Arriving at Heartland Park earlier than most (yep, we drove all night without sleep), we managed to score some good shelter from the morning rain shower.  Hey, we’re in 71^st place—can’t spoil ourselves just a little bit?

Paul torques the wheels to just make sure they don’t fall off during the first run session.  Did I mention that we’re in 71^st place?

We’re not the only ones getting ready for the first track session.  Our competitors are littered all over the paddock area, tightening the wheel lugs, checking tire pressures, making alignment adjustments, filling up with race gas, etc,.

The sun is starting to come out and track is starting to dry.  The Viper owner sighs in relief. Paul says “Bring on the rain!”

Is this really a Ram truck?  Well, not really.  Ron Adee’s initially designed this monster to rule the Truck category of One Lap.  But packing a tube chassis, a near perfect weight distribution, a 750hp motor and enough tire to alter the Earth’s rotation, it’s a favorite to win the overall event.

Our turn is coming up.  About the only nice thing about being in 71^st place is that you get to wait until the end of the run group for your turn.  It gives us plenty of time to sleep and use the Porta-Johns.

Ready.  Set.  GO!!!!  And the little red beast is off!  Go Paul, Go!.  I didn’t tell Paul this but I juiced her up pretty hard for this event.  It’s running full boost with a high output qualifying map loaded up in the XEDE compute.  After all, we’re in 71^st place and don’t have much to lose.  It’s either going to do well or blow up trying!

Paul returns to the pits.  And we are greeted with the information that our little monster logs the fastest lap of the day, nearly 6 seconds faster than the 600+hp 911 Twin Turbo.  Our overall standing is starting to look better.  The car ran so fast that it ripped the Tire Rack decal off the windshield.  Well, not really. But our little red flame thrower was certainly the talk of the town.

Paul, Ron Adee and David Murry (the hired gun to drive the factory-backed Porsche 911 GT3) discuss the results of the first session.  Paul listens and politely reminds them that they got their asses whooped by a $30,000 daily driven Mitsubishi with $15,000 worth of modifications.

Following our success in the first session, Brock Yates (the organizer of the event) moves us up to the front of the pack to battle it out with the big guns in the second session.  A picture is worth a thousand words and my fingers are tired.

Realizing that we actually have a chance to do very well in the overall standings, we decide to run a more conservative XEDE map for the second session.  We come in third which is a whole lot better than blowing up.  Down the relatively short front straight, our EVO sees 122mph just before braking hard for Turn One.  People loved seeing the EVO spit fireballs during downshifts.  Even the Bachelor was amused.

The 80 or so competitors line up for tech inspection just before the next event… the low ET drag race.

With a first and third place finish already under our belt, we begin the next test of the day.. the low ET Drag Races.  Dammit.  Surely, our tiny 4 cylinder can’t compete with the big boys (supercharged C5s, 911 Twin Turbos, GT3, Vipers, etc,.).  Can it?  Well, it does.  Not only does it compete with them.  It beats them all, despite running a somewhat disappointing 12.1 ET at 121mph.  With more than one run, we’re confident that we could have dipped deep into the 11s.  But we’re only allowed one run and we’d like to keep our transmission in one piece for the 6000 miles of driving that lies ahead.  Yes, One Lap is very unforgiving as one doesn’t get multiple attempts.  Do good out of the box or go home.  Still, our results aren’t bad for a road car running street tires (BFG KDs) and a conservative ECU map.  The next quickest car was Mark DeVia’s heavily modified 911 Twin Turbo which ran a 12.2 ET.

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