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| The car is a 1979 Porsche 930.
This is the turbocharged version of the 911. Autobahn Performance
has provided us technical support, suspension setup, maintenance
and repair. |
Welcome to the One Lap of America!
Article provided by David Goodman
and Keith Ibarguen.
Introduction | The Car | Packing
and Preparation | Travel to Indiana
Wrapping up Loose Ends | Day
1 | Day 2 | Day
3 | Day 4
Day 5 | Day
6 | Day 7 | Day
8 | Day 9
The One Lap is an endurance road rally combined with scored track
events, that brings it’s participants to some of the premier
racetracks in the country. It also confirms the likely already known
premise that the people who run the OLOA are more than a little
bit crazy.
So with this web site, you can track the progress of a couple of
loons with three years of experience with this event. My name is
Keith Ibarguen, and the team captain and car owner is Dave Goodman.
We have been lucky enough to be teamed up with Rick Hetherington
and his team at Autobahn Performance, and have had a relationship
with Rick for each of the three years we have competed. Rick has
provided us technical support, suspension setup, maintenance and
repair, and an unlimited number of answers to roadside problems.
Rick has also been a tireless supporter of the team and has on more
than one occasion lifted the spirits of us when we thought things
were not looking up.
We will be updating this site with the daily results of competition
throughout the week and will be adding pictures and descriptions
where possible, so check back frequently. We will also provide explanations
of what is happening with scoring and other rules as necessary so
if you aren’t familiar with the event, hang tight, it should
become clearer as we go.
Before
April 27, 2004 - The Car and Stuff Done to the Car over the Winter.
The car is a 1979 Porsche 930. This is the turbocharged version
of the 911, and at the time was the fastest production car in the
world. Since 1979, there have been very few cars produced that have
the performance numbers of the 930, so this platform was chosen
for its heritage as well as a relatively reasonable entry price
and a virtually unlimited number of upgrade options. We have taken
advantage of this and modified the car as much as possible without
changing the basic spirit of the car. The car is still primarily
driven on the highway, and from the beginning we have done everything
possible to make changes that could be easily reversed to bring
the car back to bone stock.
With Rick’s help, we made changes to the suspension by adding
adjustable sway bars and heavier torsion bars. We added a bolt-on
roll cage, Recaro Seats, harnesses and a set of Fikse wheels which
gave us a much larger contact patch from stock. Breaks and engine
are stock, with minor tweaks to new racing pads that squeal like
crazy on the highway, and frozen cross-drilled rotors.
This year, Autobahn rebuilt the transmission, and Dave repaired
some oil leaks, and did some other minor tweaks to the car that
made it a bit more enjoyable to spend close to 7000 miles in.
April 27, 2004 - Packing
and Preparation.
The race is upon us and we actually have the time to get stuff in
order a day early. A quick trip through the tool box, and our tool
kit is together. We decided to keep the tools, and the overall amount
of stuff, to a minimum since in years past we over packed badly.
It seems strange but apparently we have learned a thing or two in
the past years about organization since in about a half an hour
we were all set with tools.
April 28, 2004 - Travel
to South Bend Indiana.
One hell of a way to start an event that has close to 6000 miles
of driving in it. Since the car gets about 15 miles to the gallon
on the highway, we get about 275 to 300 miles a tank. We decided
years back that we switch drivers after each tank, so each of us
drove twice on the trip out. The car is running very well though
we are looking at running highway temperatures of about 150. Not
exactly proper operating temperature, though understandable for
a car that has about a square mile of oil cooling surface area spread
among three very large oil coolers. Dave suspects a stuck open thermostat
so we are looking to swap that out in the next few days if we can
get the nuts open and we can find a replacement. We also have a
pretty significant shaking in the steering wheel. We think the tires
need another balancing, and will check that out tomorrow.
We arrived at South Bend Indiana at about 12:45 and checked in to
the hotel. We will be hooking up with George Batejan and Steve Smotrich
tomorrow and will likely be traveling with them throughout the event.
Time to get some sleep.
April 29, 2004 - Wrapping
up Loose Ends.
George called us at 8:30 to say he and Steve were going for breakfast.
Not too surprising that both Dave and I were awake. This event certainly
can get you fired up.
Registration was open by the time we got showered, so we grabbed
the sticker pack, signed our lives away and visited with some folks
we haven’t seen for a year. We found George and Steve and
talked about what we needed to get done for the day. First stop,
the TireRack.
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We found George Batejan
and Steve Smotrich and talked about what we needed to get done
for the day.
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Registration was
open by the time we got showered, so we grabbed the sticker
pack.
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TireRack is an absolutely enormous warehouse with
a very nice lobby, reception area and Internet Café (for
waiting customers). This is our first event location as well and
it certainly has the facilities for it. They have an autocross test
track, and a skid pad for doing in-house tire testing. The other
interesting thing about the TireRack is it is a family owned and
operated company, and the owner who is in his 70s is still mounting
tires with the other guys in the shop.
We had our tires rebalanced which actually involved remounting of
the two rears since there was an excessive amount of weight that
had to be added the first time around. The rebalance made the shimmy
go away, which is a really nice change.
Next stop was CarQuest, Lowes and a few other stores for brake cleaner,
some mechanics gloves, more wasabi peas (an on the road staple)
and some other miscellaneous stuff. While at Lowes, George called
from TireRack and told us his battery was dead. He hunted down a
battery and we picked it up and delivered it to him. What was nice
about that was George found the battery at a detailing shop, who
charged us $20 to wash both cars. We needed to wash the cars anyway
so it worked out really well.
We got back to the hotel at around 5:00 and applied the stickers
to the car. At this point we are about ready to go except Dave still
wants to swap out the thermostat and since he found one and is having
it arrive tomorrow, we should be able to make that change. We finished
the stickers, went to a cocktail reception where we met Royal Ford,
the Boston Globe automotive writer. He certainly has an interesting
ride this year since he is taking a Porsche GT3 that will be piloted
by David Murray an exceptionally accomplished factory Porsche driver,
and by all accounts, an exceptionally nice guy to boot. Not bad
for a One Lap Rookie. We went to dinner at a good Mexican place,
and when we returned to the hotel, Royal was laying on his back
under the GT3 poking at the back tires mumbling to himself. He kept
rolling from under the Porsche to a really hot Corvette, looking
at the Vette’s tires, then back again. We went over to see
what he was doing, and it turns out the tires on the GT3 are significantly
worn, and will need a swap out. Pretty convenient having TireRack
right down the street. It isn’t every town that you can go
five minutes to a shop that has in-stock $300+ high performance
tires. continue>
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