4:45am, successful arrival ; although that last hour and a half was gnarly.
Like epic downpour, worse than what I drove at Palmer in 2016.
After second-guess in the decision all week, I was glad I bought Conti's during that last part of the drive home, and that we had swapped them front-to-back for the last skid-pad.
so, apparently I sat in the car wrong yesterday. maybe it was how I was in the seat for my nap... or possibly being too tensed up from Cumberland, MD all the way in to home (facing down single-car-length fog, and similar visual distance heavy downpours), but I woke up this morning at 9:30am with my back insisting that I tread very carefully today, because I'd over-extended my lower back last night.
At some point, over the next couple of days, I'm going to go back and write up detailed reports for the last couple days which I've missed, because my thumbs started getting sick of typing things out on the phone.
Chiropractor time
In reply to Patrick :
it's not that bad. the muscles are just worn out from the effort, so I need to be conscious of making sure they get a rest.
Goodness, that comment about "shoulder work" and "leg day" is coming back to haunt me. 
OLOA2018, Day ?, May 10th - NOLA Afternoon
Last we left off, I had slipped about two run-groups up, and then backed the car into turn 1 of NOLA at 80-90mph... got it to a stop and finished the morning session last ahead of the Prius. The car felt loose the whole session, making it difficult for me to press the car. Getting in to the pits, we found that the rears were 2psi up from the fronts, which was most likely from the raised initial pressure. Also, I'd bandaged up a co-driver who'd overzealously jumped a fence and torn their thumb-nail right-good.
Between slow food delivery, feeling tired, gettng slipped up a run-group again (to try and get out early), and trying to focus in on making a good afternoon run... I didn't do as much socializing I probably should have. 
sorry, y'all.
The afternoon session was hot and greasy. The initial pressures were dialed back to 38psi all the way around, which climbed up to 45psi hot. The car felt balanced and controllable, with me getting the car nicely upset at the entry into the "turn around" corner that leads onto the front straight. Unfortunately the media crew had already left for the day.
I mainly focused on upping the speed I carried through the esses combination, and the triple apex combination before that, as well as getting more drive out onto the main straight.
I went from a 3-lap standing start session time of 7:04 to 6:52, most people seemed to hold or lose about 4sec over the morning session... being that despite getting faster, the hotter heat of the afternoon degraded their improvement.
Getting back to the pits, we got loaded up with some goodies from John's sister, (which were much appreciated!) and split while we were only a few minutes behind the civic. We managed to surf some of the traffic and catch up to them moving around a crane that had jackknifed into the median, loosing them when it opened back up. We ran with one of the 911's for a little while, and ended up 40mins ahead of the miata getting to the hotel...where I heard about one of the Dubler cars getting t-boned. I hung out a bit with some of the VW crew, and then packed it in once most of the cars had showed up. The end of the OneLap was very much in sight at that point.
OLOA2018, Day 7-ish, May 11th - NCM
One of the problems with my spin at NOLA was that it had pushed us back into the clutches of the V6 Camry in our class (well, the spin as well as my slow afternoon at Hallet). I knew we'd need to make up time here, and at the autocross... something I impressed upon to Bob, since he'd be our "ace in the hole" w.r.t. the autocross. Otherwise, it would be neck-and-neck staying ahead of them; depending on which driver was slated to drive NCM.
I went out an got two sighting laps in on the scooter, finishing up the last one with a "bike push" from my 'crazy colorado bike friends' in the Focus RS (their rookie year was my rookie year at OneLap). One of the benefits I have at NCM is that I've been here twice before... getting some 'hot parade laps' back in 2015, and getting two sessions in 2016 in the clubman (one pouring down wet, and one drying).
It wasn't until about half way through the first session that the track really started coming back to me, with me definitely over-cooking some of the off-camber elements this track features in turns 6, 8, 12 and 19. I definitely dropped down the "toilet bowl" a car width and a half wide of where I should be the first time around. Fortunately I was pointed about the right way, and although the car got light and hinted at wanting to come around, I kept the car settled and just managed things until I was at the point of having to turn in for the left/right/left/right esses that lead out onto the front straight.
Braking-wise, I was doing some conservative braking right around start/finish before the 1A/1B combo, and similarly over-braking before the large-radius turn 5 that crimps down into turn 6... probably loosing 10mph over what the car probably is capable of.
after my morning session I swapped in hot to the pits and John and Bob pumped up the rears to a more "autocross friendly" pressure, and Bob took the TL out and put down a conservative lap. Then back around to set a quick lap, with time left on the second half of the course. I told Bob to "bring the aggression" for the last run, which he did... unfortunately clipping a cone through the first slalom. He'd gone from a 43 to 42... which would have pushed us up to 25th overall, but {shrug} it wasn't to be. never-the-less, I'm glad Bob drove the autocross, and really pushed the car... I never would have gotten close to that time.
After lunch, I started prepping the car, and noticed that the shoulders of the front tires were missing sipes from the edge inward about 1", whereas the rears still had sipes all the way to the edge. I corded the Conti's last year, and I was worried that I'd be doing the same thing with this last track session, so I tried to focus on braking in a straight line, and not leaning on the shoulders when/where I could... while trying to carry more speed through turns 5 and 16-17.
edit: also, after finishing the sighting lap, I realized there was a good chance the "low fuel" light was going to come on during the run... so I was mentally preparing for how to handle that. It did, right before lap 3, so I "stayed in it"... but there's no denying that thinking over that had an impact on my pace.
what did it all mean?
well, I pulled an 8:24 in the morning and an 8:30 in the afternoon. So, pulling more speed in a few areas helped to offset being less aggressive on the shoulders.
as a side note, I'm happy with the 20/25sec improvement over my time in the MINI back in 2016.
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to stay ahead of the Camry, which had crept about 15points ahead of us in class, dropping us to 7th.
I'm still mad at that friggin cone. I had one friggin job..... shoulda coulda woulda's will get you.
Bob and John need to write their epilogues. Surely you've caught up on sleep by now?
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
WORK is fighting back right now. I'll get it this weekend. I swear this place fell apart while I was gone.
I've caught up on enough sleep to start wrapping up "the dailies"... was hoping to get that done before they posted epilogues 
OLOA2018 Day 7/8 - May 11th-12th Transit & Skidpad
We hauled out of NCM and beat feet to get through some rush hour traffic, stopping for our second sit-down since texas at an Arby's. We'd packed up so quickly, and the weather was cooling so fast, that I used the opportunity to change out of shorts and into pants in their bathroom. Unfortunately, they were all out of coffee. Amazingly, the Starbucks across the street was out of pre-brewed Pike as well. Whereupon John introduced me to an amazing new coping phrase: "can you convert that pike into an Americano, so we can get out of here faster?"
why hadn't I ever thought of that?
We piled into South Bend while catching up with a bunch of other cars... Victor in the diesel BMW, the miata, some of the Toyota team... and the third place S2000, cruising along at 50mph.
The whole drive up we were checking scores, and weather, and considering the tires... and made the plan that is was best to do a quick front-back wheel and tire swap incase the forecasted rain came early for the "dry skid pad". Without the sipes, we figured it'd be best to have the less-worn 225's on the front, and push the well-worn 245's the rear.
Then we went in, and joined the "we got back to South Bend" celebration happening at the hotel. I got to bed around 1am, and we were out onto the pad for the official "survivors picture" by 8am. The morning broke cold, and what felt like 45degF... although, it was probably 52.
Bob took the pad, and had a bit of a 'code brown' moment when the car took a set and then went through a slick spot right before start-finish and the car rotated to point straight at the start/finish flagger. Never-the-less, Bob collected the car up and 0.886g, which at first seemed a bit low... until the rain came in and slicked the pad all the way down, and the temperature refused to get much better. That 0.886g was good enough for 25th overall, but not good enough to overhaul the Camry's 0.898g.
We hung around, watched the end of the last of the skid pad runs, and then enjoyed the awards banquet. As the reigning thrice-crowned All Remaining Cars Champion, I handed out the All Remaining Cars Award. I won't say it was the best award delivery, but it's something I'll work on for the future, if Brocker still lets me. 
Who knows, maybe we'll finally get a trophy to go with the GForce certificate.
We split from the awards banquet a little bit early, and got headed to Bob's; did a quick divvy-up of our gear, and I was pointed towards home at 6pm. The first part of that drive home was a bit of shock that it was all over... with part of it being the beginning of the mental adjustment back to "normal reality". It's Thursday, and I'm still not all the way there yet.
Although, I keep going back to OneLap... so, there's probably some truth in the statement that I'll never truly get back to "normal reality"
Great wrap up to the event! I'm sure the wind down of OLOA feels different for guys like Seth and Brian that still have 1-2 days of driving to get home but sitting on the couch Sunday after OLOA feels so weird, you have time to actually consider what you want to do before you do it. After the non stop pace of OLOA if feels unnatural to be still.
I forgot to mention... the wife was almost onboard me using her Forte for this crazy thing. Just got to find some 18x7.5's to stuff some 225/40's.
edit: apparently it will stuff 8's and 235/40's. sweet. Package in TR for $1077.
In reply to Bob the REAL oil guy. :
well, I do have 4 18x7.5's (Kia even!) and 2 18x8's kicking around
but you painted them black! I can't do black wheels. that's what is saving me... yeah. that's it!
so, it's kind of "all hands on deck" right now around the sleepyheads house... so it might take me a little while to get a recap thoughts post done...
but this popped up on a certain miata teams' social media page, amongst a bunch of other thank yous...
{sleepyhead} - your encouragement to sign up and do it were invaluable. You're a great ambassador for enjoying the ride and enjoying the experience, and I'm glad that we got to hang out as much as we did. Tell Bob and John we say hi!
I think that was about the same time sleepykid#2 blew in my eye, or sleepyhead#1 kicked my shins, or something.
It's been a long, interesting, road since 2015 when I felt like Humpty-Dumpty picking up the eggshells. About that same time, I met Seth and I met Scott (who made the comment above). I've been on a bit of a mission since then to try and make OneLap more... accessible? Possible? So, it's nice to get independent feedback that some of those efforts are working.
---
Along the same lines, there's about 6 people I need to thank for making OneLap possible for me this year, and in no particular order:
Sleepywife, and Sleepywife's Mom... both for "allowing" me the break away from my normal responsibilities to go do this crazy thing.
Bob and John... for signing up and coming along. I've got one thing going for me: I've got a sense for how OneLap operates. I'm not fast, and I'm not a great wrench, and I can only handle so much transit driving. Having the both of you along definitely made this one of the easier OneLaps to enjoy along the way... even though I was a bit behind on "prep" over last year.
irish44j and bluej ... without you two, I'd have been in a much bigger hole on my drive out to Indiana. I really appreciate you both jumping up and coming to my aid at the last minute.
finally, I need to thank Grassroots Motorsports
I've seen OneLap bounce from the support of it's original publisher and through one or two others before finding a home here, and was along for the ride modestly as a competitor during some of this. GRM is the right place for this event, something that was obvious to most of us LapDogs from the off, and I appreciate the support the magazine has shown it over the last few years.
And, more generally, thanks to all the forum members who pipped up in this thread, or heck... even just read along. Hopefully it's been entertaining.
yeah, i'm way late to the whole grm discussion board stuff...
it was still good to read the run up to your trip more thoroughly. it was a great event, and becky and i were already talking about oloa2019 on day 3 so theres that...
apexanimal said:yeah, i'm way late to the whole grm discussion board stuff...
it was still good to read the run up to your trip more thoroughly. it was a great event, and becky and i were already talking about oloa2019 on day 3 so theres that...
some more light reading:
2018 Mazdeuce Thread
and, you know the requisite "Grosh Build" Thread and "R63 Unicorn of my Destruction" Thread
unfortunately, you've caught me in the middle of "running around with my hair on fire", which should probably continue until sometime around September 1st?
also... !!Yay!! and !welcome!
Hair on fire. That's funny.
mazdeuce - Seth said:Hair on fire. That's funny.
Good to see we are still thinking on the same wavelength here. How does one ignite the imaginary?
I can neither confirm nor deny that this is what I looked like during my 20's; nor whether or not it's the reason why I look the way I do now. 
edit: I should further note that this is not the variety of "hair on fire" I was referencing above. That is more of the "headless chicken" variety
bobzilla said:mazdeuce - Seth said:Hair on fire. That's funny.
Good to see we are still thinking on the same wavelength here. How does one ignite the imaginary?
I'm gojng to release an album of slam poetry titled "Immolating the Imaginary" and I'm going to dedicate it to all the co-drivers of One Lap.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
I've missed all your big words. You and tim always making me think.
I dunno if this will be the final epilogue or not, but it seemed important to add as part of the wrap up. I ran out of time/motivation to fix the sonata and sell it properly...
so now it's at auction!
New upper strut mounts, OEM springs, and most interior bits in the trunk. Fresh g-lock pads. Needs a wash. Proceeds go to support public radio.
This gives me the sads.
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