“Rookies no more”. Words we certainly enjoyed hearing from friends and fellow racers after the successful completion of our 2012 effort. We finished 2.7 seconds faster than our target speed and considered it good for our first time in this particular event and having no GPS to measure our average mph speed. While is was only good enough for 7th place in our GT-3 class, it was a pleasant surprise when we were notified by the Lone Star Corvette Club (open road race group) that we were selected as their “Rookie Team of the Year”.
Well, after running in the Silver State Classic Challenge later in 2012, we ended up selling the Z06 Corvette that served us so well in several Texas Mile events and these to open road races. Planning to move up (eventually to the Unlimited Class) we set our sights on a purpose-built racecar. Weeks later we welcomed a new bundle of joy into our shop. A 1969 Chevrolet Camaro with a 572cid, big-block Chevy engine sporting more than a thousand horsepower, and a marvelous Chris Alston cage. While we had a lot of work to turn this quarter-miler into a suitable ORR car, we were transfixed on doing just that and setting the record books on fire as a result. As sometimes happens, plans change. In our case, someone motivated us to change our plans.
About three months into the Camaro project a phone call came in with a strong voice at the other end that, in looking back, was trying to get the story delivered before I cut off the conversation. I obliged. The man on the other end of the call explained how he’d just driven, pulling an enclosed trailer, from southern Michigan to Houston, Texas, to buy a racecar and upon arrival found it had not been represented accurately and he was not going to purchase it. Without all the boring details in the middle, suffice it to say he made us an offer we could not refuse and after driving an extra 7 hours to our place, the Camaro was loaded up and taken back to Michigan (hopefully for some Earth-shaking quarter mile passes at Milan Dragway).
So back to the drawing board. We were not going to miss the BBORR! Given the timeline needed to build a ‘real’ racecar, we were in a tight spot. Literally we had four weeks to get something ready. After lots of debating, lots of research and finally the acceptance that we were not going to be running in the Grand Sport class as planned, we decided on an all-wheel-drive Audi A6 with a twin-turbo V6 power plant. We located a few, graded them, and made the trip to go buy one. What we came home with was a car that had seen better days, but was still mechanically up to the job. We had our work cut out to get it in race shape in three weeks.
The quick and dirty is that we fixed a power steering issue, replaced the tie rods, replaced the front seatbelts, did the brakes, replaced the damaged BBS wheels and worn-out, mismatched tires. We replaced the windshield, fixed the HID headlights, replaced the hood lift shock, cleaned years of funk from the interior, gave it a fresh Royal Purple oil change and a bath. We wanted to replace the shocks/struts but the type we wanted were not readily available so that had to wait. We were as ready as we were going to be. We pulled out our trusty checklists and got to the work of packing for the race.
Since we didn’t have to participate in rookie qualifying this year, we arrived in Fort Stockton on Wednesday, late in the afternoon, planning to sign in at registration and breeze through tech inspection on Thursday morning. I mention “breeze through” because tech inspection, while we have never had one issue, is what keeps me up at night worrying about the what-ifs. We arrived in Sanderson bright and early the next morning, signed-in, changed classes (7 speed classes lower than we had originally registered for) got our car numbers, wrist bands and headed for tech. We drive into the midst of the menacing looking tech crew…ok, they are all nice guys and have our safety in mind…and they went to work on the car. They checked everything top to bottom, front to back. We set out the large tote with all of our personal safety gear and about 10 minutes later we had our window stickers and we were ready to go.
We drove the course (Highway 285) twice on Thursday to re-familiarize ourselves with the curves and terrain. We drove it once more on Friday and realized, much to our surprise, that we were ready and not stressed out at all. I think the combination of having our rookie experience under our belt and driving in a much lower speed class were both factors.
Saturday morning arrived finally and we began getting ready well before daybreak. We were both surprised at just how relaxed we felt. Not to the extent of being nonchalant, but just that well prepared feeling. We had to be in our pre-grid position by 6am.
When the course workers were in place, RADAR and laser speed traps were setup and the final safety sweep was underway, the race staff began leading us from Rooney Park, to the race grid. It’s always a beautiful sight to see the sun coming up over the desert landscape and to see and hear the 150-some racecars rolling into positions. Again it was quiet and you could sense the anticipation. There were several ‘Unlimited’ cars this year and a lot of excitement about that. This year had a large rookie class, too. Every rookie had qualified and the field was full. Pretty soon the Race Director called all of the drivers together for one last, quick meeting. We had a beautiful day on our hands and it was time to race. First off would be a Ford GT40. Soon we all caught sight of the safety planes overhead and heard the medical evac helicopter circling the grid.
It wasn’t long after that when a gorgeous 1969 GT40 crackled to life. What a sound to hear and everyone held their breath as we waited to hear the several-hundred horsepower engine get set free on the course. Then it happened. A couple of revvs and off he went, engine roaring, hitting his shifts and not lifting for the miles we could still hear him. It’s hard to describe it and do the sound sensation any justice. There was a collective cheer that erupted from the drivers, navigators and race staff as the race was now underway. Soon another Unlimited car took off, then another, and another. Things were going smoothly. After some time we could see our line starting to move up. Time to hook up the communications, zip up our suits, get settled into the car and put the helmets and gloves on. I was wearing a Garmin GPS on my left forearm so I could glance at it during the race to see how we were doing on our average MPH. I also had a GPS speedometer mounted inside the windshield so I could have that in my line of sight, also for reference. Patricia, my life and race navigator (my wife), had her GPS mounted to the dash, timers at the ready and course notes in hand. We did a quick comm check to make sure everything was working and confirm that the volume was where we wanted it. We rolled into the final tech/safety check and the guys made quick work of making sure we had everything in place and allowed us to roll up to the line. In front of us was a new model Mustang GT, black, and behind us was a C5 Corvette, white. Watching the ‘Christmas tree’ starting lights, I reminded Patricia to tell me when to go. The green light was her cue to start the timers whether I was moving or not. Both GPS units were set to activate on motion. The Mustang launched and soon was out of sight. We rolled up to the line and focused on the ‘tree. 10 seconds. 5 seconds and the first yellow light came to life. 4, 3, 2, 1, GREEN!! I heard the ‘beep’ of our timers and heard “GO”. I didn’t smash the gas, I just rolled away with a purpose and eased the throttle down as the car snapped through the gears, turbos whistling all the while. I love the feeling and sound of it all. In just a matter of seconds we were up over 100mph and getting ready to level off for a safety check. Gauges looked good, both GPS units were registering the same data and the GPS speedometer was giving off a lovely red, pulsating ring around the speed, now at 111mph.
The first leg of the race went off without a hitch. We regulated our speed and crossed the finish line with the GPS reading exactly (to the tenth) our target average speed of 105mph. The timers indicated we were between one and two seconds too fast. Not bad in my book. We rejoined our friends in Sanderson during the mid-day break. After the break we soon were rolling out of town, back to the grid for the northbound run. Again we were sandwiched between the Mustang GT and the 5th generation Corvette. Our turn finally came and we had adjusted our timers to add two seconds to our target, hoping it would help us adjust our time/speed appropriately to compensate for the southbound error. The Christmas tree lights counted down and Patricia hit the timers while yelling “GO!”. Away we went and soon we were again sailing up the highway, toward Fort Stockton. The northbound run wasn’t as fun this year as it was last year. I think because this car doesn’t handle anything like our Z06 did and probably because I’d only driven this car a dozen times before this race. I was certainly pleased with its performance but not ready to believe that 110mph around a curve was going to be a walk in the park. The southern third of the BBORR course is perfect for “spirited driving”. Before I knew it, we were 12 miles from the finish of our race. We crested the last small ‘blind’ hill and started really watching our average MPH and elapsed time. We were at 104.9mph average and still we were miles out. I took it up with just a little more throttle. The GPS speedometer showed 106mph just long enough for the average speed GPS to tick back up to 105.0. With 20 seconds left, Patricia started counting me down so I could try to synchronize her count to my visual reference of the finish line. I could see we were coming in too fast. We certainly don’t want to be disqualified for going too slow but I didn’t want to miss our time target by too much, either. I lifted out of the throttle and almost instantaneously heard “don’t you slow down”. Knowing the navigator is always right, I eased back into the throttle and as her countdown reached “3” we flashed across the finish line. I felt I had let her down by not doing a better job regulating our final few miles but I was elated that the car had performed perfectly. Three weeks to prep a “beater” and we’d finished the Big Bend Open Road race again.
As it turned out, we were 1.505 seconds off the mark (.039 mph) which means we had almost cut our error from 2012 in half. This made me happy and cautiously optimistic. If you’re a BBORR racer, or read our 2012 story, you know that any error more than a half second is not likely to get you much more than the satisfaction of finishing the race.
We came in 7th again this year. The Mustang GT in front of us…winners of our class! A new course record was set in the Unlimited class – Tom Whalen, in his hot red C5 Corvette, averaged 172.696mph over the entire 118-mile course. He was clocked at more than 209mph in the laser speed traps. Oh, to get a chance to do that just once. We thought we’d be there soon but it’s just not in the cards right now. It was a great event and certainly our most relaxed race we’ve ever participated in. We’ll take it and can’t wait for next year!!
Feel free to contact us if you’d like more information about the Big Bend Open Road Race. We’re happy to help our fellow racers.