Silver State Classic Challenge - We're heading back for more!

[James OLC]

With 30 days to go and hot on the heals of Steve Rupp's awesome article "Road Warriors" in the September issue of Camaro Performers magazine I'm excited to announce that we're heading back to Ely, NV next month as part of Team Optima for the Silver State Classic Challenge! Optima Batteries was kind enough to invite us back for another blast down Highway 318 and, like last time, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, the Silver State Classic will be held the same weekend as the Run Through the Hills so my crack navigator Steve won't be available (he'll be busy hammering on BP down east) so Jimi Day from FM3 Performance Marketing will be in the passenger seat for the weekend. Jimi's run the event a few times as a driver and will be a great help in keeping me on time and focused for the 45 minutes it should take to run the course.

We'll be running the Optima Half Mile Shootout on Friday, trying to better our 136 mph run from May and then the Optima High Noon Shootout on Sunday where we'll find out if we've fixed our 148 mpg engine cut-out issue. On Sunday we'll probably be running in the 120 mph class with a 140 tech speed - we could probably go higher but there's been a lot of work done on the car over the last month and I want to push our luck.

On that note the car has been spending some time over at Turn Key Engine Supply where they have been working on calibrating the ECU and giving us a new tune up that should be pretty awesome when it's all said and done. They found a couple of issues on Tuesday that were working on now and we'll head back next week for some power runs. We think that the 148 mph cutoff was ECU related and should have that issue resolved and we're hopefully going to have a closed loop program that should help us at altitude. We're also changing the transmission out to a new Magnum T-56 from Classic Motorsports which I hope helps on the gearing a bit and gives me a little better comfort in the cockpit. All that combined with some more optimization on the suspension side of things should put us in a really cool place.

If you haven't checked it out yet, Steve's article in this months Camaro Performers does an excellent job in capturing the spirit of the event from our rookie perspective in May. As always, Steve was able to put together a story that gives you a sense of what it was like to be there that speaks really well of the whole event. Like Speed Week out on the Lake, the Silver State deal is really like a grass roots event that brings a lot a characters together for a short but intense few days. It's a lot of fun and I hope that we can represent the Pro-Touring guys well.

If anyone is interested:

Friday September 18th - Half Mile Shootout, Z1Z (0-100-0) and Z2Z (0-200-0) Challenges
Saturday September 19th - High Noon Shoutout
Sunday September 20th - Highway 318 - Lund to Hiko (woo hoo)

and just 'cuz I love this picture:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/california/NORC%20Mile%20800.jpg

[WILWAXU]

Great stuff!

:thumbsup:

[XcYZ]

Great! We're going to need video. :D

[MaxHarvard]

Looks like a ton of fun :)

[buickfunnycar.com]

Best of luck James,hope you're faster than ever!:woot:

[James OLC]

John - I think we made some good progress at Turn Key on Tuesday but won't know until we head back next week. Progress on the rest of the stuff seems to be going well and I hope will pay dividends on 318.

Plus you only have so many chances to evaluate 148 mph problems in a safe environment :D

[Ruslow]

If you are going to use the T-56 esp if it uses a .50 6th.you will be at the top of the temp limits with the 140 tech speed.If you plan on going faster plan on putting a pump and cooler on it if you want it to live.Esp if you run 6th.Stan

[James OLC]

Two weeks to go... and we have a long way to go...

The car is back from Southern California and a bunch of progress has been made - after three days at Turn Key Engine Supply we have a properly caliberated ECM and a pretty decent tune from idle to WOT - although we'll have to run without the wideband for now. That's not a big deal for the Silver State Classic and I've always run open loop to this point anyways so that's not going to slow us down at all. Best of Show installed our new Magnum T-56 (thanks to some help from Classic Chevy 5-Speed and Tremec) with a new driveshaft from Inland Empire Driveline. Our charging gremlins have been tracked down and chased out so we should be locked and loaded for the Optima High Noon Shootout on Saturday. The steering upgrades seem to be working and we're darn close to being ready... or at least we were until yesterday...

we've been chasing a driveline vibration since day one and think that we might have found it last night. When the new driveshaft was going in David noted what felt like some excess free play in the rear end so he pulled the center section yesterday. His first indication that things were amis came when he unscrewed the (huge) drain plug... and nothing came out. A little bit of fishing around yeilded some huge blobs of metal shavings... not good a good sign... When the center section came out the carnage was immediately obvious - the differential was completely pooched - to the point that it was actually cracked. Shoot... not a great start to the long weekend.

We should have time to get it fixed - and broken in at least a bit - before we hit the road on the 17th... I hope.

[David Pozzi]

first, out came the plug
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/plug1.jpg

Then no oil came out!
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/plug2.jpg
Then I got the diff out
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0722.jpg

[Steve1968LS2]

Man, that's worse than I thought.. yikes!

With that much metal in the mix I bet the gears are toast as well...

[camaro2nv]

OMG no good!:(

[monza]

Damn didn't need that after every thing was coming together so nice.
Just have to remember, that's Hotrodding if it was easy everyone would have one.
Hope it comes together in a timely fashion!

[Garage Dog 65]

Dang, we can read part numbers on that chunk detector !!!

Glad you caught it in the shop and not out on the track at full speed !!

Good luck this week and at the track. :thumbsup: Jim

[MarkM66]

Then no oil came out!

So where did all the gear oil go?

[James OLC]

So where did all the gear oil go?

It was there - just on the other side of the plugged up drain hole... the shear volume of debris was pretty impressive.

Hopefully we get the third member off to Currie today and can get it turned around quickly. We'll be going with a True Trac and sticking with 3.89ish gears which should be perfect with the new Magnum transmission.

[James OLC]

Well the news right now is mostly good... Currie Enterprises was able to salvage our third member and replaced the blown up differential with a new True-Trac. It's in and David took it for it's first test drive yesterday. Indications are that we are good to go and with that being said...

We're Off!!!

As a test run for the One Lap of America in the spring I am going to try to maintain the OneLapCamaro Blog live through the Silver State Classic Challenge - there might be a glitch or two as we go but it should be interesting.

You can follow our progress "live" through the weekend on The OneLapCamaro Blog (http://onelapcamaro.blogspot.com/)

Cheers!

(and you guys have fun at RTTH5!)

[ironworks]

Good lucK buddy.

Rodger

[Steve1968LS2]

A six pack says you don't beat our .377 varience from last year.

Good luck with the run.. bet I will wish I was there instead of where I will be.

[buickfunnycar.com]

Good luck James and great detective work Dave...:thumbsup:

[monza]

Good luck have fun!

[James OLC]

Thanks guys! David and I just rolled in to Ely and will get the show on the road in the morning with registration and tech. The weather looks great for the weekend so this should be a lot of fun!

[awr68]

Have a great time guys!! Best of luck!! :thumbsup:

[David Pozzi]

Nice weather in Ely, OLC starting and running fine, James put some miles on the car and the horrible rear end rattle is gone, but still some kind of harmonic vibration is going on, just not as severe. Tomorrow is the 1 mile shootout and with full ECM voltage the car should power through the whole run this time.
Keep you posted, David

[buickfunnycar.com]

Good to hear Dave...best of luck to you both.:thumbsup:

[Spiffav8]

Have fun guys! Looking forward to hearing all about it. :D

[ironworks]

I just got a TXT from James. How does 161 in the standing mile sound?

Sounds Good to me!!!!!! :thumbsup:

[Gordz32]

woohoo!

[awr68]

NICE!! :woot: :thumbsup:

[tyoneal]

With 30 days to go and hot on the heals of Steve Rupp's awesome article "Road Warriors" in the September issue of Camaro Performers magazine I'm excited to announce that we're heading back to Ely, NV next month as part of Team Optima for the Silver State Classic Challenge! Optima Batteries was kind enough to invite us back for another blast down Highway 318 and, like last time, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, the Silver State Classic will be held the same weekend as the Run Through the Hills so my crack navigator Steve won't be available (he'll be busy hammering on BP down east) so Jimi Day from FM3 Performance Marketing will be in the passenger seat for the weekend. Jimi's run the event a few times as a driver and will be a great help in keeping me on time and focused for the 45 minutes it should take to run the course.

We'll be running the Optima Half Mile Shootout on Friday, trying to better our 136 mph run from May and then the Optima High Noon Shootout on Sunday where we'll find out if we've fixed our 148 mpg engine cut-out issue. On Sunday we'll probably be running in the 120 mph class with a 140 tech speed - we could probably go higher but there's been a lot of work done on the car over the last month and I want to push our luck.

On that note the car has been spending some time over at Turn Key Engine Supply where they have been working on calibrating the ECU and giving us a new tune up that should be pretty awesome when it's all said and done. They found a couple of issues on Tuesday that were working on now and we'll head back next week for some power runs. We think that the 148 mph cutoff was ECU related and should have that issue resolved and we're hopefully going to have a closed loop program that should help us at altitude. We're also changing the transmission out to a new Magnum T-56 from Classic Motorsports which I hope helps on the gearing a bit and gives me a little better comfort in the cockpit. All that combined with some more optimization on the suspension side of things should put us in a really cool place.

If you haven't checked it out yet, Steve's article in this months Camaro Performers does an excellent job in capturing the spirit of the event from our rookie perspective in May. As always, Steve was able to put together a story that gives you a sense of what it was like to be there that speaks really well of the whole event. Like Speed Week out on the Lake, the Silver State deal is really like a grass roots event that brings a lot a characters together for a short but intense few days. It's a lot of fun and I hope that we can represent the Pro-Touring guys well.

If anyone is interested:

Friday September 18th - Half Mile Shootout, Z1Z (0-100-0) and Z2Z (0-200-0) Challenges
Saturday September 19th - High Noon Shoutout
Sunday September 20th - Highway 318 - Lund to Hiko (woo hoo)

and just 'cuz I love this picture:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/california/NORC%20Mile%20800.jpg
===================================
James:

Good luck on all your runs. Be Safe. I'll be following your Blog.

BTW: Why did you swap out the T-56 "Son of Transzilla", with the, "T-56 Magnum"?

I'm looking for a good RR 6-Speed for my, 606 hp/540 Torque LS-3, 3.89 Rear Gears.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Ty

[mpozziCPL]

Just heard from James and the OLC ran great. They're at the finish staging area waiting for everyone else to get done with their attack of Highway 318. Jimi Day, navigator extraordinaire, assured James that they zeroed for "perfect" time ...

They're on the hour break and the 150+ to Unlimited cars should be starting any minute. After they're done, the road will be sweeped and everyone either accounted for or made sure they're off the highway. Then James and Jimi will drive back up to meet Dave P. and then start for home.

Congrats to Team One Lap Camaro and OPTIMA Batteries and you guys did great!!

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

[buickfunnycar.com]

Awesome news Mary...wow,161mph!:hail:

[James OLC]

161 mph in the High Noon Shootout is good news...

...2nd Place in our class is better! :woot:

[buickfunnycar.com]

161 mph in the High Noon Shootout is good news...

...2nd Place in our class is better! :woot:

Congrats again to Dave and yourself on a job well done!:woot: :thumbsup: :hail: :bow:

[awr68]

161 mph in the High Noon Shootout is good news...

...2nd Place in our class is better! :woot:

Job well done....congrats guys!! :thumbsup:

[Steve1968LS2]

15 seconds /= .377 seconds

lol

j/k... congrats Jim.. we need to go back so I can get a shiny plate as well.. good job!

[Craig67]

Link to some friends with a twin-turbo viper going 211 this year.....insane.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dkr70J3FQM

[David Pozzi]

Here are pics from the Silver State
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0768.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0767.jpg

One Mile Shootout on Saturday
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0810.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0796.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0728.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0829.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0778.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0771.jpg

Sunday Silver State
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0877.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0878.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0883.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0888.jpg

[David Pozzi]

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0904.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0857.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0728.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0874.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0894.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0870.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0911.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0907.jpg
After the run you can see all the Grasshoppers that were hit!
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0914.jpg

[David Pozzi]

Here are a few more pics. Some are from the one mile even on Saturday. The starter had a pistol Sat.

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0770.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0818.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0791.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/davidpozzi/One%20Lap%20Camaro/IMG_0793.jpg

[James OLC]

Wow - what a great weekend!

Over the last six weeks we have been preparing for this Silver State Classic Challenge and this weekend we finally got our chance to try out some of the changes that we had made and I could not be happier with the results. With less than a week to go before we had to leave for Ely, NV Currie Enterprises built us a new 3rd member with a True-Trac replacing our(well and truly blown up) old differential. David was able to get a few miles on it before loading up in the trailer but there were still some unanswered questions as we hauled the car across "The Loneliest Road in America" to our destination.

Friday morning we prepped the car for tech:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%201.JPG

and spent some time drooling over Cameron's ride for the weekend:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%202.JPG
it's a former Mark Martin road course car that made it's way through Borris Said who used it for driver training before winding up with Cameron. Yes... it is the real deal and yes... it is awesome!

Since the transmission and rear end were still new most of Friday was spent on the highway outside of Ely - breaking in the new parts. We managed to put a hundred miles or so on the drivetrain and brought the car up to speed a few times - and it felt great. Friday night was the cruise through town which is a lot of fun - nothing like 135 badass cars snaking their way down Ely's quiet main street.

Saturday morning saw us preparing for the Optima High Noon Shootout - a standing mile competition which is made all the more challenging given Ely's 7000 foot elevation. When we ran in the spring we encountered an issue with the engine cutting out at 148 mph - we had spent a lot of time working on that issue so my fingers were crossed in the staging lanes as we waited for our chance to run. In May we were the oldest car in the competition and this time was no different, the competition consisted of a V8 Porsche, a couple of Vipers, two NASCARS and a whole lot of Corvettes...

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%203.JPG
...including a couple of new ZR1's.

As soon as we got there we got the familiar feeling that we had (once again) brought a knife to a gun fight
http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%204.JPG

We new that we weren't a serious threat to win the event but wanted to see what we could do in the standing mile. We were the first car to hit the track (really a two and half mile stretch of 2 lane highway) which means that we had the fastest pass... at least for a while
http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%205.JPG

Our second run yielded another 160 mph run so we decided to park the car and safe ourselves for tomorrow. At 161 we were still pulling hard at just under 7000 RPM in 5th...

[rogue]

161 mph in the High Noon Shootout is good news...

...2nd Place in our class is better! :woot:

James Congrats!

Next year count me in for sure. I've been battling some health issues but I've still been busy prepping my car for events like these. Got the tremec and wilwoods in this week, also working on some aero and brake ducting.

[Gordz32]

Glad everything went well James. Congrats!

[James OLC]

Sunday morning started with a 35 mile cruise from Ely to the pre-stage grid at Lane's Truck Stop in Hilo, NV at the start of Highway 318. It was just before 6 am and still dark when we set off... which would have been less of an issue if we hadn't taped the hide-aways shut for the speed runs the day before. It only took a couple of minutes to figure out the problem and fix it but it was a big distraction first thing in the morning.

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%207.JPG
7 am - Lane's Truck Stop. It's hard to imagine a greater cross section of cars in any one place...

And from Lane's it's a short 2 mile drive to the final staging area on 318

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%208.JPG
This is most of the 115 mph class - starting with the 2006 Mustang at the top of the picture we were joined by a 2003 350Z, a '69 Olds Cutlass, an '08 Subaru WRX-STI and a '65 Shelby clone. I think that our class probably had the oldest average age of any group running.

Team Optima was there representing:

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%209.JPG
The OneLapCamaro running in the 115 mph class with Jimi Day handling the navigator duties.

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%2011.JPG
Cam Douglass was driving the 2006 NASCAR Chevrolet with Craig Wibbert navigating in the 150 mph class.

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%2010.JPG
and the Kepler brothers driving this awesome 2006 Z06 - also running in the 150 mph class. Steve was driving while his brother Mike was navigating; Mike is also drives the incredible Optima Batteries rig.

Cam and Craig were the first of the three to hit the open highway...
followed by Steve and Mike...

We weren't far behind...
http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%2013.JPG.
90 miles... 115 mph average... 46 minutes 57.39 seconds...

Our strategy was to put 25 seconds in the bank heading into the narrows which meant spending much of the first half hour somewhere between 120 and 130 mph. When he banked our time Jimi told me that I had to drop down to our target... it was tough... the car was great at 125 and I could have stayed there for the whole race. We took the narrows at a comfortable 95 - 100 mph, exiting 8 seconds or so fast. With 10 miles to go we were withing a second of our target and with 1 mile to go we were only 0.07 seconds away from our goal.

When it was done the car had performed perfectly and the only problem we had was a couple of bugs on the front of the car...
http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%2014.JPG
other than that the car ran flawlessly and it was a comfortable drive.

As soon as we were done Jimi and I drove down to the gas stop as Ash Springs where I filled up with gas for the return drive to Lund while Jimi and Cameron and the rest of the Optima crew headed to Las Vegas. The return trip was 115 miles of desert at what seemed like a painfully slow 70 mph(ish). I admit that I did speed up a bit through the narrows but that was about all.

[James OLC]

Some of the other cool cars at the event...

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%2016.JPG
Tom Ciancitto's 1937 Ford runs in the 180 mph class

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%2017.JPG
Blaine Spendlove runs his 1963 Ford Galaxie in the 145 mph group

http://www.onelapcamaro.com/events/SSCC09/SSCC%2018.JPG
and this awesome twin turbo Viper was on hand to run 200 plus in the mile shootout!

[James OLC]

When it was all over, as you know, we finished a respectable 2nd in the 115 mph class. We were 1.2 seconds off our time (fast... my fault - I must have misjudged the hill beween the final mile marker and the timing lights) but still managed to bring home the hardware. This was Jimi's first time navigating although he had run the event six times before as a driver. This was Jimi's first podium finish (and obviously mine as well) so we were both stoked despite being slightly off the pace.

Steve and Mike wound up finishing 4th in the 150 mph class, only 0.197 seconds off their target; Cameron and Craig wound up 8th, 0.443 seconds off the pace. Most importantly, everyone finished safely and without issue. We all ran the High Noon Shootout (results are not officially out yet) and completed the 90 mile run without a hick-up so that is a success in itself.

I have to thank Cameron Douglass and Optima Batteries for their support over the weekend and Jimi Day for his awesome navigating and advice. Most of all I have to (once again) thank David Pozzi for his support and great car preparation. A lot of effort went in to getting the car ready for the event and David was there every step of the way. Thanks everyone - It was a great time and a great result.

Next time we'll shoot for the 130 mph class (or so) and see how we do... should be fun!

:woot:

[James OLC]

I just got finished downloading the IQ3 data and thought I would post some of the telemetry:

In the mile...

Top of 4th gear - 130.6 mph at 6925 RPM (97.7 % throttle)
At the mile - 161.97 mph at 6706 RPM (also 97.7% throttle)
The entire run took approximately 31 seconds and it took 14.6 seconds to go from 130.6 to 161.97 mph.

During the run on highway 318

Cruising at 120 mph was at 3900 RPM with 25.5% throttle

[Steve1968LS2]

I just got finished downloading the IQ3 data and thought I would post some of the telemetry:

In the mile...

Top of 4th gear - 130.6 mph at 6925 RPM (97.7 % throttle)
At the mile - 161.97 mph at 6706 RPM (also 97.7% throttle)
The entire run took approximately 31 seconds and it took 14.6 seconds to go from 130.6 to 161.97 mph.

During the run on highway 318

Cruising at 120 mph was at 3900 RPM with 25.5% throttle


How much extra $$$ for 100% throttle? ;)

[James OLC]

How much extra $$$ for 100% throttle? ;)

lol - chasing the last elusive 2.3%... the way things have been going with Tweak lately I'm sure it will wind up snowballing into something that defy's description...

[phillym5]

Awesome story..... Silver State Classic looks like tons of fun.

[awr68]

Nice write up James...thanks! What a successful race....glad it went well!! :cheers:

[David Pozzi]

Here's OLC leaving the start line for Silver State. Not a big launch as they have to start all their stop watches.
IYNGm1S-DmY

[waynieZ]

Congratulations James nice job! It must take quite a bit of calculations to be that close over such a distance. It must have bee n a fun ride.

[James OLC]

SplitterVision of the Start of the SSCC:
X3MOdIURaE0

This should approximately sync to David's video above. Data logging has us at about 120 and change when the video ends.

[Rick Dorion]

Whew - started my morning off great!