2012 Texas Mile - Beeville, Tx 26-28 Oct.

[onalaska]

Looks like we may have a tailwind on Friday.

http://www.texasmile.net/pdf/TTM_Chase_Birds_Eye_Map.pdf


[TABLE="class: dataTable"]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD="class: full"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD="class: full"]Thursday
Partly cloudy. High of 86F. Winds from the SSE at 10 to 15 mph.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD="class: full"]Thursday Night
Clear. Fog overnight. Low of 64F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 15 mph.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD="class: full"]Friday
Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 82F. Breezy. Winds from the NE at 5 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 20%.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD="class: full"]Friday Night
Clear. Low of 50F. Winds from the ESE at 5 to 20 mph.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD="class: full"]Saturday
Clear. High of 82F. Winds less than 5 mph.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD="class: full"]Saturday Night
Clear. Low of 66F. Winds from the ESE at 5 to 10 mph.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: wHover"]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD="class: full"]Sunday
Clear. High of 81F. Winds less than 5 mph.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[BusaMan]

Unexpected participant

Looks like we may have a tailwind on Friday.

http://www.texasmile.net/pdf/TTM_Chase_Birds_Eye_Map.pdf

Gotta love it! Pic' of a Hayabusa on the layout graphic, below the 'Vette.

Wonder how it did???

Tim

 

[GizmoQ]

Gotta love it! Pic' of a Hayabusa on the layout graphic, below the 'Vette.

Wonder how it did???

Most serious Busa riders at the mile are over 200. Unfortunately, in March, two of them went down at over 200 just past the finish line .

 

[BusaMan]

Most serious Busa riders at the mile are over 200. Unfortunately, in March, two of them went down at over 200 just past the finish line .

Bad way to end a nice run, Giz. With only a half mile to shut it down, one might speculate on braking technique issues, brought on by a short (IMO) braking distance for a vehicle going about a football field a second. At a braking effort of 15 ft/sec/sec (almost a half a g), I come up w/ a required braking distance of over 4,000 feet. My abilities to calculate uniform rectilinear motion well may be suspect, given the amount of time since I studied all that, but I don't think it's all that far off. At 20 ft/sec/sec, it would still be 2,250 feet; not much to spare on a 2,640 foot available braking distance, and it's damned hard to keep control on a bike when you're braking at 2/3 g at that speed. Not a job for the inexperienced, I'd say.

Y'all be careful, hear?

Tim

 

[onalaska]

It looks like you have more than 1/2 mile to shut it down, but may be a little rough on a bike. Here is an excerpt from the participant information:

OVERRUN Beyond the Shutdown - Oops !!! If you cannot SAFELY make the right turn to the return road, do not worry. You still have serviceable overrun. KEEP IT STRAIGHT!!! Spinning to scrub speed is never a good idea. The surface of the overrun beyond the end is SOLID (old pavement) but the surface is ROUGH. Sideways off the end is also not a good idea. This "paved but rough" overrun is about another ¼ mile; then you will see cones in a Vee pattern intended to "funnel" you to a dirt road through the trees for about another ¼ mile. If you have not stopped by then, you will be at the highway. You now have a choice: find something to hit or keep going until you get to town. When you do finally stop, TURN OFF YOUR MASTER SWITCH/IGNITION!!!

 

[Lonestar XLR]

Any of you on the road To Beeville yet? Looks like the forecast took a favorable turn.

 

[onalaska]

Any of you on the road To Beeville yet? Looks like the forecast took a favorable turn.

Giz should be in Houston by now, I wll be meeting him tomorrow morning for the drive down. Probably be there at the gate by 2PM.

 

[GizmoQ]

Steve and I kept leapfrogging each other all down Hwy59 so we never did cruise together, but met up at the venue.

We've got our pits setup and cleared tech inspection. All that's left to do is race. I'll hit the grid at 0630 and racing starts at 8. Jack is going to be our videogeapher.

 

[GizmoQ]

Lisence. Runs complete. Steve upgraded with a 153mph run and I did two runs with 141 & 159mph.

 

[Lonestar XLR]

Lisence. Runs complete. Steve upgraded with a 153mph run and I did two runs with 141 & 159mph.

Congrats... Rained here most of the day so I didn't make the trip. Local forecast for Beeville predicts very nice conditions for tomorrow with the chance of rain @ 0%.

Did the "Cadillac Only" pit area work out?

 

[Lonestar XLR]

I rolled into the Texas Mile about 1pm Saturday and the place was packed with entrants and spectators. The "Cadillac Racing" compound was front row & center with a couple of XLR's, CTS's (one with CA plates), an Allante, Motorhome, and a trailer or two. Between trips to the staging lanes/grid to watch my friends run I'd stop by and try to catch up with GIZ or ONALASKA but never caught up with them. A nice fellow, who said he ran a Ford, at the Motorhome where GIZ was staying said GIZ had developed an oil leak and was probably through for the weekend.

In addition to the Cadillac compound, XLR's were well represented as I spotted several in the spectator parking area including mine. There were plenty of CTS's in all varieties. Corvette's and Mustang's were the most common entry, but there was a wide assortment of vehicles.

The big news Saturday was Honeycutt's twin turbo, small block Camaro posting an amazing 263.20! He adjusts the boost DURING the run...

Sorry I missed GIZ and the crew and hope y'all have a safe trip home.

 

[GizmoQ]

Congrats... Rained here most of the day so I didn't make the trip. Local forecast for Beeville predicts very nice conditions for tomorrow with the chance of rain @ 0%.

Did the "Cadillac Only" pit area work out?

Sorta/kinda.... We had 7 cars in our pit area surrounding the Caddy Shack RV.



Then there were three other groups of Caddys spread out throughout the paddock.




Steve and I made our final runs Saturday afternoon. Steve's best time was 154.6 My best time was 159.5 Then on my 160+ run I spun the supercharger pulley off the snout at 18lbs of boost.





As an update, the CTS-V crews had 2 cars over 190. The bulk of them were between 178 and 189.

 

[onalaska]

Has a blast for the 2 1/2 days I spent at the Texas Mile. Everything goes from big to small. Giz is on his way to our house tonight without a supercharger belt, but his V seems to be driving OK crusing at 80 Mph. Most of the highway on the way back is 75 Mph day or night. Jack was there as pit crew. Some Pics from the event.

1973 Dodge Challenger with a 340 did about 125 MPH.

One fast Toyota Supra, over 205 MPH!

To the smallest, Hodaka bike toped out at about 85 MPH

Fortunately we didn't need the helicopter for transport, but one bike lost it at about 140 and the driver did.

Hennessey Ford GT was the record breaker at about 263 MPH on his first run, blew the engine on the second run.

Lingfelter CTS V...... F A S T!

Staging area.

 

[Cadillac Tech]

Thanks for the pictures guys

 

[Lonestar XLR]

Everyone expects a GT-40 Ford to be fast, but how about a Camaro.... not exactly the most aero package available. The Camaro just missed resetting the record Saturday @ 263.20, exactly .1 slower (263.30) than the GT ran in the more favorable conditions on Friday. Each time Honeycutt would roll more power in, about half track, the Camaro would bellow smoke, the rear end would step out, and he had to peddle it back straight and roll back in the throttle! Very interesting to watch and a fine display of driving. I haven't heard if they were able to improve during Sunday's session, but it appears the Camaro has a bunch left on the table.




The bottom pic is of the parking area as seen from about 1/2 track looking toward the staging area. The white tents in the background are located near the starting line.

 

[onalaska]

Everyone expects a GT-40 Ford to be fast, but how about a Camaro.... not exactly the most aero package available. The Camaro just missed resetting the record Saturday @ 263.20, exactly .1 slower (263.30) than the GT ran in the more favorable conditions on Friday. Each time Honeycutt would roll more power in, about half track, the Camaro would bellow smoke, the rear end would step out, and he had to peddle it back straight and roll back in the throttle! Very interesting to watch and a fine display of driving. I haven't heard if they were able to improve during Sunday's session, but it appears the Camaro has a bunch left on the table.



View attachment 2374


The bottom pic is of the parking area as seen from about 1/2 track looking toward the staging area. The white tents in the background are located near the starting line.


View attachment 2375

And the Ford blew it's engine on the second try to better it's first run.

Sorry we missed you. I spent most of Saturday on the grid waiting in line. It took most of the day to make two runs, but 154.6 MPH was good enough for me. Glad I didn't break anything. Giz is on his way back to St. Louis today, last time I talked to him he was in Texarkana and he was doing OK without the blower belt.

 

[GizmoQ]

Home Sweet Home!

 

[mtrocket]

Home Sweet Home

Glad you made it!!!

 

[GizmoQ]

I'm still downloading picks and videos. Car goes to Steigemeier on Thursday. No blower meant no rapid acceleration on the way home, but cruising at 85 was fine once I got there. With the oil leak my engine compartment it a mess. Oil pressure never went over 48PSI so it wasn't leaking too much - just enough to coat everything with a thin film.

Thanks again to Mark for supplying the Cadillac Racing banners - Everyone at the track was impressed. The local Caddy Dealer wanted to buy them, then asked where I got them.

Let me begin with praise and condolences to Bruce and Kathy. After reviewing some of my photos, my hat's off to you both. Wishing PhotoGirl a quick recovery! Taking pictures is hard work especially when you can't stage the scene.

The trip down was pretty inconsequential. I had forgotten the speed limit in Texas was higher than most. Even on the State highways there were parts posted at 75MPH. I spent the first night of the journey with cousins in Katy, TX. Then took US59 down into Beeville.

We had anticipated approximately 20 Cadillacs, but some teams wanted to park elsewhere. The airport paddock ended up with 4 different Cadillac corrals. Personally, I think it was a good thing because it provided several different enviroments to experience. The Caddy Shack was laid back and playful. TX Conda's pit crew was very serious and all business (he was the first Caddy to exceed 192MPH). Blinky's pit area was Party Central with all the young adults partying all nite. By the end of the day on Friday, we had the "Caddy Shack" (RV) all set up and pitted all our cars next to it.

Steve heading to get registered and take the car through tech inspection.

Elwood returning from Tech inspection:

Steve returning from Tech inspection:

Thursday nite finally ended with the sun setting on our pits.

Everybody was done for the day and prepped to get up at 5AM. We would get in line around 6AM; the grid opened promptly at 630AM; we staged our cars in the grid then walked back to our pits for breakfast. The first car on the track would be at 8AM so we had a couple hours to kill before it was our turn.

 

[GizmoQ]

Friday was all about licensing and shakedowns. I ran my licensing run at 141.9, Steve's was at 151, I think. Saturday it was time to get serious, BUT.....
Steve and Jack were having a good time.

Steve and I tried to get Jack in this photo but he was walking away and the cameraman only got part of his back.

There were actually 5 XLRs at the Mile. Jack, Steve, and I parked by the Caddy Shack and the other two were relegated to the spectator parking area.

Steve and I staged in the grid together for my third run and his second.

Elwood underway to another record setting run: 159.5MPH

The aftermath of my last run of the weekend. Notice I set the supercharger pulley on top of the supercharger. The Gates belt lived up to its reputation - it never broke. I had to cut it to get it from behind the supercharger pulley.Then the pulley came off. Unfortunately, it WAS a 7-rib belt - by the time I got it back to the pits all the ribs had melted off and were embedded in the power steering and tensioner pulleys.