For months and months my co-driver Brian and I have been planning our trek across the United States to go to Topeka, KS for the 2003 Solo 2 SCCA National Championship. Car prep, spares, packing, transportation planning, etc. What blows my mind is just how many things that can go wrong and no matter how well you plan things just don't go as planned. Here's a few highlights of our saga. Enjoy!
Sept 3, 2003 - Wednesday
For months Brian has been telling me he can secure a trailer for us without issue. Unfortunately though, Brian calls me around 6 PM on my way to my grandmas for dinner letting me know that he can't get a trailer. I immediately give Randall a call and luckily he's home and available to borrow his trailer but it needs some work. Around 7:45PM. Randall, Brian with Adam's truck and I all meet up at Randall's house to pick up the trailer. Issue #1 starts with the fact that Adam's truck is equiped with a 2" ball and the trailer requires a 2 5/16" ball. A quick trip to Pep Boys and a whopping $12.99 + tax later we're on our way back to Randall's house. The trailer goes on without a hitch (no pun intended). One of the trailer lights don't work and the wheel bearings definitely need to be re-packed with grease. Brian follows me home to assist with the wheel bearings and to get started on packing. We didn't finish until nearly 1 AM!!! At least we have a little piece of mind that the current wheel bearings are in the best shape possible for the trip. Additionally I need to get a spare wheel/tire for the trailer.
Sept 4, 2003 - Thursday
Durning my lunch break at work I go to Discount Tire to get a spare wheel and tire. The guy takes one look at the one I have with me and says he wouldn't trust them to take us across country. The 175/80-13's just don't cut it for load capacity, not to mention they are all dry rotted on the inside edges. He talks me into buying four new wheels and tires. I get the cheapest passenger tires (185/65-14) with a decent load capacity and four steel chrome wheels for $369 after tax and labor. Their "Warrior" brand tires. I've never heard of them before but I'm sure they'll be much better plus we can crack jokes about them the entire way to Topeka. Discount Tire didn't have the wheels in stock at that shop so they had a courier service deliver them which didn't end up showing up until nearly 6PM! I left work around 5PM which gave me time to go to a bike shop and get two new tires for my bike since they were 10+ years old and just about to fall apart. I battle traffic home and finish packing. Later that evening my buddy Kevin who's going to cover timing and scoring for the local PHX autox comes over and I give him a little training on how I do timing and scoring. I finally get to bed around midnight. So much for going to bed early!
Sept 5, 2003 - Friday
Brian shows up around 7AM and we get the car and truck packed and get the car on the trailer. Here's where our first interesting moment happens. I park the truck and trailer on a hill heading down and we jack up the tongue of the trailer to make it easier to get the car on the trailer. Everything is going fine until I get the front wheel on to the rear deck of the trailer. When that happens it takes the weight off the front and actually lifts the trailer tongue so hard it lifts the trucks rear wheels off the ground! Since the rear wheels do all the braking when the transmission is in park and the parking brake is on there's nothing holding us from moving on this hill and we start to roll down the hill!!! I'm shitting my pants because I'm helpless with my car half way on the trailer rolling down the hill. Brian is crapping his pants as well since he can't figure out why the hell we're rolling. I can tell there's a look of fear on his face while he's mentally scratching his head. After this brief brain fart Brian runs to the drivers side truck, jumps in and hits the brakes which puts an end to the most extreme 10 feet I've ever traveled in any car. :-o Luckily no damage to anything besides a few gray hairs on each of us. We finish up loading/packing and are on the road by 9 AM after a quick stop at McD's for some B-fast. On day 1 we make it to Amarillo, TX were we check into Holiday Inn which I booked for something silly like $35 on Priceline.com. Definitely not bad for the money. The best part is no issues with the truck, trailer and most importantly "The Warriors"! The only nusance is every time we gas up we have to retighten the wheel bolts on the trailer because for some reason they constantly loosen themselves up. In 2001 when trailering my car across country I didn't realize that they loosened up on their own and one of the wheels fell off at 70 MPH! I remember crapping my pants looking in the driver side mirror and seeing part of the trailer dragging on the ground with sparks flying everywhere. I ran up and down the freeway looking for the wheel/tire but never did find it. Luckily I had a spare though. To add to this wonderful experience it was pouring cats and dogs of course during the entire ordeal of running up and down the freeway shoulder as well as having to change the tire.
Sept 6, 2003 - Saturday
Day 2 of our road trip was faily uneventful until 2:40PM while driving through Oklahoma. Brian's V1 radar detector goes off plenty early and we see the smokey sitting under the freeway underpass. As we drive by he pulls out and starts following us. We weren't speeding so Brian starts getting nervous and a little upset. We put the radar detector in the glove box thinking they might be illegal. Meanwhile I've actually had my laptop out working on this write up during this entire ordeal so I'm finding it pretty amusing and just adding to the "Nationals experience". Copper Billy Bob flips his blueberry cherry on and we pull to the side of the road. One of the cops walks up to my door and opens it while I'm actually writting about him. Sept 7, 2003 - Sunday
We actually get up at a decent time to eat some free B-fast at the hotel before we check out and get to the track a little before 7 AM. We get registered for the Kansas Region warm up autox and walk the course which is actually the previous Nationals North Course. The car feels like it's pulling really strong but is smoking like crazy after a slalom or heavy transitioning. At least isn't not loosing oil pressure though. My 1st run sucks balls when because I go too hot into the slalom, get behind and DNF my run. The 2nd run was pretty good, 49.1xx but I hit a cone. My 3rd run I get really behind in the salom and hit cones at the end and only gets 49.8xx or so. The best time that we saw was Chris Raglin in an 86 turbo Civic and he had a clan 48.9. So I felt pretty good about my performance knowing that I'm only a couple tenths off the top cars. Brian is quite a bit off the pace with a best of 50.2. He sems to be a little too aggressive in the slow parts and not aggressive enough in the fast parts. We eat a pretty good lunch at Pat's Pig (Pork Platter) and then head back for our work assignment. I do timing and Brian does course. We check into our new hotel/Amerisuites which is by far the best hotel yet and the good thing is we're there for the next 5 nights. We head off to Bob's Car Wash and get my car and the truck cleaned up and get all the numbers and decals on the car. We finish off our evening with a quick bite at Taco Bell.
Sept 8, 2003 - Monday
Today we walked the North Course 3 or 4 times and the South Course once. I also video tape myself walking the course which actually works pretty good if you replay it in fast forward. I get some Hoosier stickers on the car, buy a T-shirt and call my Chicago buddy Peter Berta to see what he's up to. Turns out he doesn't plan to show up until Wednesday since he runs Thursday/Friday. Mark Shaw shows up today and we chat with him a little in the pits. We also stop by the Koni trailer and find out that they are offering free labor on Koni shock rebuilds and only are charging the cost of parts. It's a big risk making changes to the car but this deal is too good to pass up so we pull all four shocks off the car and drop them off. Later that evening Brian goes to the Evolution School to analyze the courses and get tips on them. When he gets back we head off to the welcome party. We get there pretty late and most of the people have already left. The food is crap and since all the PHX people have already left we only stick around long enough to eat a few bites and then take off. As we're leaving the hotel we ask the front desk if there's a go-kart place in town and they tell us of a place off Wannamaker next to our hotel. We look for it but can't find it and give up. Bored as all hell we stop at Blockbuster to get a rental movie but nothing looks good so we just go back to the hotel and watch a movie on HBO (Murder By Numbers) which wasn't bad. So far this Nationals Experience has kinda sucked. :-(
Sept 9, 2003 - Tuesday
Today we watched some cars run, dropped off some laundry, pick up my Koni shocks which got revalved for only $66! Koni has a smoking deal that if you're running the event they will revalve your shocks for only the cost of parts and do the labor for free. Brian and I installed the shocks on the car with no issues. We ate lunch at the track. I said hi to Jason Saini, Brad Lamont, Peter Berta, Julian Pokorney and a few other autoxers I used to hang out with from the Chicago Region. We got the car teched, walked the courses and ended our evening at Chuck-E-Cheese and some video games. A very lame but faily productive day.
Sept 10, 2003 - Wednesday
We didn't do shit today! We watched some cars run, ate lunch at Pat's Pig again, walked the course and then wend to the Wednesday SCCA dinner. Luckily the PHX folks had a couple tables with spots open and we were able to sit with them. Dawn Maxwell from the Phoenix region was the only trophy winner that night and she actually got 1st! Woo woo.
Sept 11, 2003 - Thursday
Our first day of competition sucked big hairy donkey balls. It started off dry and it rained off and on for most of the groups. Unfortunately as soon as our group was up it rained the worst. Dawn Maxwell let us borrow her Dirt Stocker rain tires and wheels but Unfortunately the wheel's offset didn't clear the calipers on my car. Kumhos are generally better than Hooisers in the rain so we mounted the Kumhos and did the best we could. I did what I thought was terrible with the top cars a full 2 seconds faster. They all had dedicated rain tires and I ran about the same time as Bob Tunnel. He didn't have rain tires either so I didn't do that bad. Brian was off my pace by about 2 seconds. The rest of the day just sucked. Brian and I are cold and wet and since we don't work until heat 6 we head out during heat 4 to get a bite to eat and gas up the truck. While at the gas station we tune in the radio station to listen to the courses and we hear our names being called for to check into work! Turns out there is no heat 6 and we were suppose to show up to work heat 5. We haul ass back to the site and check in late and both end up having to work the course which had so much rain it was litterally just a solid sheet of water about .5-1" thick. After heat 5 we are so soaking wet, cold and tired we just call it a day and head back to the hotel to grab a shower. Later that evening we go to the talent show which everyone said was SOOO great. The food was good because there was lots of it but the show pretty much sucked. A few people did some really bad Karaoke. Team Underdog's skit was okay. There was a piano player and saxiphone player that had talent but wasn't my type of thing. The bottom-line is the talent show is something to do but it's not a must see by any means.
Sept 12, 2003 - Friday
Day 2 of competition was much better on the South Course. We got up early to give us plenty of time to walk the course several times. It's a beautifal day with fairly warm weather and dry track conditions the entire day. When it was our turn the car was sticking like glue to the track and it was a great course. The newly revalved shocks seemed pretty decent but really loose in the slalom. I thought my performance was really good but still off the pace from the leaders. I ran a best of 50.450 which was good enough for 8th place on day 2 but since I was so far behind on day 1 I ended up 12th overall which was out of trophy range. Brian was a couple seconds behind me which neither of us can figure out why since he generally beats me in Phoenix. Since Brian and I both had a pretty crappy Nationals experience and neither of us trophied we decided to leave after we worked heat 5. Damn that toll road! It cost us $10.60 to get to Wicita. We checked into the Hyatt; very nice! Brian and I head to the pool hoping to relax in the hot tub for a while. We open the doors to the pool area and there's about 2 dozen little kids screaming and running around and splashing around. Not exactly the relaxation we were looking for but we made due with what we had. Intially Brian and I joke about making the Sunday local PHX event while in the hot tub and then after thinking about it for a while actually make plans to do it.
Sept 13, 2003 - Saturday
The alarm goes at 6am. The plan is to get on the road super early and drive to Albuquerque, get a few hours of rest, leave again close to 11PM so that we arrive directly at AMP in the morning close to start time. We get gas and a quick bite to eat and aren't on the road until 7:40AM but we still get to ALB by 6PM local time. Brian is still fairly awake but I'm beat tired. I take a shower and crash on the bed for a few hours. I don't think Brian sleeps very well if at all but I had no problems except getting back up. Something about a comfy bed and being all warm. I just didn't want to get up. We drive to the end of town and gas up and try to get some food but everything is closed except the crappy snack food in the gas station. Oh well, back on the road again.
Sept 14, 2003 - Sunday
We definitely left too early since we pull into my driveway (thank God!) around 4:30AM. We unload the truck and car but leave the car on the trailer. Brian decides to just stay at my house and sleep for a little. I take a shower and finally lay down at 5:30AM. The alarm goes off again at 6:30AM and it just plain sucked getting out of bed but the hour of sleep did feel really good once we get up and move around. The thought was that since everyone was still coming back from Nationals that Brian and I were going to smash the competition for the 1st event of the series but this was not the case at all. Lots of the top drivers from Nationals did the same thing we did and were at the event. Dave Schotz took top PAX honors which was no surprise considering he won ESP at Nationals as well. Brian's wife Sarah drives the BMW and my wife Dina drives the Miata to the event where they swap cars and drive back home. After the event we swap wheels on my car, drop off Brandon's wheels at Costco to get the tires dismounted, take the trailer back to Randall's, pick up the tires at Costco, wash Adams truck and change the oil before Brian returns it and goes home Whew! What a week. Can't wait until next year!