September 14-16, 2012

Open Road Rally
Ely, Nevada

Bill and I arrived in Ely, Nevada Friday night to run the 25th Anniversary of the Silver State Classic Challenge. Nice 9 hour trip on Highway 50, with one mishap, 30 miles out of Austin, the external fuel pump (044) stopped working. Luckily the internal fuel pump (parallel 044) was ok, so I was able to drive the rest of the way without incident. This morning we went out to check it, and it was running ok. I think the heat got to in (97 degrees outside). We went out this morning and did some Sharktuning up at altitude. Bill made a few adjustments, but things look pretty good. We did lose the wide-band sensor after a couple of runs, so we had to stop. When we got back to the motel we swapped it with an extra one I brought along. The LM-1 had been give sensor errors since last May's ORR, so I was prepared for this. We will probably go out tomorrow and check to see if the new O2 sensor gives us any different readings. The car parked at the motel: Joe and Jim arrived in the afternoon in Joe's 93 GTS. They will run in the 125 class, and see if they can repeat there 1st place finish from the May event. That night was the Welcome Reception. We started Saturday morning by going out and checking the new wide-band sensor and making sure the tune was were we wanted it. It looked good, so we went through Tech Inspection. Meet Joe and Jim in the tech line. Afterwards we went to the motel and finished the race prep. I had signed up for the 170 mph class. There were only three cars in the 170 mph class, which was largest field in Super Sport division. My 928, a 69 Ford GT40, and an 01 Monte Carlo "Cup Car". Since it was my first attempt at 170, I was going to take it easy, see what the car felt like, not get DQ'ed and hopefully finish within 5 mph of the target. I had entered in a 4+ mph average speed increase in my spreadsheet for the turns and would need to sustain an 180+ cruising speed needed to make up time lost in the corners. This would get me to around an 167 mph average. The car ran really well. I was able to maintain the 180+ cruising speed and was able to take the corners at 4-15 mph faster then before. This is because some of the turns I ran at 160-165 before, were at or above the target speed for the 160 class. With the higher speed class, I needed to take then a little faster not to lose much time overall. As it turns out, the car (and I) can take many of these turns at 175-180 mph. Pretty cool. Bill and I at the start line. The 170 class. I also wanted to make another run at 200+. This time I would start the run at a higher speed, so I felt I would have a better chance then last time. Well I was only able to hit 195 mph when I past the radar trap. I continued accelerating, and managed to get up to 201 mph about a mile down the road. I was a little disappointed not to hit 200+ before the radar, but it's still great to be able to get it done on the course. When talking to the other Sport Sport drivers at the finish, I was informed that there was a 10 mph head wind at the trap zone, and it seemed to affect them all... Photo of my car at the Finish Pit area. At the last race, I had eased off too much at the end to try and hit the 160 average, and came in too slow. This time I wanted to maintain more "time in the bank" until the finish. So I was still at an 171 mph average before the last series of turns (145, 145, and 150 mph). As I exited the last turn I was at 170 mph avg on the gps. Instead of just cruising in at 170, I kept the speed above 171 mph, just so I would not finish too slow. This seemed to work and thanks to Joe, I know I finished with an 170.2354 mph average, good enough for a 2nd place finish behind the GT40. Again very exciting news. Here is the LM-1/LMA-3 log from the high speed run. Here is a look from the inboard camera as I hit top speed:

Videos

Here is a video of my start:

And a video of my run through the speed trap:

Coursework's video of me passing his gate

Video of me in The Narrows

To get a real feel of the open road here's the run before the Narrows

928 Results

Class Driver/Nav Avg Speed Place Trap Speed 125 Joe/Jim 124.9087 8th 139.7 mph 170 George 170.2354 2nd 196.3 mph

Anyway, I want to thank Bill for all his help in this effort, not only for getting the car ready, working on the car while at the event, but especially for the time and effort getting the car home last night. Also thanks to all the others that help getting this car together and running so well.

Photo Gallery

Complete Results

Next Race

Copyright 2012, George A Suennen