One Lap of America: What we learned competing with an underdog CRX

Photos by Andy Hollis, Tom Suddard and Heyward Wagner unless otherwise credited; lead photo by Driftpoint Media

Two guys walk into a bar. Behind them? The still-smoldering Volkswagen Golf GTI they’d just driven for 3500 miles and through 16 track events all over the country. Ahead of them? One of the dumbest decisions they’d ever make. 

[One Lap of America: …

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Most excellant!

Great story. 

I'd like to point out that both Andy and Tom wrote this story, but since the website doesn't yet have provisions to assign two authors to the same article, I just picked Andy as the author.

At any rate, yeah, sounds like it was a wild ride the whole way through.

There should be a One Lap wall of heros somewhere for the folks who do it in a Cobra or gutted CRX or a Lotus 7.  

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

There should be a One Lap wall of heros somewhere for the folks who do it in a Cobra or gutted CRX or a Lotus 7.  

The most notable ones in my memory banks are:

Superlight 7 (open top 7 clone with an S2K drivetrain) - circa 2008, ran on E85 before it was widely available.  So they towed a small enclosed trailer full of fuel...cigar-shaped...with sleeping area. Passenger rode there to sleep (maybe permanently?). Nicknamed "the coffin". Driver wore snowmobile clothes for inclement weather. 

Similar to above was the Arial Atom One Lap Special Edition.  Turbo K-series powered, open top.  Driven by Charles Espenlaub (pro driver) and Jack Beacham (now of Chin admin fame).

We've also had a couple of Ultima GTR kit cars.  Zero room for anything.  They would send packages to each of the hotels for change of clothes each day, and throw away the soiled stuff.

And yeah, a Cobra Daytona coupe...Superformance replica, actually.  But still.  Gorgeous car.  Amazing sounds. Zero room.

And then there's Super K...

Fantastic story!  What fun and what great adventures!  This was epic and I am thankful that you did it for the readers at your comfort expense :D  I could 'feel' the pain as memories of riding or driving in extremely awkward positions came flowing back but, thank God, not to the extreme that y'all went through.  No way.

Wonderful story and reminds me of the days of Auto-X magazine.  Back when we autocrossed a GT-6 we had lots of corners to cut, on a Air Force enlisted paycheck.  You both taking an old time trials car on the One Lap and finishing near the top of a 77 car field is real bragging rights.  Congratulations on a great run and hope to hear about a few more budget top ten finishes in the future.  

Great story.  Wow, your heads bouncing off the roof. Well at least you're harnesses, seat and fire suit we're all up to date.

Sharp driving, sharp writing!

Now that was a fun read.  Thanks guys for taking us along for the ride.