Live Thread: 2024 Tire Rack One Lap of America

It's a damp morning.

In reply to Tom Suddard :

NCM was wet last year too. 

Moist means Tom drives...success!  Car came back in one piece.  Still waiting on results 

The car felt great, and nobody passed me--that's a win when you're on track with Tom O'Gorman! Still waiting on results. 

Our tire plan was always to swap front to rear mid-week. Which is more challenging when wheel widths vary between the ends of the car.  
 

So we arranged with the NCM staff to do it for us.  This is Owen swapping tires between the two rim widths.

Currently on a lightning hold...

Just got a few shots from Heyward:

We're now on a lightning delay with a drying track. This isn't great for our results, as the later sessions may not be as wet. 

We're rotating tires, which requires dismounting and remounting, while the track is cold. 

Always enjoy following along with this adventure. A couple questions:

1. Can you talk about the decision to have Tom and Andy split the competition driving? It seems like having one driver do all of it would be advantageous in an event with such a small amount of track time, since they'd be able to learn from the first session and apply it in the second session. 

2. Do you have a budget for the event or are you keeping track of costs? I'm always curious what the actual total cost (entry + tires + gas + hotels +etc) is to run this event. 

3. Any chance we can get a follow-up article on the Tesla team? Track time and long transits in the middle of the country with tight time windows seems like it could be quite the challenge in an EV. 

In reply to CrashDummy :

3. They have a gas powered generator with them I think, from earlier picture.

The sun is finally out, but more rain is forecast soon. We're waiting as long as possible to Autocross. 

akylekoz said:

In reply to CrashDummy :

3. They have a gas powered generator with them I think, from earlier picture.

 

That would take about three days to charge the car--it's to power their tire warmers. They just use the Supercharger network, and take roughly the same amount of time to transit as we do, if not a little faster. 

You'll find more info on the Tesla in our OLOA coverage from a few years ago: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/competing-2022-one-lap-america/

So, splitting driving: Yes, this is the less competitive way to do the event. But we're way ahead in our class, and really enjoy competing against each other each day. We might not do that today if the afternoon is wet, though. I'm faster and more comfortable in the rain, so I'll run both sessions. 

So, budget: This is not a cheap event. For starters, you need to take more than a week off of work, plus time to get to and from the event.

Then you pay the $4000 entry fee. If that seems steep, it is, but it's not crazy when you remember you're paying for a whole week's worth of track days.

Then you're required to buy a set of tires from Tire Rack, stamped with OLOA.

Then, there's a week's worth of food, gas, and hotels. We average roughly $300/day of food, gas and hotels for two people, staying in decent but not extravagant places (Comfort Inns and such). Almost every team shares one hotel room, even people who normally wouldn't, since you're in the rooms so little. 

Morning results are in! 12th overall, which I'm quite happy with. 

As the facility dries out, the Autocross (happening in the parking lot) is getting busy. Andy went over for one run, hoping to bank one decent time in case it rains later. 

But, after shutting the car off in grid, we ended up pushing. We believe the lithium battery overheated and shut down, and we got the car running again after cooling it down with a bottle of water. Andy is running the Autocross sans hood for now. 

Tom Suddard said:

You'll find more info on the Tesla in our OLOA coverage from a few years ago: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/competing-2022-one-lap-america/

That's a good read; thanks! Some interesting tricks to keep the car cool. 

Tom Suddard said:

So, splitting driving: Yes, this is the less competitive way to do the event. But we're way ahead in our class, and really enjoy competing against each other each day. We might not do that today if the afternoon is wet, though. I'm faster and more comfortable in the rain, so I'll run both sessions. 

Makes sense; thanks!  

Tom Suddard said:

So, budget: This is not a cheap event. For starters, you need to take more than a week off of work, plus time to get to and from the event.

Then you pay the $4000 entry fee. If that seems steep, it is, but it's not crazy when you remember you're paying for a whole week's worth of track days.

Then you're required to buy a set of tires from Tire Rack, stamped with OLOA.

Then, there's a week's worth of food, gas, and hotels. We average roughly $300/day of food, gas and hotels for two people, staying in decent but not extravagant places (Comfort Inns and such). Almost every team shares one hotel room, even people who normally wouldn't, since you're in the rooms so little. 

Thanks for the info. Sounds like "plan on spending $10,000 for a team of 2 and be pleasantly surprised when it comes in a little bit under that." Whether that's cheap or expensive is going to depend on your point of view. 

I get what you're saying about it being a week's worth of track days, but I'll be pretty mad if I only get 6 laps at my next track day! 

Dry track--time to Autocross. 

In reply to CrashDummy :

If you're not trying to be competitive/win, it can be done much cheaper. We campaigned the Rio 22/23 and costs worked out to right about $3k per person for a 2 person team. Consumables are much cheaper, gas is cheaper because we use a lot less etc. 

The weather has been dry, so Andy put his seat back in the car and is about to run the afternoon session.

Of course, it just started raining while he's on grid. This will be interesting.