3rd overall in One Lap of America!
May 14th, 2008Yes, you read correctly! We are now the 3rd fastest street legal car in America! Beating Corvettes, Porsches, Beamers, Mustangs, Mongooses, and anything else on the track - we did this all with a handcrafted, alternatively fueled car, in an open cock pit car, and I am a girl! (BIG SMILE)Kevin drove the tracks wonderfully and gracefully. He was phenomenal. The message is clear - Organic Food is the Best Fuel for the body! Nobody has ever accomplished what we have accomplished and we did it way outside of the mainstream!
Thursday, May 1, 2008 – Arrived at Quality Inn a day early! Kevin is STILL working on the car, finishing up the intercom system, wiring the GPS system (which failed us), finishing up the One Lap Trailer (an integral key to our success) and several other minor adjustments. We are the first One Lappers to arrive at the hotel – a very good omen!
Friday, May 2, 2008 – we check in and we get to view the competition!
Mongoose
Ford GTO and Hennesy Viper
Mustangs and Corvettes
But of the utmost concern is the Porsche – Davia and Wikstrom – 4 year champions!
As I am perusing the competition (because I am such a car gal, yeah right!) Kevin is putting stickers on the car, finishing up the car and making me a nervous wreck. Hence I am sent off to take pictures (see above!)
At 3:30 a.m., Kevin finally finishes the car, 5 hours before the competition begins. Yeah, we can go to sleep now.
Saturday, May 3, 2008, Tire Rack: First day of the race!!! Kevin gets to do the Wet Skid Pad as I am fairly confident that we will be getting wet at some point along the way, so why start early?
Kevin finishes 37th overall in the Wet Skid pad, which is approximately 30 positions ahead of last year … (what a great improvement). Of course, as we are watching the weather and all we see is rain, rain, rain, we are trying to figure out how we are going to race on wet tracks! However, surprises to come!
We dash off to Road America, excited, ½ wet, ½ dry (that would be me) and traverse forward gallantly and excitedly. Chuck and Barb, Paul and a local sevens guy all came to see us off and give us good luck wishes and, of course, inspiration.
Saturday, May 3, 2008 – Road America: Traveling to Road America was no easy task as we had to drove through horrific construction and traffic, rain and very cold winds. However, Kevin placed 9th overall and left everyone wondering where did that funny looking little green car come from?
Dashing madly to Pacific Junction, IA, I had my second experience of driving Mojito and, boy, was it cold! But we did it! Cold and wet we survived our first night together taking turns at the wheel.
Sunday, May 4, 2008: Mid America: Luckily this was a very nice day, not too cold and not too hot. Actually very nice, to be honest … boy did we feel lucky. Kevin’s Mom, Judy and Rodney came to cheer us on, give us birthday gifts and see us off! We were all so proud of Kevin as we watched him place 7th in the first event at Mid America and 6th in the second event! Kevin’s parents were so excited to be there to witness his success!!!
One Lap of America figured out rather quickly, that they needed to put Kevin in the front of the pack!
We left the race track in a rather timely fashion and got ready to travel 817 miles!!! Yikes! However, along the way we begin to experience a tad bit of problems. Our lovely GPS begins its failings by magically detouring us outside of our route. As we begin to follow this, we realize that we are extremely low on fuel and we really need that fuel stop that is in Topeka, KS not in Wichita!
Regrettably, I messed the gas, brake and clutch petals up and Kevin has to fix them. Of course, as we all know Kevin, once the hood of the engine was open, he decided to fix this and fix that (ie the intercom system/radar detection/music features and the tires alignment). We begin to travel again, me driving again, and I take the wrong way again! So we have to loop around the toll bridge again, getting ready to pay the toll lady for a third time and lo and behold who do we find stranded on the side of the road!
DAVIA and WIKSTROM! (who are the current 4 year champions of the One Lap of America). Hence the moral dilemma begins as the sun is setting, they have no light, not the right parts and really need some assistance. Hmmm, what’s a race team to do? Do we stop, do we go, can we sneak by (NOT!). Well, we don’t know what other race teams would do. However, we did take advantage of the moment on camera.
Kevin did hold our flashlight for them 
Hee, hee, hee, little did they know we would hold this against them J The team that never breaks down caught on camera!
Monday, May 5, 2008,
However, the moment of truth was about to be revealed to Kevin. Loren, thank goodness came to visit us this day, tweak the car (as it needed it), feed us and cheer us on. However, Loren did not appear overly happy with Kevin. He could not understand why Kevin was driving so slow on his laps. Finally, he queried Kevin as to why his times and speed were so slow on the track during the first two laps and extremely fast on the last one.
Mind you the top 10 teams were pleased that he had thought this. Considering that Kevin was doing 137 mph on the straight aways with standing water on the track, yes, the top 10 were upset that Kevin now knew what he had to do!
Wet, wet, wet! Yuck!
But the story does not end there! The rain did not stop and the drag strip event was cancelled. We were sorely disappointed as the drag strip event was sure to be a good one for us. So we packed up and left for No Problem Raceway – another 358 miles away. So we headed for one of our scheduled E85 stop in Houston, TX.
As we pulled into the Kroger’s parking lot, Kevin began to feel a little off. He shrugged it off and went and pumped our fuel, paid for it and then stumbled over to the grass as he was spinning out of control. He fell to the ground and put his head in his hands and tried to hang on as his body produced wave after wave of spinning nauseousness and vomiting. As I watched, I tried to figure out what to do! I felt so bad and I was hoping that whatever it was, would pass quickly. However, after an hour, it did not seem to be passing, so I went into the pharmacist to see what we could do. I explained the circumstances and she suggested Dramamine. I convinced Kevin to take this but he was not sure that he could finish the race.
I was in tears. I really wanted to finish this race – we were in 10th after all! Surely, we had a chance of winning it! But Kevin wanted to go to a hotel. He could not shake this bout of vertigo. He plead with me to find him a hotel room. But instead I called our friend Mark and Dave. I told them what was going on and they raced back to come to our rescue.
I found a hotel with an overhang, pulled into it and waited for Mark, all the while trying to stall Kevin (which was not so hard since all the hotels were booked with a convention). Mark, Dave, Jim and Kenny showed up, got Kevin dry, into warm, clean clothes, and walking! But he had to get back into the car, so we convinced him that we would keep looking for hotels along the way but he had to get into the car to get there. It worked and we were on our way to No Problem Raceway 5 hours later! Stumbling into our hotel room (which was very lovely – it was a suite at Holiday Inn) took showers and went to sleep for 4.5 hours. It was wonderful!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008, No Problem Raceway – Well the game was on now! Kevin was feeling 90% better, the weather was great and we were ready to start racing for all three laps now.
Placing us in 6th place on the first and second event was phenomenal. One Lap of America made up the drag strip event at No Problem. Kevin was 5th overall! Super Duper Cool!
However,
Drying out from all the rain!
Everyone loves Kevin and is cheering him on! They can’t wait to see him perform and drive! He is so awesome!
We knew the car was not performing so well when we left No Problem raceway. Just outside of New Orleans the car started running worse. Barely making any power, we pulled off the road and found out that our primary fuel filter was clogged from the foam from the tank. But thank goodness, Kevin learned from Ron Adie to bring a spare fuel filter. He changed the fuel filter and she roared back to life leaving us no questions now that Mojito was ready to truly perform.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008, South Carolina Motorsports Holy cow! We now have to drive 794 miles from Louisiana to South Carolina! I am tired but Kevin and I are totally excited and flying high on the fact that we are now 8th! This is so exciting! And the weather is awesome! Sun shine high and bright, warming up all of our clothes, car seats and bodies! I actually got a little tan and it looked so cute!
Of course, we had to drive straight through the night to make it one hour before gates opened!
The real treat was meeting up with our children at Temple, GA and resupplying our fresh, organic, food, clothes and E85! They were so excited to see us and it was such a treat to get hugs and kisses from them! They are so wonderfully supportive and proud of us!
Kevin did not do well in the first event as he spun out and off the track! This earned him a 16th place but no fear! He came back in the second event to place 8th!
We dashed off to the BMW Performance Center a mere 154 miles away, where Kevin put on the show!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008,
Everyone is so good to Kevin, giving him pointers and helping him lead the pack!
Go, Kevin, Go – a short, zippy course … that is just what Mojito and Kevin need! No wonder people purchase Beemers, they get to train on this track for free!
Thursday, May 8, 2008, Virginia International Raceway only 235 miles away and arriving at the absolutely BEST racetrack in the nation! It is beautiful, it is accommodating, it is fast, curvy, and they have suites with garages below for rent! Yeah! Finally a bit of luxury! The rooms were clean, lovely, spacious, hardwood floors … the garages were clean, dry, warm and comfortable. But the crème de la crème was the fact that the room was right off the main straight away! It is so cool!
Okay, I am looking a little rough here! But I was finally a tad bit rested J
Kevin ran 15, 16th and 9th … now this might not sound so good but here is where is gets slightly complicated. In the morning event it was wet and drizzly and Kevin was the fastest time of the top 10 cars. A lot of other cars in the back of the pack placed higher positions (our dear friend Mark placed 2nd) since the track had dried out … which then only gives everyone a chance to say, hey, we beat Kevin on the track! What a true compliment … everyone is trying to beat Kevin now!
By the end of the 2nd event, Kyle Cochran came to deliver us the good news – we were now THIRD OVERALL! Kyle was so kind and excited for us (even though we took his third place position) and invited Kevin to race with the ‘Big Boys’. We were so touched!
At the end of the third event, the Cochrans and Mojito were tied for third – everyone was so excited and extremely thrilled to see such drama and excitement unfolding during the One Lap.
But as fate would have it – our fuel pump failed us as we were pulling out of our lovely garage to head towards BeaveRun. Oh my gosh! It was earth shattering. But we prevailed, our friend Bob was there and toted Kevin down to the John Deere store to pull the damaged seal so that we could insert a new seal. We were able to leave at 6 p.m. – 5 hours behind schedule. (Mind you we tried to convince DaVia and Wikstrom that they owed us an hour of assistance while they were rolling off to BeaveRun and saying
good bye to us … I mean we tried to explain that it was a One Lap courtesy rule … hee hee hee, you would have thought they were deer caught in the headlights!)
Bob’s Lotus 7 replica! Our car is jacked up in the back, waiting on the boys to figure out how to fix her!
So off we went, arriving at Holiday Inn BeaveRun with only 45 minutes to sleep … and slept we did!
Friday, May 9, 2008, BeaveRun Exhausted and exhilarated we arrived at BeaveRun to walk the track with Porsche instructor Manny Silva. Silva walked Kevin around the track and gave him great advise … advise that would take him to the top … Placing third in the first event, 6th in the second and 8th in the autocross, Kevin sealed our fate in the number three position by being faster than the Cochrans. Regrettably, the Cochrans received a DNF in the autocross as they missed a gate, helping us secure our position even more. Kevin did so wonderfully during the autocross as a result of Davia walking the autocross course and giving him pointers. Silva and DaVia were so kind to take Kevin under their wings and help secure our position. What great competitors!
Autocross course! Kevin is ready to roll!
Saturday, May 11, 2008, Tire Rack Dry Skid Pad Well, we made it … can you believe it! Wow! We were on cloud nine! Totally exhausted at this point and I am not quite sure how I am going to make it … we stumble into the bar at the Quality Inn only to be greeted by cheers, pats and good wishes. With only one more track to go and we are slated to do exceptionally well, the car is working up to par, and Kevin is totally psyched up, we are all celebrating – until 2 a.m. … Oh, and DaVia decides to make up his lost hour to us in drinks! Watch out, everyone, you have to watch out for him!
Kevin placed 5th overall in this event and secured our third place position. Mojito was awesome! She did such a great job! It was an honor and a thrill to be a co driver in this event. We are so very, very proud!
Out front with the big boys! The group picture at Tire Rack … everyone was so funny, teasing Kevin. He asked if he could park up front and they kept pulling his leg saying that they did not think that he could fit up front! It was so cute! He was so tired, he did not even know they were teasing him J
Thank you to all of our sponsors! I am very confident we could not have made it without them!
Food is fuel! And Organic Fuel is the best fuel!