool all over my new Sparco driving suit. Luckily, the drool froze before it made it from my chin to my chest. We were all relieved, maybe even stoked, to note that while the breezy morning was turning into a windy morning, the wind was blowing down the runway as an almost perfect, delicious, tailwind. Wind is like a tough lawyer: you may hate him when you’re fighting him, but it sure is nice when he’s on your side. I was out of my head with anticipation.
It was at this point that I inexplicably began singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic in falsetto and marching in random directions in what others would come to call a pretty decent impression of a drum major.
THE COURSE
The layout of the course was intuitive. We all pre staged on the perpendicular taxiway, which is where the main support motorhome was located. The tent where the timing slips were handed out was also here, along with a well stocked chow wagon and a PA system blasting classic rock to get us in the mood. The announcer made the event seem big time to me (a good thing), and it was great to hear him call out the breathtaking speeds that seem to inevitably result when GTs and runways mix. This area was directly across, but safely distant from, the 1.3 mile finish line, which was cool because it allowed us to cheer, eat Philly Cheese Steaks and spectate while we pre staged and rocked out to Credence. A huge yellow digital readout faced us, clearly displaying the speed of each vehicle as it blasted through the timing lights.
When a group of maybe ten cars were pre staged, they would give us the 5 minute warning, which meant it was time to strap it on and strap in. Racing Harness: Check. Arm Restraints: Check. Neck Restraint: Check. Helmet: Check. Gloves: Check. Cojones: dangit, I think I may have lost them out there somewhere. Oh, there they are.
We then turned left and began the looong drive to the west end of the airport on a taxiway that paralleled the main runway. It was so far that sometimes I felt like I needed to get out and stretch along the way to avoid deep vein thrombosis. When we arrived, we were then directed to line up side to side on the big yellow lines that indicates to our Pilot friends that they are about to enter an active blast off zone. Our harnesses and arm restraints were inspected again (just in case we lost them on the long drive over), then our tires were given a once-over, and after a few encouraging words, each driver would be flagged, at about three minute intervals, onto the runway for their chance at immortality. This required a simple, slow right turn onto the main runway. Quite a ways distant was a brave chap with a green flag standing at the neck of a funnel of orange cones. The idea here was to provide plenty of room for the car to get completely straight and then accelerate at a gentlemanly pace through the cones before gettin’ jiggy with it. We soon learned that cheating through the cones made for higher speeds at the end, and later in the day we all got a warning about going through the funnel too fast.
THE LISCENSING RUN
One of the rules of the event was that those who had no runway experience had to make a licensing run, where speed was limited to between 140-160 miles per hour. At first, this secretly irritated me, but I was soon to change my mind. As they gatekeeper waived me onto the runway, I immediately realized how surreal and mildly disorienting it is to drive on a huge, flat piece of pavement. You see, there are no shoulders or mile posts or anything to let you know were your are. There is a faint white stripe marking the center of the runway, but its faded in places and not really easy to see through all that red mist. It’s just so huge out there the first time. It probably didn’t help that I had a least a gallon of high grade adrenalin spraying all over my internal organs on that first run. And the distance is really hard to gauge the first time. The banners marking the quarter distances (green, yellow, red, finish) that seemed so huge when we toured the course now seemed laughably small. I didn’t even notice the first three, such was my mania. In the blink of an eye, the little gps I had mounted directed in my view indicated 168, and I actually had to slow down before I crossed the finish line or I would have been scolded and told to try again. Luckily, by the time I came to my senses I was going 159.2. Then I let the car coast in gear, trying to get a feel for how long the braking area was. They said it was about ¾ of a mile, which sounds huge. Except it’s really not when you are going crazy fast. I never had to pound the brakes, but I did learn that speed and distance become uneasy companions at an airport event. So, the slower licensing speed helped enormously in orienting me to the conditions. These guys know what they are doing when they make the rules for these gatherings.
I then returned to the line and queued up for the next run. It was at this point that I saw some of the big boys go blasting past. Terry (Apollo), Tom (Skyrex), Kelvin (AlohaGT) just to name a few. Those twin turbo missiles came flashing through at speeds well in excess of 220. Watching that tiny little red speck in the far, hazy distance turn into Terry’s GT, only to have it come barreling past the finish in a veritable explosion of speed and sound made the hair stand up on my neck. Combined with the blasting rock from the PA and my family of at least 200 looking on, I felt a surge of both admiration and newfound desire to finally and legally get documented proof that little ol’ nerdy me had driven my trusty GT past the magic 200 mark.
I must say that at this point, I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to make it happen. You see, more than a few GTs had now gone through the traps at speeds well below the magic number. Sure, a few of them were tech runs like mine, but others were in the 190s, reminding me that hitting 200 was not a sure thing. You never know until the hard numbers are in. After a full day of trying, the pretty Ferrari 458, the mighty Lambo SV and a Porsche Turbo S in attendance could only manage numbers in the 190’s. Respectable? Sure ‘nuff. But the brutal truth is that its still not 200.
WHAT I LEARNED AT THE MOJAVE MILE
And so, for the few that are still reading this, here is what I learned:
1. If ever Tom (or any other altruistic, crazy person) extends another open invitation for you to attend one of these GT only mile events, don’t hesitate, just do it. It was perfect in every way. The rolling start and longer distance makes hitting the magic number “easier” if you will forgive the use of the word.
2. The Ford GT is an incredible car. No other car like it. If you don’t own one, buy one. If you own one, don’t sell it.
3. The Mojave Air and Space Port is a superb facility and the runway was clean, smooth, and safe.
4. The GT guys and gals are some of the nicest people in the world. I loved meeting BlackIce, EdSims, Apollo and Monica, Stunts, SkyRex and Summer, Sandman, NOTA4RE (who will do my tuning from now on if he is willing) and many others.
5. It takes some serious huevos to go 200 mph. But given the right environment, it is obatainable.
6. Tom and Summer were incredibly generous with their time and effort is pulling off a great event, and they make great cookies too. My hat is off to them for a job well done. The special patch and t-shirt were icing on the top for me, but making the new friendships was best of all.
7. It's great to be a part of the GT community.
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