The One Lap of America is an extreme event held every spring where around 70 teams compete in 18 car racing events at 8 different race tracks spread across the United States over the course of 8 days. You race in the morning, race in the afternoon, then immediately pack up and drive up to 1,000 miles to the next race track and do it again the next day. There are really only a couple of rules: no support vehicles (so you drive the race car on the track and on the streets to the next track, no trucks/trailers), and you must use street tires. I did it a few times in college, and while it can look like actual torture from an outside perspective, it’s a dream trip for a large swath of car enthusiasts. Each time I did it, I always thought it would be just the sort of thing to do with Dad and my brother; they’d love it.
However, it’s a hard thing to do. It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare a car for that sort of punishment, it takes nearly two full weeks of vacation from work, and between hotels, race car parts, food, and fuel, it’s expensive. It can seem impossible just to make it to the starting line, but with huge amounts of family help, we’re gonna give it a shot for the 2017 event.
When we originally considered the idea of doing One Lap, Taylor wasn't sure if he wanted to do it. It's going to be hard. It's super hard for all entrants to make through a week of racing, driving and repairing on very little sleep. Now imagine doing it in a wheelchair with all the medical bullsh!t that accompanies a complete C5-C6 spinal cord injury. Paralyzed from the chest down. Fingers don't work. One tricep doesn't work, the other one 10% of normal.
After some soul searching, Taylor decided he would join Dad and me. Soon enough, we started considering the possibility that Taylor could do some driving on the track. His car, a 2006 Volvo V70R, has hand controls. Taylor had over a decade of racing experience before his accident. Why not?
Taylor contacted Brock Yates, Jr., the event organizer, to ask if he could drive the track events. Brock said if he successfully completed a track day using hand controls, he'd be good to go.
So on Easter, Taylor did just that. He signed up for the Advanced High Performance Driving School with Proformance Racing School at nearby Pacific Raceways.
The school building
The first part of the day was classroom instruction, followed by cornering and braking drills.
Classroom instruction
A decent turnout for Easter Day
Track time commenced in the afternoon. Taylor was happy to find that the Schroth Rallye4 racing harness held him in place well enough to focus on driving. Because he is paralyzed from the chest down, he has no control over any core muscles, so he would fall over without such a setup.
Buckled in
On track, Taylor was very pleased to find the old groove coming back. The speed is returning, as he was catching cars on track.
We're going to make a couple tweaks to the setup that should allow him to get through slow corners more easily. Otherwise, it was a fully successful day.
Race car
As far as the car is concerned, we've had some work done to get it in shape for the event. The big 100,000 mile service was recently completed. We added a Eurosport Touring Exhaust, high-flow downpipe, and IPD anti-roll bars.
We weren't able to get the Hilton Stage 2 tune, K&N Intake filter, Ferodo DS2500 brake pads, or new rotors before the track day, but those are coming.
Which is good, because Taylor got the current setup decently overworked.
Blue rotors = too hot.
Victory
This is a huge milestone. The idea of getting back on the track after such a terrible injury is overwhelming. Really amazing stuff, bro. Nice work.
NEXT POST: May 1 - Houston, Seattle