Richard S

It's been a hectic week, so I haven't had a chance to post till now. Last weekends Pony Express Open Road Race in Battle Mountain Nevada was interesting to say the least.

Short version is that we only raced the first leg due to a couple incidents, and nobody was hurt.

Long version involves rain, lightning, Mormon Cricket invasion, car fire, brush fire, and high speed crash.

928's were represented by Ann and myself, George Suennen, Paul Mooradian, Bill Ball, Dave Lomas, and Tom Moore. Ann and I entered the 125 mph class again this year, Ann's first time as a navigator. Friday was spent as a practice day, with a section of the course closed off for official practice. Only thing to worry about were the Mormon Crickets.....ba-jillions of them! Literally looked like a carpet on some parts of the road. Made things a little slick. And stinky! Bug parts in radiators and on exhaust parts is nasty!

Saturday was a free day, so Ann and I drove the course down to Austin, the southern finish point. Unfortunately, a local woman in a pick-up swerved off the road and was killed. Had nothing to do with our event, just an unfortunate coincidence. Tom and his brother David were first on the scene, we were there about 45 min later.

Sunday was race day. Got up early and went to pre-grid, then a caravan of cars at over 100 mph to the start line about 40 miles south! Nice warm-up. The race was started late to allow the crickets to thin out, first car left the start line around 9:45 am. Dave Lomas was in front of us, all set to go, 3 seconds from green light when the officials stopped the race. A car was reported to be on fire. The entire first leg was red-flagged. A Dodge Viper GTS-R blew the left side of it's engine a couple miles from the first leg finish line then caught fire! Bill Ball was right behind him, and wasn't aware of the problem at the time, so he continued to the finish. The driver and navigator got out of the Viper and put out the fire. After a delay of about 1hr45m the race was re-started. Everyone that was stopped on the course were allowed to return to the start line for the re-start. Several racers made it to the finish before the red-flag, including Bill, Tom, and Paul. By the way, Paul chunked a tire at 145mph but continued to the finish line.

So, anyway, we FINALLY managed to get started, and everything went well. Initially. I had managed to catch the black Corvette ahead of me by the time we got to the curve section. No big deal, I just slowed down and intended to pass him after the curves. By then the red corvette behind me had also caught up. Now for the scary part. It started to rain. And I had no wipers. That's right, I had removed the wipers, thinking that we would finish before the afternoon storms. Wrong. The first drops blew off at 120mph. Fine, no problem. Then the REAL rain hit. I had just enough time to see how long the straight section was, put the car in the right lane and ease off the gas. We were literally running blind slowing down from 120mph. This lasted for about 5-10 seconds but seemed like FOREVER. I spotted the red corvette behind me in the side mirror taking a bath in my rooster tail. He had moved over to the left lane. I had no idea what the black one in front of me was doing, but last I saw, he was in the center of the lanes. And all of a sudden the rain stopped! Our 3 cars were seperated by about 3-4 seconds each, with the red corvette quickly gaining on me. I decided to wave him past since I was already to the right, then get in behind him and follow him past the black corvette. By now Jack (black corvette) decided to actually go fast, so the 3 of us continued to the finish line in formation. The stop-watch showed us 48 seconds SLOW for the first leg.

The rest of the cars made it to the turn-around point and we all waited for the unlimited class to run. By then the thunderstorm decided to light things up, and set a ground fire ablaze. Race was suspended while the fire crew took care of things. With time running out, the unlimited cars were sent to the south end, and given the chance to run only the longer north-bound leg of the race. Normally they are sent out last, but the decision was made to send them first for this leg. Anyway, again we were on the starting grid when word came back that one of the unlimited cars had rolled off course. Lem in his awesome 200mph Studebaker had tumbled end over end about 5 miles from the finish line. The race was again red-flaged and eventually cancelled. Lem was unhurt, but the car was destroyed. We all caravanned back to Battle Mountain at over 100mph and were able to see the clean-up of the remains of the Studebaker as we passed by.

I'll let the others fill in any gaps in the weekend, as well as relate their experiences. Ann and I had a great time, and I'll get around to posting some pics. I'm sure George will post some as well. Next up is the Bonneville 100 later this month and the Gamblers Run in Aug.

Rich.

goliver

Glad to here you all made it home safe. Sounds like an exciting weekend. To bad about that woman in the pickup. Hope to be able to attend next year in my new to me shark.

Regards,

Bill Ball

Rich:

Good report. You caught everything except the micro-burst windstorm that took a porta potty for a ride and scattered the concessions' goods all over the place.

Yes, it was an exciting weekend. I'll comment on 2 things.

Firstly, I'm a bit puzzled by the Viper-on-fire incident. I think I was the first car to come upon them after they blew the motor. I smelled but did not see the oil slick they threw a mile or so before they stopped. Initially I thought I had blown an oil line, but everything was OK and the smell dissipated. As I recall, the car was not visible for long, just after a slight bend, and I was doing 150+ as I zoomed by. The smoke looked like steam to me, but it did have more of a milky consistency than steam. However, in the heat of the moment I thought it was coolant from a busted hose. I saw the driver and navigator still in the car. I have to admit I did not see the "We're OK" hand signal. A few miles down the road I reviewed what I had just seen and thought, "Ew, I should have stopped." The next car was only 12 seconds behind me at that point and continued to finish the leg, as did a bunch of other cars before the course was red-flagged. Nobody stopped, as far as I know. We all learned later that the occupants were stuck in the car, the car was on fire, but they did manage to get out and put out the fire. I felt really bad about not stopping. No one talked about this issue after the incident. Was I the only one that passed a car in distress?

Secondly, despite spacing the start times as always, running the twisty section first created a lot of passing situations as drivers with different strategies ran into each other. I told the guys behind me that I did not plan to keep my target speed (140) through the twisties of the first leg and would make up the time in the 40 miles of almost straight road we had at the end of the second leg. I tried to persuade them to do likewise. They were trying to hit the target on the first leg, so I told them I would pay attention to my rear view mirror. Fortunately they did not catch me. You ran into both cars on either side of you, and in the rain (especially with no wipers), I'll bet this distracted you quite a bit. I heard of a number of passing mishaps during the day, some almost serious. Either put more space between drivers or don't run the course this way.

The 200+MPH crash was unfortunate, but points out again why the SuperSports should be run last. The roll cage appeared to have saved Lem's life and even let him walk away from the accident and attend the banquet that night. Amazing considering the rest of the car was flattened to nothing. Considering all the hazards out there (wind, rain, fire, breakdowns, bugs, birds, other vehicles), I think we were all somewhat fortunate to finish unscathed.

**Congrats to Paul Mooradian** - another win in his class (based on the completed first leg). Paul is 2-for-2. Also, **Congrats to Dave Lomas (Ketchmi)** for taking a third.

Richard S

Bill, at the awards dinner it was explained that Roland and his navigator were able to get OUT of the Viper to put out the fire, but then couldn't re-open the doors due to the power lock failure. This led to the long delay, in order to somehow open the doors to get the transmission into neutral for the towtruck. I don't think they were actually trapped in the car as some had thought.

Rich

jorj7

Rich, others,



I'm still sorting out all the adventures from this weekend. I was
scheduled to run after the Supersport cars (170-160 mph avg),
but because of all the problems, I only got 22 miles in before the
race was Red Flagged for the final time. My son and I were the Event
photographers, and I'm sorting over 2100 photos. Here are a few:

My car on the starting grid, behind the SS cars:


Paul, me, and Tom coming back from Practice:


Tom, Paul, and Dave getting breakfast before the race:

Bill Ball

Ah, so they were never trapped inside the car. They weren't yet out of the car when I came upon them. I saw no hand signals. So, I still think that I should have stopped. Had I stopped safely, I would have had to run quite a ways back to them. It puzzles me that no one stopped. Of course, Roland might have been out of the car and/or gave the appropriate hand signal to the next car. I should have asked.

Bill Ball

George:

Here's hoping for a less eventfull Bonneville so you can fully test the SC! Let me know when you get the pictures sorted. I'll buy a CD.

jorj7

Shot Bill,

For all the help you've given me on the supercharger install,
I'll give you a copy. Not much to make up for 30 hrs of your
time, but hopefully you'll still answer my emails...

Hope you don't mind, but here is a preview of your complimentary
MKM photo:



You can even use it to post on Mike's thread about people and their cars.

Bill Ball

George:

Excellent!