Fastest Kia to complete One Lap aka One Lap 2022 break down from the slow end.

I felt this needed something special. Something different. Much like the car that broke all the records for One Lap this year. No, we weren't P1 overall. Not even first in class. But we were the fastest Korean car to ever compete and complete One Lap of America. 

We've all seen or ignored the build thread for the 2013 Kia Rio SX manual. The unicorn of Korean imported hatches. What that doesn't tell is the absolute ease at which it conquered a tough week of roads, late nights, tracks, rain and all manner of things it really wasn't meant to do. And it did it while coddling myself and my co-driver. 

Sticker day is always fun. Get there, stick all the sponsors, numbers and required silliness. Then we do the drivers meeting, meet at the Corvette bar and start the week off right. 

Day 1, wet skid pad and auto-x followed by 300 miles of transits. Driver (read: me) messed up on the wet. I drifted far enough off the inner cones that the rear tire caught the standing puddles and pulled the car into a 45* drift. Looks cool I'm sure, not fast. 51st overall of 84, 3rd in class.

Autox was better. I was my home track. I know the site well. We were on the wrong tires, but still managed 2nd in class, 45th overall. This put us in 2nd for the class, a position we wouldn't give up the rest of hte week.

Transit to Nashville was uneventful other than losing my glasses somewhere in central KY. Car was great. 

Day 2: Nashville Super Speedway. High banked oval, using the infield road coarse. This would be my first real timed track event for One Lap. I was nervous, scared and aout to pee myself for that first session. We went out and squeaked out a first in class, 0.8xx ahead of Becky after 3 laps. Pretty stoked. Not to mention chased down the last car in our group. Second session I chased down the air cooled 911, dropped another 2 seconds but Becky found more. Still good enough for 2nd in class and 71s overall. 

Packing was down to 3 minutes and on the road we were. About an hour in we came across a broken One Lapper and spent about an hour roadside trying to diagnose bu knew it was likely down for the count. We made one quick stop for fuel and relief then bombed the 4.5 hours to the hotel straight through.

I'll fill in more as time allows.

All Photo's Courtesy of Tim and the loaned camera from our GridLife sponsors. 

I am literally waiting with baited breath! It's amazing that with the quality Korean cars as of late (Genesis Coupe, Veloster N, Stinger GT, etc, etc) that you have the best finish so far. I think that shows just how much prep work you've done, your driving, and of course just how good the Rio is.

In reply to Javelin :

I hate to point out that while we have the best finish ever with One Lap, we also hold the worst.

The right person to hold the record, WTG!

OK, Day 3: Carolina Motorsports Park. This is the day that Seth has either been dreading or looking forward to for some time. I was finaly going to get validation that the car was good or it sucked.... maybe. There's more to that than I am sure I want to admit.

Seth goes out in the morning session pulls in a second in class, 72nd overall. He likes he car.... but it doesn't talk enough. Being married to an east coast girl, I guess I just enjoyed the quiet nudges he car gave me for feedback. But the car was quick, steady and predictable, all the things I strove to make it do. I knew we would never be vying for FTD or even top of the class. So I was mostly happy with that.

I run the afternoon session, stayed second in class, but moved up 2 spots in the overall to 70. Sad news though, Co-driver beat me in my own car. I guess I was not a God in a Kia after all, just a mere mortal. Packed in under 3 minutes and waited for the rest of the crew to roll over to stop #2 of the day, LAnier oval. traveling in groups is tiring, and when you're the only car with cruise control and enough power to make it up hills without slowing down it makes a long commute! 

We roll into Lanier, unpack and line up with Scott. Someone may have talked smack to Scott on one of the chats.... or in person. Maybe both. So we lined up and off we go. WEEEEEEEEEE! Three laps were just not long enough. Once again, 2nd in class, 59th overall. Packed up and headed to Seth's friend Carl's house for the evening. 

Day 4: Next morning we awoke to this:

we are 31 miles from the track but Seth's phone is giving an alert that sone crap may be going down. 15 minutes later and no coffee:

by the time it was all said and done, that 32 miles took us a little over 3 hours to get there. I20 into biringham closed. Luckily Barber does not allow course walks so we didn't miss anything that morning. Get the car prepped, pop Seth in for the morning session and send him on his way.

Rough morning. All the things that we were told and shown what NOT to do, Seth did. 75th overall and last in class. But that was good. I now knew exactly what not to do. I go out for the afternoon session, tried a couple things on the out lap and made good on the promise to not screw that same place up. Ended up 3rd in class, 71 overall. Barber was fun, bu that poor left front tire was screaming for mercy. 

Once again we made a sub 3 minute pack job, hopped in the car to top off and grab a late lunch before the grueling 11 hour transit that night.

never miss a chance for a Bucee's brisket sammich. Put a couple hours in before stopping fornrelief at the Mississippi welcome center. What a wierd place. 

we rolled into the hotel that night wiped at about 1:15am for 4 hours of sleep to do it all over again

In reply to bobzilla :

I think you should add how many miles are on this 2013 Rio?  Furthermore,  while prepping the car for One Lap, I think you were still daily driving the car to work. 

 My point being,  this is a road car driven to and then driven around the track, even before OneLap.

Day 5: Developed a clunk in the overnight drive. Oklahoma roads flat out sucked. By the sound I knew it was likely a sway bar link. Stopped for gas on the way into hallett and checked. Sure enough. left front had come almost all the way off. Grabbed my 14 and snugged it up to get to the track. At the track we were met with this:

Rain. Lightning. Hail. I was looking forward to this one. Becky and I both got lunch laps on our Puppy year here. We were both going to appreciate the track at speed, in our own cars this time! We did... but the morning session was so wet. Turn 2 I was facing the corner station.... for the entire turn. Ended up second in class, 57th overall. Super wet, super slick. I spent most of my time catching the car. 

Second session started out wet for the fast cars, but was drying quickly. By the time we ran second to last heat the dry line was THE line with 2 spots having standing water. I took advantage of all the uphill acceleration zones that I could. 2nd gear, power on up hill. Took my second session win in class, holding on to 66 overall.

We love to give little "love boops" when we can and since we aren't close enough on track (of course we would never do that!) grid boops are the best we can do. 

From there we headed as a group to dinner in Witchita.

Day 6: Heartland Park. Another day split between Seth and I. It was wet, a lot of dirt on the track etc. We made a guess on tire pressures and that didn't work. Seth ended up 4th in class and hte car was slippery as hell. Went back to normal and the car drove well in the afternoon. 

From there we headed to see some helicopters and Seth fell in love with the toolboxes before the 9 hour drive to Putnam.

In reply to John Welsh :

Absolutely, she's my daily. Bought it with 86(?)k miles, put some love into it. Last summer it saw 6 tracks,  with GridLife Sundae Cup shenanigans. As of yesterday, the car was sitting at 105,533 when I got home from work. (5's are the wifes number, 3's are mine).

And that brings us to Day 7: Putnam Park. My "home track". I've been on this in multiple cars, rain, dry.... I know this place. 

IT's raining again. No problem. First session, he SC crew sticks me at the head of the group. I ran data for curiosity.The new Blackwing is the last car in our 6 car group. Make the sighting lap, and I'm ready. Lap 1 was good for being rain. Lap 2 felt good overall and then I catch the blackwing. I lost 3 seconds following them for the last half of my 3rd lap but it was raining and I could tell they were not comfortable but I needed that pass! Cross the checker and I had put distance on the rest of the crew but I knew that car held me up more than I wanted. Sure enough, Eric driving Pete's Fit got me by 2 seconds on that session. Second place.

Second session, it's dry. Looks damp but Putnam is funny like that. I make that outlap and I know instantly the dry line is the fast line and all the grip is there. Now, I need to back this up a tiny bit.... After the morning session and food my body was trying to tell me mainlining coffee and caffeine is bad. My heart felt like it was jumping out of my chest so I decided to lay back in the car and take a nap. Brought my Mt Dew bottle that was half empty to drink as I needed. That's key here... Its time to go, I sit up grab y helmet and gloves and head to grid. 

So, grip. We had all of it. Morning groups did not. First flyer I am hauling the mail. I can tell. First hard braking zone into 7. I'm hard on the brakes, downshifing to 2nd and I feel something brush the underside of my arm, hit that dash and fall to the floor. Yep. My bottle. Fine.... I start to unwind the wheel and roll onto the throttle but can't. Bottle is behind the gas pedal. Crap. So as I' applying pressure with my right foot I'm fishing the bottle out with my left. Get it out, go, shift hit turn 8, bottle slps past my grip. This goes on for the rest of this lap and most of the next. When I finally catch it and toss it into the passenger side I make my best pass at Putnam to date. 

But was it enough? Nope. Becky found the dry line and her little car made the most of it with her putting it where it needed to be. She squeaked my out by 1 second over 3 laps. Once again, Bob was Bob's own worst enemy. But that still left us in second in class for the week, second both sessions that day and e feeling god about the lap times I put down.

After a brief stop at the house on the way back for some much needed puppy love and dropped off the stuff we no loner needed we headed to South Bend for a night of awesome sleep, good people and a couple adult beverages.

bobzilla said:

In reply to Javelin :

I hate to point out that while we have the best finish ever with One Lap, we also hold the worst.

Shush you! I assume that means there's dozens of Korean DNF's. 

What qualifies a car as a Sunday cup car? 

Day 8: Dry skid pad. This was the final event. This time it's run in reverse order so we were near the beginning. Tim in Marlon's car put down an impressive .976g on the skid pad for 43rd overall. Pete followed that up with a .949 good for 54th. I was 3rd and put down an unimpressive .935 for 57th and then Becky.... wow. Becky was the first car to break 1g. 21st place over all with a 1.024g average. Just unbeleivable but this was how they had run all week. They were super strong in a car that gave them no fits (pun intended!) and just pulled away from our little group every chance they could get. 

After awards and a great lunch, we headed home to end this crazy, fun and amazing journey.

Somebeach (Forum Supporter) said:

What qualifies a car as a Sunday cup car? 

Stock power:weight ratio of 25:1 or under.  Honda Fit, Mazda 2, base Fiestas, etc

Now.... lets get to the heart of this thing. Our finishing place, our lap times even our transits were just a small small portion of what this event is. At it's heart, it's a competition against the event. We drove 3900 miles in 8 days. We saw 7 tracks, 2 skid pads and an autox. We spent hours on the road and hours sitting at tracks waiting to run. But the people, man the people make this thing worth it. Picking on Tom for leaving early and not being able to pack a tooth brush because there's no room, giving Pete a hard time because he brought every tool and part he owned. Joking with Brian and his Dad, drinking out of Howard's corvette turned Camry bar. 

There's so much to this event. Like the Toyota team jumping at the chance to help any and everyone. Their selflessness was awesome to watch and really brought home the spirit of this event. The way everyone watches out for others, even their competitors because the real challenge is finishing. Seeing the lap puppies make it back to the Waterford to become Lap Dogs. To watch teams cut parts off their trailer to make a diff mount with borrowed tools. To hand out ice cream sandwiches to any and everyone because we could. 

This event is so much more than how much you spend, or how competitive you are. It's about the people and the people? They're freaking awesome.

I also need to give a hugenormous thanks to my co-conspirator Seth for making this happen and not burying my body on the side of the road somewhere in Arkansas. Huge thanks to the GridLife crew for helping sponsor this silly little class and all the shenanigans that came with it. And of course to our spouses and emploers who allow us to do these silly things for years. And finally, to GRM. This place and these people always seem to know the bes way to enable us to do dumb things tha we wil e forever grateful we did.

Now, to plan for next year!

Photo dump:

Somebeach (Forum Supporter) said:

What qualifies a car as a Sunday cup car? 

https://www.grid.life/sundae-cup

As a former Rio owner (2009 Rio5) this thread gives me great joy. BSpec cars always make me smile.

In reply to Stormtrooper :

I've been looking for a 10-11 orange Rio5 SX with abs. 

Here's a short video I just put together from Hallett for you.  Some of it looks a little slow, probably cool down laps. 

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

That was awesome!