Open Road Racing Rookie Chronicles
07-26-2004, 05:03 PM
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Open Road Racing Rookie Chronicles
Disclaimer: The facts may be slightly embellished and are presented from my recollection.
Thursday morning dawns bright and sunny. I get up at 6am for our scheduled 10am departure to our first ORR event. Last nights sleep was quite fitful, tossing and turning all night. I make our coffee and go into the garage and check on the car. Yep, it’s still there. I check all of my supplies. New watches, $9.95 on the discount table, new tire gauge, $4.95 full price and digital, harnesses hooked up and at the ready. (More on this later). I go back downstairs to bring my wife a cup of coffee, and I get the, “it’s 6:30 and we’re not leaving until 10am” stare. She suggests I switch to sleepy time tea instead of coffee today. I go back to the garage to finish checking everything and pack the car.
At 7am I go back downstairs with the coffee and present it to my wife. She accepts the coffee and our day is off to a good start. When the suitcases are presented to me I discover that 928’s are really not that big! After taking the previously packed items out and repacking several times everything fits, kind of.
10am and were off to Beautiful downtown Wendover, this should be a piece of cake since we are coming from Tahoe and it’s a straight shot across Hwy 80. I drove until Battle Mountain, and turned the car over to Cheryl after we fueled up. About 20 west of Ely the car starts cutting out and bucking. My god, what have you done to my car! I ask ….are you doing that? She replies “ oh of course, that’s my normal driving pattern !!!! Anyway we pull over and I scratch my head. Not being a 928 genius I get a great idea, I’ll call DEVEK (Marc & Susan Thomas). Dam, a recorder. I know Bill Ball and George are somewhere behind me so I call Bill. He tells me it’s either the “Brain”, (I’m sunk), or the fuel pump relay. After laying on my head and rotating 90 degree’s while sweating and cussing profusely, the relay pops out. It’s dead. Great, now what. I call Bill back and he tells me just take one out of somewhere else and switch it. Good idea!!! Back on my head and I find the headlight washer warmer relay, remove it put it into the fuel pump slot, and voila it starts. Just then a nice Corvette guy & family, (the Steinhoff’s) pull up and ask if we need help. I explain that I’m really just polishing my car and I’m OK. They tell me they will follow me into Ely just incase my polishing doesn’t hold up or it needs to be polished again. I say thanks and we are off to Ely.
We arrive in Wendover, check in and go down to the registration where we look for our “rookie mother”. Registration goes really well, fast and efficient. We buy a couple of shirts and a hat so we can be just as fast as everyone else and head down to the steakhouse with Bill, George, and Tim the navigator. Cheryl gambles a little and we retire for the night.
Friday, rookie qualification. We find our rookie mom, Marilyn at Starbucks and head on out to the practice area. When we arrive we are assigned to Ron as our instructor. He does his best to assure me everything will be ok but I don’t believe him. Thankfully he bring his GPS along. We start the run and I accelerate to125 and then 135 on my speedo. Ron informs me that I need to slow down before we reach the radar trap because my speedo is 8-9mph SLOW. On the run back we try to dial in the 125 and 140 speeds and it equates to 119mph and 131 on my speedometer. Ron agrees to qualify me and sign off.
Cheryl’s turn, and despite being nervous she takes the car and instructor for her run. She aces it and she gets qualified. We give our rookie cards to Roger and start practicing by ourselves. Roger “hugs” Cheryl and says he know we could do it. ( He didn’t offer to hug me.)
After practice we return to the Hotel quite elated. The adrenaline is high and we are going a million miles an hour. We go to the party, have some drinks, hang out with folks and go do some gambling. Gambling was not kind to us so we retire for the night.
Saturday morning dawns and its foggy in Wendover, I go back to sleep because it’s a free day. I wake up about 2 hours later and most of the fog has cleared. I open the window and realize is not foggy at all, I just got dehydrated and drank a little too much. Cheryl and I ran the poker run and checked the course out at legal speeds (of course) and practiced our time keeping at 60mph. We nailed those mile markers. Upon return to town we located the local car wash (of course it rained that night) and cleaned up the car to go to the car show. We filled the car up with fuel and put air in the tires so we could adjust it in the morning. The games were fun to watch, maybe we’ll participate next time. Nothing to drink today, I don’t want the fog to return.
Sunday Morning: Get up a 5am. It’s a clear day and I feel great. I make the first trip to the car with helmets, gloves, etc. I pull out my trusty $4.95 tire gauge adjust my tires to exactly 40 lb. My tire gauge makes a popping sound and displays a lot of backwards E’s. I check the next tire and it also is inflated to a lot of backward E’s. Hum???? I ask the guy next to me (he had a Monte Carlo I think) if I can use his gauge and he said sure. The tires were adjusted and I make a trip back to the room. Butterfly’s are starting to appear in the parking lot staging area, so Cheryl & I walk around and talk to some folks. More Butterfly’s arrive when possible rain is discussed. Everyone caravans out to the start area, and I’m thankful that the Nascar, Formula 1 and Cart scouts will not be there today.
Our class is given the 10 minute signal and we stage our cars. The rescue guys give our harness’s an extra tug and wish us a safe trip. Up to the start tree and Lincoln (sp) gives us the thumbs up, wishes us luck and tells us to put our window up and our visors down. Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Green. Cheryl starts her two watches and I start the backup watch (all new, see above). I zero the trip computer and mileage and we are off racing.
Two miles out Cheryl informs me that my backup watch is stuck on 4 seconds. Great, but we still have two brand new $9.95 watches left. The first half is uneventful and we have no trouble staying on time even though the speedo is so far off. At the first half finish we are about one second off according to our watches.
We were very proud of ourselves and are looking forward to the trip back. Roger suggested that we run the failed backup watch up to the correct time and go from there. (Why didn’t I think of that?) The cars were stagged and suddenly the Wendover butterfly’s showed up. How did they make the trip that fast? Another tug on the belts by rescue and a good luck by Carl and we wait for the lights. Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Green. I start the backup watch, zero the trip computer, Cheryl clicks the primary watches and were off. We arrive at our 125mph average about 7 miles out and settle in for a nice drive to victory. Through the squiggly turns and NDOT yard we slow a little then back on time down the hill. We are perfect at mile marker 38. Just then I see a blue Corvette in my mirror. Huh? The Corvette that is supposed to be behind me is Tom in the red one!! Uh Oh, Cheryl check our time. Cheryl says “bad news racer boy, both watch’s have stopped on there own.) OK I say, we still have a back up watch that I started. Please push any button and see if either watch will work. The watches will not start, reset, or change no matter what we do. Cheryl then moves on to plan B, our backup, backup watch that I started. (Remember the one that failed on the first leg). You probably guessed by now, it is frozen at 4 minutes and will not move no matter what button is pushed. How can a person get 3 pieces of s#*t watches. (Oh Yeah, the discount table watch.) Anyway we navigated by looking forward to the car in front and backwards to the red Corvette and tried to stay in the middle. I don’t know how we finished but I will guess it’s last. None the less we had an incredible time. We didn’t stick around for the party, but we will make sure we do next time.
Thank you so much MKM and volunteers for all of your efforts. By and large you are the nicest group of organizers and competitors we have come across. We will be back in Elko.
Thursday morning dawns bright and sunny. I get up at 6am for our scheduled 10am departure to our first ORR event. Last nights sleep was quite fitful, tossing and turning all night. I make our coffee and go into the garage and check on the car. Yep, it’s still there. I check all of my supplies. New watches, $9.95 on the discount table, new tire gauge, $4.95 full price and digital, harnesses hooked up and at the ready. (More on this later). I go back downstairs to bring my wife a cup of coffee, and I get the, “it’s 6:30 and we’re not leaving until 10am” stare. She suggests I switch to sleepy time tea instead of coffee today. I go back to the garage to finish checking everything and pack the car.
At 7am I go back downstairs with the coffee and present it to my wife. She accepts the coffee and our day is off to a good start. When the suitcases are presented to me I discover that 928’s are really not that big! After taking the previously packed items out and repacking several times everything fits, kind of.
10am and were off to Beautiful downtown Wendover, this should be a piece of cake since we are coming from Tahoe and it’s a straight shot across Hwy 80. I drove until Battle Mountain, and turned the car over to Cheryl after we fueled up. About 20 west of Ely the car starts cutting out and bucking. My god, what have you done to my car! I ask ….are you doing that? She replies “ oh of course, that’s my normal driving pattern !!!! Anyway we pull over and I scratch my head. Not being a 928 genius I get a great idea, I’ll call DEVEK (Marc & Susan Thomas). Dam, a recorder. I know Bill Ball and George are somewhere behind me so I call Bill. He tells me it’s either the “Brain”, (I’m sunk), or the fuel pump relay. After laying on my head and rotating 90 degree’s while sweating and cussing profusely, the relay pops out. It’s dead. Great, now what. I call Bill back and he tells me just take one out of somewhere else and switch it. Good idea!!! Back on my head and I find the headlight washer warmer relay, remove it put it into the fuel pump slot, and voila it starts. Just then a nice Corvette guy & family, (the Steinhoff’s) pull up and ask if we need help. I explain that I’m really just polishing my car and I’m OK. They tell me they will follow me into Ely just incase my polishing doesn’t hold up or it needs to be polished again. I say thanks and we are off to Ely.
We arrive in Wendover, check in and go down to the registration where we look for our “rookie mother”. Registration goes really well, fast and efficient. We buy a couple of shirts and a hat so we can be just as fast as everyone else and head down to the steakhouse with Bill, George, and Tim the navigator. Cheryl gambles a little and we retire for the night.
Friday, rookie qualification. We find our rookie mom, Marilyn at Starbucks and head on out to the practice area. When we arrive we are assigned to Ron as our instructor. He does his best to assure me everything will be ok but I don’t believe him. Thankfully he bring his GPS along. We start the run and I accelerate to125 and then 135 on my speedo. Ron informs me that I need to slow down before we reach the radar trap because my speedo is 8-9mph SLOW. On the run back we try to dial in the 125 and 140 speeds and it equates to 119mph and 131 on my speedometer. Ron agrees to qualify me and sign off.
Cheryl’s turn, and despite being nervous she takes the car and instructor for her run. She aces it and she gets qualified. We give our rookie cards to Roger and start practicing by ourselves. Roger “hugs” Cheryl and says he know we could do it. ( He didn’t offer to hug me.)
After practice we return to the Hotel quite elated. The adrenaline is high and we are going a million miles an hour. We go to the party, have some drinks, hang out with folks and go do some gambling. Gambling was not kind to us so we retire for the night.
Saturday morning dawns and its foggy in Wendover, I go back to sleep because it’s a free day. I wake up about 2 hours later and most of the fog has cleared. I open the window and realize is not foggy at all, I just got dehydrated and drank a little too much. Cheryl and I ran the poker run and checked the course out at legal speeds (of course) and practiced our time keeping at 60mph. We nailed those mile markers. Upon return to town we located the local car wash (of course it rained that night) and cleaned up the car to go to the car show. We filled the car up with fuel and put air in the tires so we could adjust it in the morning. The games were fun to watch, maybe we’ll participate next time. Nothing to drink today, I don’t want the fog to return.
Sunday Morning: Get up a 5am. It’s a clear day and I feel great. I make the first trip to the car with helmets, gloves, etc. I pull out my trusty $4.95 tire gauge adjust my tires to exactly 40 lb. My tire gauge makes a popping sound and displays a lot of backwards E’s. I check the next tire and it also is inflated to a lot of backward E’s. Hum???? I ask the guy next to me (he had a Monte Carlo I think) if I can use his gauge and he said sure. The tires were adjusted and I make a trip back to the room. Butterfly’s are starting to appear in the parking lot staging area, so Cheryl & I walk around and talk to some folks. More Butterfly’s arrive when possible rain is discussed. Everyone caravans out to the start area, and I’m thankful that the Nascar, Formula 1 and Cart scouts will not be there today.
Our class is given the 10 minute signal and we stage our cars. The rescue guys give our harness’s an extra tug and wish us a safe trip. Up to the start tree and Lincoln (sp) gives us the thumbs up, wishes us luck and tells us to put our window up and our visors down. Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Green. Cheryl starts her two watches and I start the backup watch (all new, see above). I zero the trip computer and mileage and we are off racing.
Two miles out Cheryl informs me that my backup watch is stuck on 4 seconds. Great, but we still have two brand new $9.95 watches left. The first half is uneventful and we have no trouble staying on time even though the speedo is so far off. At the first half finish we are about one second off according to our watches.
We were very proud of ourselves and are looking forward to the trip back. Roger suggested that we run the failed backup watch up to the correct time and go from there. (Why didn’t I think of that?) The cars were stagged and suddenly the Wendover butterfly’s showed up. How did they make the trip that fast? Another tug on the belts by rescue and a good luck by Carl and we wait for the lights. Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Green. I start the backup watch, zero the trip computer, Cheryl clicks the primary watches and were off. We arrive at our 125mph average about 7 miles out and settle in for a nice drive to victory. Through the squiggly turns and NDOT yard we slow a little then back on time down the hill. We are perfect at mile marker 38. Just then I see a blue Corvette in my mirror. Huh? The Corvette that is supposed to be behind me is Tom in the red one!! Uh Oh, Cheryl check our time. Cheryl says “bad news racer boy, both watch’s have stopped on there own.) OK I say, we still have a back up watch that I started. Please push any button and see if either watch will work. The watches will not start, reset, or change no matter what we do. Cheryl then moves on to plan B, our backup, backup watch that I started. (Remember the one that failed on the first leg). You probably guessed by now, it is frozen at 4 minutes and will not move no matter what button is pushed. How can a person get 3 pieces of s#*t watches. (Oh Yeah, the discount table watch.) Anyway we navigated by looking forward to the car in front and backwards to the red Corvette and tried to stay in the middle. I don’t know how we finished but I will guess it’s last. None the less we had an incredible time. We didn’t stick around for the party, but we will make sure we do next time.
Thank you so much MKM and volunteers for all of your efforts. By and large you are the nicest group of organizers and competitors we have come across. We will be back in Elko.
07-26-2004, 05:49 PM
#3
Under the Lift
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Good job, rookie Tim & Cheryl. You just need some reliable stopwatches. I would suggest Walmart, except the model I bought stopped counting at 40 minutes. Who knows, you might have won!
Made it home by 9:30PM last night. 1600 miles over the last 4 days and the car just purred. I did burn 1/2 qt of oil and I can see the blow-by residue on the rear. Only happens if I sustain 160+. Below that it won't burn a drop over 12 months.
Anyway, glad you guys had fun. I'm sure you will like Elko. Wish I could be there, but my son has talked me into a ski trip to southern Chile. He goes helicopter skiing, I just watch.
Made it home by 9:30PM last night. 1600 miles over the last 4 days and the car just purred. I did burn 1/2 qt of oil and I can see the blow-by residue on the rear. Only happens if I sustain 160+. Below that it won't burn a drop over 12 months.
Anyway, glad you guys had fun. I'm sure you will like Elko. Wish I could be there, but my son has talked me into a ski trip to southern Chile. He goes helicopter skiing, I just watch.
07-26-2004, 06:30 PM
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Tim, rookies seem to take a beating every year....last year I left the 928 in Reno on the way to the Bonneville event (continued on in the Tacoma) due to fuel problems, but managed to win the 125mph class at the Pony Express a month later. So, that should set you up for a great finish at Elko! Here's a little secret....get a count-DOWN timer. Download one into a PDA, or buy a Casio G-Shock watch (they have a stopwatch & count-down function) Kinda hard to push the tiny watch button with gloves on, but it really makes life easy close to the finish line !!!!
See you at Devek Day
Rich
See you at Devek Day
Rich
07-26-2004, 08:20 PM
#6
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Tim,
I will thank her...glad it worked out fine.....I really miss these events....BUT we are going to the Gamblers Run and take title to the 1Km drag race ... or give it one hell of a shot!
IT sounds like everyone had a great time with no incidents....congrads to all!
Yeeehah!!!
Marc
DEVEK 550 rwhp
I will thank her...glad it worked out fine.....I really miss these events....BUT we are going to the Gamblers Run and take title to the 1Km drag race ... or give it one hell of a shot!
IT sounds like everyone had a great time with no incidents....congrads to all!
Yeeehah!!!
Marc
DEVEK 550 rwhp
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07-29-2004, 03:44 PM
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Tim,
Glad you had a good time. It was great having you and your wife there.
Congratulations on finishing your first event, and I hope the first of many.
Here is an photo I posted on another thread, of you and the blue corvette.
By the way, he also passed the car in front of you. I don't know why he
didn't get disqualified for exceeding his tech speed or average speed limit
as he averaged 140.029 on the downhill run.
I also stitched a few photos together and have a animated gif that is about 1.65 mb.
The image quality isn't as good, but if your interested it's at:
http://928.jorj7.com/2004-bonneville...r4-animate.gif
See you at the Gamblers,
Glad you had a good time. It was great having you and your wife there.
Congratulations on finishing your first event, and I hope the first of many.
Here is an photo I posted on another thread, of you and the blue corvette.
By the way, he also passed the car in front of you. I don't know why he
didn't get disqualified for exceeding his tech speed or average speed limit
as he averaged 140.029 on the downhill run.
I also stitched a few photos together and have a animated gif that is about 1.65 mb.
The image quality isn't as good, but if your interested it's at:
http://928.jorj7.com/2004-bonneville...r4-animate.gif
See you at the Gamblers,
Last edited by jorj7; 06-06-2011 at 11:11 PM. Reason: changed servers
