The Event and Competitors

The Event

By now every Second Striker should be well aware of the One Lap of America and the stunning successes that Second Strikers Dennis Olthoff, David Sugg, Doug Reed, Clay Gould, and Barry Kline have had in this most challenging event.  For those few who haven’t, a brief history and review of the event.

Beginning in 1971, Brock Yates sponsored a clandestine cross-country automobile rally named the “The Great Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash” or “Cannonball Run” for short.  The event was named in honor of Erwin G. “Cannonball” Baker who with W.F. Strum drove a Type 53 Cadillac V-8 roadster from Los Angeles to New York City in 1916 in a record seven and a half days.

The Cannonball Run had no rules and no routes.  The shortest time from New York to Long Beach won.  By the time the elapsed time worked its way down to 33 hours, it was clear to everyone, including law enforcement officials along the way, that some serious speeding was taking place.  So after nine events, it became a part of automobile racing history folklore.

After an appropriate period of mourning, it was replaced in 1984 with the “One Lap of America”.  The route, about 10,000 miles, was specified.  There were no time constraints; so speeding was purely a personal choice.  The winner was the team with the closest to the official route mileage.  Legal, but hardly exciting.

In 1991, the One Lap adopted its current format patterned to a large part after the grueling Tour de France FIA competition.  The competitors complete an approximately 4,000 mile lap of the US.  Each day they stop at a track along the route for speed trials. 

The speed trails are typically road courses.  Cars are run in groups of five.  Each group gets a single warm up lap.  The cars are then staged and launched one at a time at approximately five second intervals.  The elapsed time is typically for three laps from a standing start. This continues until all competitors have run.  Then it is off to the next track.  One track a day for seven days.  Usually one of the events will be drag racing including best elapsed time and a bracket race.

Points are awarded for position in class and position overall for each event.  The winner is the one with the most points at the end.

There are difficulties. 

The time trials reward speed, braking, and handling.  The long distances between tracks reward some degree of creature comfort for sleep.  Both the time trials and drives between tracks require reliability and stamina.  These requirements are in conflict.  So the race goes to neither the swift nor the sure, but to the one who does both extremely well.

The requirement for reliability is so intense and the competition so good that a single DNS (did not start) or DNF (did not finish) will almost certainly knock a competitor out of the top ten overall and usually out of the top twenty.

There are potential difficulties on the track as well.

Although these are speed trials, one car against the clock, a spin by another car or overtaking a slower car can cost valuable seconds and knock a competitor way back in the standings for an event.

Then there is the weather.  A track may be wet for part of an event and dry for the rest.  The drivers in the wet take it in the shorts.  Simply blind luck of the draw.  But as they say, “that’s racing!”

Schedule

Classes

The classes listed in the rules this year are:

Superformance Entry

Dennis Olthoff and Rick Lee in Superformance Coupe No. 5

Dennis scored first in class and fourth overall in 1999 in a Mk III with Doug Reed as co-driver, second in class and thirty-sixth overall in 2000 after recovering from a blown engine in Coupe Prototype No. 1 with Mark Ray as co-driver, and first in class and tied for second overall in 2001 a Mk III with Rick Lee as co-pilot. The co-driver for 2005 is again Rick Lee, a well experienced One Lap veteran who has co-driven a number of successful efforts in years past. 

Coupe No. 5 has an excellent history, having served as the test data car for Car and Driver and bringing home a truckload of trophies from Run and Gun last year.

The Run and Gun engine went in Peter Brock's personal Coupe, No. 73. For One Lap 2005, Dennis built a 412 cubic inch all aluminum Windsor with very trick heads. The intake ports were so high that an adapter plate was required to match the single plane manifold. A tasteful hood bulge was added to clear the Holley HP 830 carb and 14x3 air cleaner. It all fit. Aset of custom headers were also required to match the rather large exhaust ports. Only three pairs of these super high flowing heads were ever produced and Dennis has two of them. So don't even bother to try and find some.

Specifications

Engine
Bore: 4.155
Stroke: 3.800
CID: 412
Cam: Solid roller
Rockers: Jesel shaft mounted
Intake: Single plane
Carb: Single Holley HP 830
Oil system: Dry sump with oil tank in right rear fender well
Power: 684 at 6800
Torque: 581 at 5600
Redline: 7300

Transmission: Tremec TKO-600 5-speed with close ratio 5th

Rear end: 3.46 ratio

Tires
Front: 255/40 ZR 18
Rear: 285/45 ZR 18

Performance

With this setup, the speeds in gears are:

1st          60 @ 7000
2nd         91 @ 7000
3rd          130 @ 7000
4th          172 @ 7000
5th          209 @ 7000

That's right - rpm limited at 209 mph in 5th.

Projected acceleration is:

0-30          1.4 sec
0-60          2.8 sec
0-100        6.7 sec
0-150       13.0 sec
1/4 mile   10.9 sec at 135 mph

This Superformance coupe is a good bit more powerful and faster than previous Superformance entries. But the competition is a lot tougher. The challenge will be the tires. They are a bit narrow and a bit tall. Getting the power to the pavement may be difficult.

Seeding

The top seeded class, SSGT1 Big Bore, is also the largest with 19 of 93 entries. It is also the toughest with 6 of the top 10 seeds.  The Superformance Coupe is seeded 4th.

Don't be fooled, by the way. The Dodge Ram 1500 is a tube framed NASCAR truck series truck.

For a full list of entrants, see www.OneLapOfAmerica.com