One Lap of America: Project One Lap – Update #8

Source: Project One Lap

Well, we’ve had a frustrating day so far. It started out with a drive that seemed to go on forever. We took the freeway vs the back road way that One Lap had plotted for us. Turns out we were slower to the hotel by a good 1.5 hours. The weather was terrible the closer we got and we practically ran out of gas before we got to the hotel. Tom-tom nav once again led us astray, taking us down a dirt road that ended in a locked gate. Tom-tom is going to get kicked in the nuts-nuts soon. After passing 3 gas stations that were closed, we luckily found one that had left the pay at the pump on and we splashed some fuel in.

We hit the hotel at 3am, which was, far and away, the skenkest, sleaze bag place I’ve seen in a long time. We opened the room door to be met by “Moth-Ra”, who luckily was no match for Josh “The Exterminator” Wyte. We ignored the mold on the walls and collapsed for 3 hours of sleep. Then it was up to cold showers and we happily drove away from that dump.

At the track early to grab a “shack” in the paddock and walk the track. Interesting track with lots of blind late apex corners. The theme of the day is “UPS, where the F are you?” Stoptech has overnighted us a set of rotors/hats and two sets of brake pads, for overnight priority delivery. We’d been told they’d arrive before noon.

Kasim did well in the morning session, placing 32nd, which is outstanding considering our brakes still stink and he’d never been here before. After several pissed off calls to UPS, where I pointed out that Fed Ex had been to the track no less than 3 times, I finally got a call back at 2:55pm telling me the driver will arrive at 3:20pm, 15 minutes ago. This does not bode well, I’m about to go thermo-nuclear on someone at UPS real soon.

Kasim has already run the afternoon session, we’ve packed the car and we’re waiting outside the track for the UPS guy. We have 700 miles to go tonight and we lose another hour due to time zones. Once UPS shows up with our new pads and rotors I’ll put them on, bed them in, then drive on.

At this point “What Brown can do for me” is bend me over. Yep, just a little bit bitter! At this rate we won’t hit the hotel till 3am again. At least it won’t be a place out of Till Dusk till Dawn…

A little later…

Going through some crazy weather out here! Just went through a torrential downpour, to the point where there was 4″ of standing water on the freeway. Note to Tire Rack, your wet ratings on these RE-01R tires are flat wrong! These things stink in standing water!

Just passed a humongous tornado off to our left and now it’s sunny!