Sunday is all about highway 318. While the first car isn’t launched until 8 a.m., the day begins a lot earlier for event organizers. Over 100 course workers are in place and the highway is officially shut down at 5 a.m. Every junction of the road and possible place where Joe Public can wander onto the raceway is checked, double checked, and guarded. There are no spectator areas for this race, so being a volunteer is a great way to get a front row seat.
The team of Shipka and Rupp suited up and ready to strap into the Camaro. Since we were both wearing helmets, and it’s noisy going those speeds, we dropped $100 on a Chatterbox communication system. This way James could hear my constant nagging for him to speed up or slow down.
Time to start prepping for the main event. Going 90 miles at triple-digit speeds, especially at altitude, is hard on an engine. To take care of the internals, we filled the LS7’s dry sump oil system with 11 quarts of Torco SR-5 synthetic. The SR-5 is the best stuff they sell and it’s formulated to take the punishment inherent to racing.
David Pozzi was in charge of the tires, in other words our lives were in his very capable hands. The night before the event we upped all four tires to 42 pounds. This way we could check them in the morning to make sure there were no leaks. Then David used our too-cool Longacer digital gauge to make sure the rollers were set to 39 psi.
With 8 seconds until launch we were very busy in the cockpit. The clock is the atomic type and a car was launched every minute. There’s no beam at the starting line so you don’t have to leave right when the clock hits zero, but that is when the counter starts. Before this we were warned of several deer in the area and of some loose cattle. If we weren’t hyper-awake before then, we sure were after that warning. At 10:20 a.m. we clicked all three of our stop watches and James mashed the gas. By the time we crested the first hill the radar had us at 107 mph.
While I was busy with calculations, James was occupied keeping the Camaro on the road. We had made our own course notes, but halfway through, they seemed to be off so we ditched them and relied on the notes given to us earlier by Blue. The Camaro never dropped below 100 mph and we maxed at around 121 mph; well under our tech speed. We blew through the narrows at over 100 mph.
All the racers gathered at the finish line to hang out and talk about their runs. Once all the rookies finished, we were directed by the Queen of 318 to perform a ceremonial chant to the highway. If you want to know the details then you’ll just have to get off the couch and come run the event.
Another rookie at the event was Gary Linsner in his ’02 V-6 Camaro. Gary was in the 100-mph class and missed his target time by 4.328 seconds, earning him a Second Place finish in his class.
The One Lap Camaro performed flawlessly. It always felt stable and sucked up the dips and bumps on the highway with ease. We were worried about fuel consumption, but when we filled up after the race, the Camaro had only sucked down 5 gallons. That’s 20 mpg while doing triple-digit speeds. Bugs were smashed into every crack and crevice on the front of the Camaro.
To see some of the video from our GoPro camera, slide over to YouTube and search for “One Lap Camaro Silver State.” You can also search “OLC splittervision” for some down-to-earth video.