Nevada Open Road Challenge (ORR)
05-19-2009, 02:08 AM
#1
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Nevada Open Road Challenge (ORR)
Bill and I just got back from Ely Nevada, where we ran the Nevada Open Road
Challenge Open Road Race. We were going to run my car in the 150 mph
class with a 180 mph max tech speed. I had wanted to run in the 170 mph class
with an unlimited tech, but since it's my first race with this organization, I need to
complete the 150 class first.
Tim and Cheryl were there with the Beast. They had entered the 160 class with
an unlimited tech. Matt was also there with his new navigator Eric running the
145 mph class.
Last Tuesday, Bill found that the oil leak that we were trying to fix had gotten
worse. It looks like we may have to pull the engine to check the head gaskets
and cam cover gaskets. We didn't have enough time, so we went with the
back up plan. So Wednesday we installed the roll bar, harnesses, and fire
extinguisher in Bill's car and swapped over my wheels and tires. Bill then went
over to Jim's house to get the Sharktuner working in his car, since there was
still a lot of tuning to do to get his car running well with the new intercooler.
We left Thursday morning for the 8 hour drive to Ely. I got to "test" out the
suspension with the "new" tires. From what Bill says, it was a big
improvement. Also the car was running very rich when accelerating, so we
glad to have the Sharktuner along.
On Friday, after Registration and Tech, we went out to drive the road and do
some tuning. We got most of the LH tuning done, but had problems "talking"
to the EZK. After a few email to John Speake and phone calls to Jim M. we
swapped EZKs (and PEM) and got things working well. Saturday, after the
car show, we went out and tuned the EZK and refine the LH. When we were
done, the AFR was good, though a little rich at the top end and there were
very few knocks (1 or less per run). There was a probably a lot more power
left on the table, but we knew it would be safe to race.
Sunday was race day. The 150 class was the first group to run, and we in
grid position 13. After a few communication issues, they started the first
car around 8:40 AM. We left the line around 8:53. The car was running well,
it had a little trouble accelerating at this altitude (5600 ft), but we still were
able to get up to tech speed. We had worries about the cars handling before
we started, but the car handled very well at speed. We were able to take the
turns at 15-20 mph faster then originally estimated. By the time we got through
the Narrows (a short twisty section at ~70 miles out), we were 40 seconds
ahead of schedule. Since we were treating this as a "qualifing" run, instead
of a try to win event, we just took it easy to the finish line. We arrived 22.014
seconds early with an average speed of 151.8962 mph over the 90 mile course.
Matt and Eric finished 4th with a 144.9198 avg, and Tim and Cheryl were
Red Flagged, but finished 1st with a 161.4738 based on times at check point
5 and another 200+ mph run. I'm sure they have their own story to tell.
Here are a few photos:
1 Bill setting up the Sharktuner in the motel parking lot on Friday
2 Matt and Bill's car at the Car Show
3 Bill and I at pre-grid
4 Bill's car in front of a GT3 RS, GT2, and 911 Turbo (140 class)
5 At the finish line
6 GPS after the finish
Special thanks to Bill for all the hard work and lending me his car, Jim M for all the
technical support and John Speake for the Sharktuner.
Challenge Open Road Race. We were going to run my car in the 150 mph
class with a 180 mph max tech speed. I had wanted to run in the 170 mph class
with an unlimited tech, but since it's my first race with this organization, I need to
complete the 150 class first.
Tim and Cheryl were there with the Beast. They had entered the 160 class with
an unlimited tech. Matt was also there with his new navigator Eric running the
145 mph class.
Last Tuesday, Bill found that the oil leak that we were trying to fix had gotten
worse. It looks like we may have to pull the engine to check the head gaskets
and cam cover gaskets. We didn't have enough time, so we went with the
back up plan. So Wednesday we installed the roll bar, harnesses, and fire
extinguisher in Bill's car and swapped over my wheels and tires. Bill then went
over to Jim's house to get the Sharktuner working in his car, since there was
still a lot of tuning to do to get his car running well with the new intercooler.
We left Thursday morning for the 8 hour drive to Ely. I got to "test" out the
suspension with the "new" tires. From what Bill says, it was a big
improvement. Also the car was running very rich when accelerating, so we
glad to have the Sharktuner along.
On Friday, after Registration and Tech, we went out to drive the road and do
some tuning. We got most of the LH tuning done, but had problems "talking"
to the EZK. After a few email to John Speake and phone calls to Jim M. we
swapped EZKs (and PEM) and got things working well. Saturday, after the
car show, we went out and tuned the EZK and refine the LH. When we were
done, the AFR was good, though a little rich at the top end and there were
very few knocks (1 or less per run). There was a probably a lot more power
left on the table, but we knew it would be safe to race.
Sunday was race day. The 150 class was the first group to run, and we in
grid position 13. After a few communication issues, they started the first
car around 8:40 AM. We left the line around 8:53. The car was running well,
it had a little trouble accelerating at this altitude (5600 ft), but we still were
able to get up to tech speed. We had worries about the cars handling before
we started, but the car handled very well at speed. We were able to take the
turns at 15-20 mph faster then originally estimated. By the time we got through
the Narrows (a short twisty section at ~70 miles out), we were 40 seconds
ahead of schedule. Since we were treating this as a "qualifing" run, instead
of a try to win event, we just took it easy to the finish line. We arrived 22.014
seconds early with an average speed of 151.8962 mph over the 90 mile course.
Matt and Eric finished 4th with a 144.9198 avg, and Tim and Cheryl were
Red Flagged, but finished 1st with a 161.4738 based on times at check point
5 and another 200+ mph run. I'm sure they have their own story to tell.
Here are a few photos:
1 Bill setting up the Sharktuner in the motel parking lot on Friday
2 Matt and Bill's car at the Car Show
3 Bill and I at pre-grid
4 Bill's car in front of a GT3 RS, GT2, and 911 Turbo (140 class)
5 At the finish line
6 GPS after the finish
Special thanks to Bill for all the hard work and lending me his car, Jim M for all the
technical support and John Speake for the Sharktuner.
05-19-2009, 03:49 AM
#2
Rennlist Member
Sounds like fun. We don't have those kind of roads around here for such an event. We do have The Dragon at Deal's Gap though... I would have liked to just have been there and watched.
05-19-2009, 04:05 AM
#3
Under the Lift
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I gotta add how freaking amazing these cars are.
Here's a 20 year-old car with 204K miles on the totally original drivetrain that I paid $16.1 K for 9 -1/2 years ago, that 2 days before the race was just my daily driver, no longer race-ready. When we decided driving George's car would present too much risk (oil leaks were brisk enough that they could wet the tires), George asked if he could drive my car. We pulled the stock seats, installed Recaro SRDs and my DEVEK rollbar, 5-point harnesses, George's fire extinguisher and race wheels and tires, borrowed a helmet restraint system, packed up and took off to go racing.
We drove 550 miles to the event, practiced and Sharktuned on the course for a few hours, made our plans and waited for Sunday morning at 5:15am to roll around. A little before 9am, it was "blast-off" for 90 miles of 2-lane backcountry road.
The whole intent of this race was to qualify George as a driver to run in the higher speed classes in his quest for 200+ MPH. We were entered in the 150 class with a tech limit (maximum allowed speed) of 165. All we really had to do was to average somewhere between 140 and 160 MPH and finish the race without going over 165. I was pretty sure we would have no problem with that, but I was concerned enough about some odd behavior of my suspension lately, that we had figured on some pretty low corner speeds. As George reports, the car did better than I expected and we easily averaged close to 152, and that was after we backed off as we were so far ahead of schedule and were running up on the car that left 1 minute in front of us. [George's GPS shows 150 because that includes our slowdown after the finish line.]
The car lacked some power due to running mixtures in the low 11s under high load at high RPM. With Sharktuning we had moved it from low 10s by taking out a lot of fuel from the fuel maps and modifying the injector size setting. We took out so much fuel that were were concerned that perhaps our wideband O2 sensor was not calibrated correctly. We decided to leave the mixture where it was and felt good about that when we observed essentially no knocks.
Anyway, my daily driver finished the race handily with no complaints at all, successfully qualifying George for higher speeds in September when we will have his car roadworthy again.
When it was all over, we threw everything in the hatch area and drove home. Another uneventful 2K mile weekend drive.
Here's a 20 year-old car with 204K miles on the totally original drivetrain that I paid $16.1 K for 9 -1/2 years ago, that 2 days before the race was just my daily driver, no longer race-ready. When we decided driving George's car would present too much risk (oil leaks were brisk enough that they could wet the tires), George asked if he could drive my car. We pulled the stock seats, installed Recaro SRDs and my DEVEK rollbar, 5-point harnesses, George's fire extinguisher and race wheels and tires, borrowed a helmet restraint system, packed up and took off to go racing.
We drove 550 miles to the event, practiced and Sharktuned on the course for a few hours, made our plans and waited for Sunday morning at 5:15am to roll around. A little before 9am, it was "blast-off" for 90 miles of 2-lane backcountry road.
The whole intent of this race was to qualify George as a driver to run in the higher speed classes in his quest for 200+ MPH. We were entered in the 150 class with a tech limit (maximum allowed speed) of 165. All we really had to do was to average somewhere between 140 and 160 MPH and finish the race without going over 165. I was pretty sure we would have no problem with that, but I was concerned enough about some odd behavior of my suspension lately, that we had figured on some pretty low corner speeds. As George reports, the car did better than I expected and we easily averaged close to 152, and that was after we backed off as we were so far ahead of schedule and were running up on the car that left 1 minute in front of us. [George's GPS shows 150 because that includes our slowdown after the finish line.]
The car lacked some power due to running mixtures in the low 11s under high load at high RPM. With Sharktuning we had moved it from low 10s by taking out a lot of fuel from the fuel maps and modifying the injector size setting. We took out so much fuel that were were concerned that perhaps our wideband O2 sensor was not calibrated correctly. We decided to leave the mixture where it was and felt good about that when we observed essentially no knocks.
Anyway, my daily driver finished the race handily with no complaints at all, successfully qualifying George for higher speeds in September when we will have his car roadworthy again.
When it was all over, we threw everything in the hatch area and drove home. Another uneventful 2K mile weekend drive.
05-19-2009, 05:11 AM
#4
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Awesome story!
Most average people will never understand that the 928 was built to do all day long what you did during the race - without any special equipment or modifications. You had a much higher safety margin than the average 928 driver on the Autobahn. And they are not exactly known to get mass slaughtered there...
05-19-2009, 09:57 AM
#5
Not the sharpest tool in the shed
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Great job Bill and George! Especially impressed with the performance envelope of a car with what many would call an EOL (end of life) number of miles on a stock drive train (obviously not for 928s but certainly many other marques).
Looking forward to the Open Class 200 mph average.
Looking forward to the Open Class 200 mph average.
05-19-2009, 11:20 AM
#7
Rennlist Member
Great news and congrats. Lots of work, but sounds like it was all worth it.
Looking forward to taking some fuel out of my stroker sometime in the future too, if that is worth as much HP as you guys think! Look forward to hearing the details later!
Nice job Bill an George!
Mark
Looking forward to taking some fuel out of my stroker sometime in the future too, if that is worth as much HP as you guys think! Look forward to hearing the details later!
Nice job Bill an George!
Mark
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05-19-2009, 11:35 AM
#8
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Way to go guys! Just proves how capable these cars are....Drive 500 miles, then race at 152mph avg for 90 miles, and then drive home again; all on a moments notice!
Looks like Mike Borders had quite an excursion....glad he is OK!!!!
Rich
Looks like Mike Borders had quite an excursion....glad he is OK!!!!
Rich
05-19-2009, 11:40 AM
#9
Team Owner
Great write up guys, good luck with the oil leak on Georges car
05-19-2009, 01:32 PM
#11
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Congrats on the qual for George's advance to the next level. Plan B with Bill's capable ride got you your intended checkered flag.
Matt and Eric, and Tim and Cheryl good on ya!
Cheers,
Matt and Eric, and Tim and Cheryl good on ya!
Cheers,
05-19-2009, 02:47 PM
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Thanks for all your positive comments. The 928 is amazing. I hope we can
get my car ready to race soon. And Bill, nice car, thanks for trusting me with
your baby.
get my car ready to race soon. And Bill, nice car, thanks for trusting me with
your baby.
