Bench Racing For The One Lap of America

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

...says the man whose friend is doing it in a full race Miata...

Do it in a vintage car, since it appears that there was only two entrants.  I will be there in '22.

white_fly said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

...says the man whose friend is doing it in a full race Miata...

and will tell nobody else to do it that way....

Anybody who is asking these questions and bench racing has missed every bit of advice Seth and Other Lap dogs give.. 

Take something you can write off, take something that's beyond reliable and will finish the week..... come for the adventure and making sure you can attend and finish all the events..

Racebrick said:

Do it in a vintage car, since it appears that there was only two entrants.  I will be there in '22.

 

It's also a great way to hate yourself, the vintage cars are now so horribly outclassed in speed.. you're running at the very back... so at that point.. why not just bring something comfortable, slow, and reliable?

I've been thinking about this. If you want comfort and speed, I'd say a first Gen sedan R-spec with the 5.0 and 8-spd. Talk about not knowing youre doing transits. 

EDIT: or a stinger GT with bigger tires.

While you score points and your standing is based on your track results, you spent almost ALL your time in the car driving from track to track on the freeway.  So you need to pick something that's comfortable and has a bunch of space.  Also it needs to be totally reliable.  Any mods you do to the car need to be completely finished and tested for several thousand(s) of miles before you leave for One Lap.

I did it in 2007 in an Audi S4 avant, which was a great One Lap car.  Quiet, reliable, powerful, plenty of space for 3 people.  I wouldn't dream of doing One Lap in a miata, way too small.

This thread makes me feel good about choosing an E46 touring as a DD/HPDE tool with the goal of working up to running OLOA with it. 

spacecadet (Forum Supporter) said:

Racebrick said:

Do it in a vintage car, since it appears that there was only two entrants.  I will be there in '22.

 

It's also a great way to hate yourself, the vintage cars are now so horribly outclassed in speed.. you're running at the very back... so at that point.. why not just bring something comfortable, slow, and reliable?

It's too late at this point, since I already hate myself.  I get it though, when I read others posting stuff like this I usually roll my eyes, as most people are full of hopes and dreams, but short on fortitude.  I have been planning this for quite some time, and I have a considerable amount of experience that I believe will help me to be fairly successful.  Expect a build thread, but not any time soon. Truth is I am just turning into a crusty old hermit that doesn't like newer cars. I also want to drag others down into this Sisyphian hell . 

In reply to Racebrick :

your username is intriguing me, so i must know.  Whats your choice for vintage ride in One Lap?

docwyte said:

I wouldn't dream of doing One Lap in a miata, way too small.

yeah... that would be a terrible idea.

I'll be in a Volvo 240. Does anyone have the results with laptimes? I can't seem to find any.

In reply to Racebrick :

This should give your 2021 results by event. Click on the "complete" link after each event. They don't give a by lap time, but time for that event. So the events that ran the full time trial have the cumulative time for all three laps with the standing start. You have to do some quessing on that that means for full lap time. 

Good luck with prep!

so, a couple things to keep in mind... which I haven't seen discussed so far.

re: Modern Mustangs and Crammits
OneLap is gonna get more serious about the 103dB sound limit, with a new rule next year.  I dunno if you'll get tossed for the event, or just for the day if you blow sound.  But, it's going to be an increasing issue, with increasing attention, and these cars tend to me leading examples of the issue.

re:Corvette
fully 20% of the fied were Corvettes of some kind this year.  I'm not really a "run with the pack" kind of person, so that'd be out with me.

re:Miata
I wouldn't attempt it in anything older than an NC... and then only with a trailer, and sturdy-boi rollbar, and probably some sound-deadening.

re:Vintage
keep in mind, most of the vintage cars these days at LS-swapped of some kind; so they're not as slow as you might expect.  Unless you're running one on OEM power.  They'll probably be loud and without A/C though.  If you want an interesting, slightly uncomfortable, OneLap experience... that's definitely the way to go.  And, Vintage can be hit-or-miss on field size (and reliability)... so you might have a chance at a class podium.

One Lap is sort of a load your wallet and fire away on your car type of event.  At least when I ran, there weren't any limits to the modifications you could do to your car.  Someone bought a New Beetle diesel, removed the diesel motor in favor of a turbo'd VR6 and ran it in the "alternative fuel" category.  Not sure how they got away with that but they did.

My point is don't assume *any* of the categories are easier to win than any other category, as *all* the cars will be prepped to the Nth degree.  People hire professional drivers to just do the track driving.  My advice is go to have fun, you'll always find some people with similar lap times as yours to play with.

The year I went the Honda team was running their crazy V6 turbo charged minivan.  We'd have fun $0.25 bets with them about lap times, etc. 

At some point I want to run it in my 996 Turbo, maybe in vintage foreign...