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Had the pleasure of running the Big Bend Open Road Race this year. Decided to run the Supra in the 145mph class this year (ran 140mph class in 2012).
So last week I took the Fikse FM10's off to have new tires put on. You can't run tires with a DOT over 4 years old (I think it's 4??). Anyway, found this:
The front two inner barrels were cracked. Called up Fikse...they were of little help and just wanted me to buy new parts. I didn't feel confident in that as I knew we'd be running 168mph (our max/tech speed) for long distances. They probably would have been just fine...but mentally I just couldn't get over it. Plus, we were running way short on time and I didn't know for sure that I could get parts in on time to repair and test them out.
I was bummed. But a quick call to John at CCW solved that problem. I asked him if he had a set of wheels sitting on the shelf for a Supra. And of course he said no. He then began to tell me that he liked to put the shop guys through "fire drills" every once in awhile and that he could cut the wheels the next day and Fed Ex them to me. I politely told him to get after it.
Three business days later the Supra had a new set of CCW 505A's and the new Michelin Pilot Sports mounted:
Off we went to Fort Stockton. Ran into OpenRoadRacer while down there. He and Dave were in the Mustang running the 115mph class....which they proceeded to absolutely OWN and won that class overall while being only 0.01 seconds off pace (I think I remember that right). Mind you that 115mph class is about the most competitive class at the BBORR. He did tell me they felt like the Mustang was becoming a Cessna at 130+ mph...I guess the front end lift on the little Mustang is gonna necessitate a pilots license next year. I don't have a picture of their Mustang...but I LOVE that car. And hats off to 'em for driving the crap out of that thing. Congrats guys!
We ran in the 145mph class thinking it wasn't going to be much different than the 140mph class last year. 140mph was easy. 145mph...not so much. The road has gotten bumpier just in the last year it seems, of course couple that with the fact that we had to run 168mph for longer periods of time and drive into corners a little harder to maintain the 145mph average and it may have just been me perceiving it to be bumpier. We did have a lot of new equipment this year to make communication easier (Intercom system) and studying the course with video for next year more productive:
The little NADY intercom system was only like $60 but worked fabulously. Much better than the yelling my buddy AJ usually conducts for the 118 mile round trip. LOL
On our way down from Fort Stockton to Sanderson our GPS said an average of 144.6mph and the stopwatch showed us to be about 3 seconds slow. So on the return trip we hit the tech speed of 168mph everywhere we could. The first 20 miles out of Sanderson on the return trip is VERY twisty...lotsa corners and elevation changes. We came out of that stretch with an average of only 135mph so I stopped slowing for bends at all (easier turns) and started taking "turns" at no less than 145mph. With 10 miles left in the race which equates to only 3 minutes!....we had our average at 145mph. The trick then became whether to run the remaining 3 minutes at 145.1mph or 145.2mph. Both would get us close....we chose 145.1 and crossed the line hoping for the best. While trying to get the average speed up in mid course though the GPS said I made a slight oops...
Notice the max speed. It's really difficult to keep the Supra right at 168mph, it wants to really climb quickly above that. So you have to just keep pedaling it in and out of boost right there as there's not really a throttle position that keeps it steady.
Later that night we learned we got 5th place out of 12 in the 145mph class. We were .687 seconds fast. The top two finishers tied at .001 seconds off pace! I have no desire to have laptops in the car and take it as serious as some of our competitors...and quite frankly I don't think I'd be that good anyway. It's just too much fun driving that road in that event to ruin it with me trying to be exact. .687 seconds is close enough. LOL
BTW, night before the race we decided to take the golf cart out in the state park and go find the real "Fort" in Fort Stockton. We knew it had to be close...but it was late. Before we knew it we were a couple of miles from the bus in the state park and running out of gas in the golf cart. So yes, this is us filling up the golf cart on the main street in Fort Stockton...not looking conspicuous at all:
After asking for directions...we found out the real "Fort" was literally a block away from where we were camped. HA! Pretty neat area at night. I never realized how much civil war history was there. I'll get pics of all that at the 2014 BBORR!
So last week I took the Fikse FM10's off to have new tires put on. You can't run tires with a DOT over 4 years old (I think it's 4??). Anyway, found this:
The front two inner barrels were cracked. Called up Fikse...they were of little help and just wanted me to buy new parts. I didn't feel confident in that as I knew we'd be running 168mph (our max/tech speed) for long distances. They probably would have been just fine...but mentally I just couldn't get over it. Plus, we were running way short on time and I didn't know for sure that I could get parts in on time to repair and test them out.
I was bummed. But a quick call to John at CCW solved that problem. I asked him if he had a set of wheels sitting on the shelf for a Supra. And of course he said no. He then began to tell me that he liked to put the shop guys through "fire drills" every once in awhile and that he could cut the wheels the next day and Fed Ex them to me. I politely told him to get after it.
Three business days later the Supra had a new set of CCW 505A's and the new Michelin Pilot Sports mounted:
Off we went to Fort Stockton. Ran into OpenRoadRacer while down there. He and Dave were in the Mustang running the 115mph class....which they proceeded to absolutely OWN and won that class overall while being only 0.01 seconds off pace (I think I remember that right). Mind you that 115mph class is about the most competitive class at the BBORR. He did tell me they felt like the Mustang was becoming a Cessna at 130+ mph...I guess the front end lift on the little Mustang is gonna necessitate a pilots license next year. I don't have a picture of their Mustang...but I LOVE that car. And hats off to 'em for driving the crap out of that thing. Congrats guys!
We ran in the 145mph class thinking it wasn't going to be much different than the 140mph class last year. 140mph was easy. 145mph...not so much. The road has gotten bumpier just in the last year it seems, of course couple that with the fact that we had to run 168mph for longer periods of time and drive into corners a little harder to maintain the 145mph average and it may have just been me perceiving it to be bumpier. We did have a lot of new equipment this year to make communication easier (Intercom system) and studying the course with video for next year more productive:
The little NADY intercom system was only like $60 but worked fabulously. Much better than the yelling my buddy AJ usually conducts for the 118 mile round trip. LOL
On our way down from Fort Stockton to Sanderson our GPS said an average of 144.6mph and the stopwatch showed us to be about 3 seconds slow. So on the return trip we hit the tech speed of 168mph everywhere we could. The first 20 miles out of Sanderson on the return trip is VERY twisty...lotsa corners and elevation changes. We came out of that stretch with an average of only 135mph so I stopped slowing for bends at all (easier turns) and started taking "turns" at no less than 145mph. With 10 miles left in the race which equates to only 3 minutes!....we had our average at 145mph. The trick then became whether to run the remaining 3 minutes at 145.1mph or 145.2mph. Both would get us close....we chose 145.1 and crossed the line hoping for the best. While trying to get the average speed up in mid course though the GPS said I made a slight oops...
Notice the max speed. It's really difficult to keep the Supra right at 168mph, it wants to really climb quickly above that. So you have to just keep pedaling it in and out of boost right there as there's not really a throttle position that keeps it steady.
Later that night we learned we got 5th place out of 12 in the 145mph class. We were .687 seconds fast. The top two finishers tied at .001 seconds off pace! I have no desire to have laptops in the car and take it as serious as some of our competitors...and quite frankly I don't think I'd be that good anyway. It's just too much fun driving that road in that event to ruin it with me trying to be exact. .687 seconds is close enough. LOL
BTW, night before the race we decided to take the golf cart out in the state park and go find the real "Fort" in Fort Stockton. We knew it had to be close...but it was late. Before we knew it we were a couple of miles from the bus in the state park and running out of gas in the golf cart. So yes, this is us filling up the golf cart on the main street in Fort Stockton...not looking conspicuous at all:
After asking for directions...we found out the real "Fort" was literally a block away from where we were camped. HA! Pretty neat area at night. I never realized how much civil war history was there. I'll get pics of all that at the 2014 BBORR!
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