One Lap of America May 5 to May 12, 2007
Article provided by David Goodman

Introduction & Car Preparation
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8

Day 5, Wednesday May 9, 2007
Today we are in Hallet, Oklahoma at the Hallet Motor Racing Circuit. We've got the Murray/Hubbard team on the ropes and we have a perfect opportunity to gain some more ground. They have to run that flat spotted tire in the morning until their new one shows up by FedEx for the afternoon. Flat spotting a tire means that you stop its rotation with the brakes long enough for the track surface to grind a flat spot in the rubber. The end result is that it makes a horrible WAP WAP WAP noise as the tire rotates, as well as the fact that under breaking the flat spot actually has more grip than the rest of the tire. What this means is that with each rotation under braking, the tire is going to want to stop again at that very flat spot, making the situation even worse.

Neil timed my morning run and said that I was really cooking it. I achieved another great launch and he said that it was a nice smooth run under the limit and it looked extremely fast as well. Like I was running on rails was his exact quote. He also timed Bob Murray's run and believes that I beat him by an entire 12 seconds. If that is indeed the case, then we made up a significant amount of ground in the morning.

As we mulled over how successful our strategy had become so far, we set our minds to correcting a problem that had been driving Neil crazy throughout the trip. The headlights on this car were in a word, terrible. We had a significant amount of transit rain last night and had an extremely difficult time seeing the road surface. Neil called around the area looking for a pair of H4 headlights while I thought about an alternate solution of simply mounting some common fog lights on the bumper. While I relaxed before my second run Neil made about 1000 phone calls trying to find the H4s. Apparently, they are not legal in the US so nobody sells them. After much deliberation, and some help from Kevin Boulton of the number 40 car, Neil settled on some PIAA surface mount driving lights.

After the second run we gathered up George and Steve and headed to Tulsa where we stopped at a place called Truck n Stuff to have the driving lights installed. Although we had a very long transit ahead of us and we were anxious to get going, Neil’s profound discomfort driving the car at night made the stop a categorical imperative. The cost was about $200 but I figure that was short money to get Neil happy climbing back into the driver’s seat after dark. True friends that they are, George and Steve waited with us. Now those guys were pretty down on the idea of burning 2 hours and $200 clams on fancy driving lights. They insisted that a set of Silver Star headlights at a cost of $60, and 20 minutes to install them would have the same effect. So they set off to the local Autozone to get a set while Neil helped the installer with the PIAA’s. That entire errand, including an oil change for the Viper and the install of the headlights took less time than the driving light install. By the time that was done we were all climbing the walls, everyone except for Neil that is, who was noticeably delighted with the new ability to cook a medium sized lobster with a short burst of light from the front of the car. To add insult to injury, on our way out of Tulsa, no more than 5 minutes after we got back on the road, George was stopped for having an “illegal” license plate frame. What a crock of shit. I felt even worse at that point for holding these guys up.

I don’t think anything can compare though to the lousy day a certain anonymous bird had when he encounter our speeding convoy in middle Oklahoma. Now a certain amount of incidental road kill on these trips is inevitable, but this bird met his end in spectacular fashion. While I was driving along at about 90, this bird came in from the left and slammed head on into the side of the car just in front of the door. Just before impact, in the periphery I saw him try to pull up but it was too late. As his body rolled down the side of the car, impacting as it went, I looked in the rear view mirror and it seemed like the critter simply vaporized. An enormous cloud of feathers hung in the air and the body was in a word gone. I didn’t have to imagine what it looked like from behind because moments later George was howling on the two way radio. “Did you see that!!!” he yelled, “that bird just blew up!!” “So Neil” I said, “ya know what the last thing that went through that bird’s head was?” “No what?” he said. “His ass!!!!” I exclaimed.

As the sun went down George was able to get online and check the standings after the second run today. Another good run put us tied for Vintage Foreign and actually ahead of the Murry/Hubbard team overall. Not a bad day at all. One final bit to report, the Silver Stars did turn out to be just a bright as the PIAA driving lights, but I still say it was worth the $200. continue>