One Lap of America May 6 to May 13, 2006
Article provided by David Goodman.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8

Tuesday May 9, 2006, Day 4
TAfter a few hours of sleep Sam and I got up early and got to the track because we had a lot of work to do to try and figure out what was wrong with the car. On top of that, our parents were traveling north from their winter home in Florida and decided they would spend a couple of days with us watching the festivities. We met Mom and Dad at the track, unpacked the car and I adjusted the rear sway bars to full soft. I called Rick at Autobahn Performance to discuss our new transmission problem.

The good news I told him was that we were still beating Bob Murray handedly; the bad news was that I thought I might have to continue to do it using only three gears. After a lengthy consultation concerning the issue we decided to simply continue to drive the car and try to use fourth by manually holding it in gear. Great, I thought, I'm going to be wailing down the front straight at Roebling Road going 150 miles an hour with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the stick.

It never ceases to amaze me on this event how fast you can go from complete crap to total bliss and back, or vice versa. I took the car out on the first session and it handled absolutely beautifully. That last adjustment is exactly what I needed to begin building my confidence in the car. The fourth gear situation seemed to get better as well and by the fourth lap I could leave it in fourth gear and it wouldn't pop out. I have no idea what happened but it is clear that wonking on the stick helped out somehow.

After the first run session we had a great time hanging around soaking in all the cool cars. Sam and I washed the car and smoked a cigar with my dad. My second run session was even better than the first and I picked up several seconds overall.

We packed the car drove a short distance to a passage control at the local the Tire Rack facility, had a quick bite to eat, and proceeded to drive the 200 miles to Florence Motor Speedway. Florence Motor Speedway is a 4/10 of a mile semi-banked paved oval in Florence, South Carolina. The paved ovals are always a lot of fun but it's going to be even more fun tonight because we're running under the lights.

One of the biggest crowd pleasers this evening was the Jeep SRT-8. These guys had prearranged for a sprint car wing to be delivered to the track so they could use it for tonight's event. They had previously made special mounting brackets on the top of the car to accommodate the large downforce generated by such a wing. Apparently at 80 miles an hour this wing generates 800 pounds of downforce. We finished our run session, packed the car and drove most of the 200 miles to Danville, Virginia on a two lane rural road. I must say there is something extremely unsettling about watching your 68 year-old mother in the rearview mirror passing 18 wheelers in a Toyota Sequoia to keep pace with the pack. I'm quite sure my dad in the passenger seat was howling the whole way to Danville. continue>