edco

That’s the last thing I heard before I left the starting line on my southbound leg of the Bonneville 100. We took 3rd place in the 120 class, this was much more fun than we could have ever imagined. Friday we had rookie qualifying and tech inspection. We passed through Tech without a hitch and headed out to the practice area. They close down around 10 miles of the course for practice.

My instructor was Don Herbel a Veteran Corvette guy and we spent 10 minuets chatting about what he wanted to see from me on the qualifying run. I was a little nervous as the starter waved us off and Don said “Give me 100 mph” Entering the first left hand sweeper I hear “Give me 110” as we exit, I hear “Nice and smooth – Give me 120!” I ran the rest of the run at 120. Don was wonderful giving small comments and reassuring me that I was doing a good job.

We turned around for the return run and he tells me “Give me a buck35 out of the gate and DON’T exceed your tech of 140 ” A few miles at 135 Don says “back to 120 for the remainder of the run. We pull in to the staging area and he reaches over and says "Great Job your good to go” and sign's my rookie card. My buddy Dave is navigating for me and we then proceeded to make a total of 9 practice runs. Our trap times were

1. 123mph
2. 124mph
3. 132mph
4. 128mph
5. 130mph
6. 130mph
7. 126mph
8. 133mph
9. 134mph

Once practice was closed we drove the whole course North to south and back again "at legal speeds". As rookies we had a busy weekend, as the start time got closer on race day and we watched the cars leave the starting line. One by one they hauled *** out a crossed the open desert, my favorite was a 1969 Ford GT-40 it just sounded great as it left for it’s run in the 150mph class. We got in the car and started to suit up, get the helmets on, Harnesses adjusted, do a com check etc. etc. and then we just waited our turn in line. As we got closer, I realized I was getting to do something I had dreamed about doing for years.

The starter stops us at the grid and the last thing you hear is

“30 Seconds Windows up! Visors down! Have fun guys”

We get the final hand count at 10 seconds and then look to the tree for the final LED Green and were off. Dave has a problem resetting the GPS but we have 2 good watches and a countdown timer. We hit 135 for two miles and settle in at 120 after dodging a Large Beach towel in the middle of a fast sweeper “we found the origin of the towel at the awards banquet that evening ” The trip down was a blast to drive and a learning curve on timing. At one point I see the car that started behind me in the rear view mirror catching us and Dave tells me “Were 20 seconds slow” we hit the long speed trap straight “8.5 miles in length” and run it at 137 the whole way. Now were too fast so we slow it down to bleed off some time. As we hit the northbound finish line we realize we are now slow by 9 seconds.

There is a staging area where we park and wait for the turn around run. We chatted with other drivers and talked about our runs, what worked and what didn’t Leg 2 was even more fun to drive. We hit 140 for just a brief second in the return speed trap area. I was worried about exceeding tech and dropped back down to 136 or so. As we passed the trap we see jorj7 car parked a sad moment for us, but it looked like a mechanical breakdown and that both George and Rich were safe.

We settle in and have made up the 9 seconds and are cruising at 120, Dave is calling out the times as we head to the finish. After our last time check Dave starts calling out the time on the countdown timer in the final ¼ mile to the finish 15,14 “you get the drift” as I cross the line we hear the beep – beep from the countdown watch and feel really good about our run.

The results

3rd place in the 120 mph class

+ 0:02.830 seconds - Average Speed 120.533

We came up to drive fast and found out that driving fast was only half the fun. We met so many wonderful people and made a lot of new friends. I want to thank all the Nor-Cal 928 guys that helped make this a weekend to remember.

Bill Ball – 3rd place 145 mph class "89 928"
George Suennen
Rich Sanders
Paul Mooradian – 2nd place 140 mph class "06 Corvette"
Dave Deets - My Navigator

Team Porsche took the team challenge as well

And the dreaded Beach Towel we dodged early on in the race. We had a auction for a mystery box at the awards banquet, proceeds to go to the local Boy Scout Troop that cooked us breakfast on race day.

Going once! Going twice Sold for $450.00 when they opened the box and reveled the towel that had been on the course one of the racers admitted that it had left his car the towel was under a headlight cover.

Robert_H

That sounds sweet. Congratulations on doing so well. Great tale there!

SwayBar

Taking a 928 out on a track/course is the only way to truly appreciate what they're capable of.

Good job, and great driving!

Tahoe Shark

Congratulations Matt. I guess you will be back, huh?

jorj7

Great write up Matt. If you want to unload your gps data, just give me a call. I
can unload it and maybe get it to you in a more readable format. Glad you had
a good time.

Here is a shot of you on the starting line (taken by Rich).



And other one taken by me a little further up the road.

IcemanG17

Matt
NICE.......sounds like alot of fun....I'm gonna have to try it one day!

edco

Thanks for posting the photos George

Brian get it in gear and head on up, we need another 928 to run in the field. We have 3 white ones. I overheard a few people say 3 white 928's you never see any and then 3 in one place

Also I now know what a problem the crickets are! We ran the Gamblers Run course on the way home just to get some additional time in for next months race and guess what. They were everywhere, Millions of them for miles and miles on the road. The road was brownish red in color and it was moving - Crunch Crunch with a nice little cooking smell. But better now than next month.

IcemanG17

Matt
Okay the crickets story is not helping........you know how I don't like my 928 getting dirty!!! Of course it needs to run in order to even consider it.....I still think it will be running for SATL..

You know you gotta try a DE too.....ton's O fun and a much shorter commute!

Charley B

Way to go Matt. I'm thrilled for you. Sounds like you did a great job and had a great time. Of course your hooked now, so start the budget and get used to all discretionary income going to one place.

Charley B

Think of it as Operant Conditioning Brian, next thing you know, you'll be able to drive your Shark to the store without washing it first.

Charley B

Your welcome to ride with me if not. Do you have the pump yet? If you need anything let me know.

Richard S

Matt, congratulations to you and Dave!!!! Obviously, it was the experienced harnesses that carried you to the podium It's great to have such enthusiastic rookies, now you're hooked!

Hope you like the smell of cooking crickets....those bastards goop up every part of the underside of the car, from radiator to exhaust....you'll be smelling them for years to come

Look familiar? This was from the 2004 Pony Express

Ron_H

Yeah, those #%&#**!*!!#$$!! crickets. But they are not the real problem. The birds that sit on the highway and eat the crickets are the real problem. They won't move until you're right on them and then they fly up and straight into your windshield. Try hitting a bird at 135 or so dead on in the middle of the windshield. Or getting one stuck under your wiper at that speed. (Not that I would ever know anything about such speeds, but my friend does).

Brian, you don't want to know about the crickets. I spent one afternoon in Indianapolis at the car wash trying to wash them out of my radiator and the entire front end of the car. All the way from Nevada to Indianapolis every time I stopped at a gas station the flies and birds would descend on my car to eat the carcasses stuck all over it. The smell is something else, and lingers for days. I'll bet if you stuck your head under my hood you would find some still stuck in there somewhere. They were in the air filter, even. And driving through them is like being in a hoarde of locusts and it is dark and you can hardly see the way. Then you speed up and a bird smacks into the front of the car and the blood dribbles down the glass. The smell of that is bad also. I stopped to run a jet of water from inside the engine compartment through the radiator to drive them back out because they were layered over the radiator.

If you don't want to spend the next year, literally cleaning all the body parts out of your machine, don't try running through some parts of Nevada during the Summer. I've seen your engine compartment. Kiss that condition goodbye if you run into crickets in Nevada. It is history.

Charley B

Well, so much for Brians ORR career.

Bill Ball

Yeah, I'd say that pretty much nixes it for Brian. However, I didn't have much of a problem with the little critters. They must have jumped out of the way when they saw me coming because they weren't everywhere in my car and I never had a smell problem....but then there was that jackrabbit that didn't quite get out of the way....