05/06/03 - Tuesday
Hallet Raceway - Hallet, OK

Event 1: 25th place
Event 2: 37th place

We were early enough that we were able to walk the racetrack in the morning. This combined with a few reviews of the track laps on the computer really helped. I got to drive today. The car felt very strong and I was able to post three quick laps and get a 25th overall finish in the morning run. Unfortunately, the car began to overheat on the cool down lap and sprayed antifreeze coolant all over the track. Sorry everyone. They had to shut down the racetrack for about 30 minutes to sweep up the fluid. Get the kitty litter.

Back to the problem at hand. The coolant was running at almost 300 degrees. Much too hot. We were able to borrow enough water to get the car cooled down and ready for the next run in the afternoon, so everything seemed fine.

John and I had lunch with a guy from Chicago named Dave running a Porsche Boxster. He was having all kinds of problems on the journey. They didn't get to stop at all last night and went to the wrong racetrack this morning. Misery loves company. We sampled some of the local cuisine for lunch, a Deep Fried Twinkie. Why don't we take some really unhealthy food and then deep fat fry it. Sounds good to me. It actually wasn't bad. I wouldn't want to live on it though.

I tried not to drive the car too hard in the afternoon to avoid the overheating problem. It was 90 Degrees in the shade, and the car was getting warm. Also, they decided to run four hot laps instead of three, compounding our heat problems. I was able to get the car around the track without closing it down this time. My times were much slower though and we finished 37th in the afternoon heat.

Tulsa Motor Speedway

Event: 64th place

We got to Tulsa speedway and unloaded - again. John ran the dirt track event. It was interesting watching these expensive road cars going around in the dirt. John looked good on the track, but we finished 64th. Not as fast as we thought. We didn't hang around to chat, we wanted to take care of our cooling problems. We loaded up - again - and started looking for an oil change place.

We found some very helpful guys at the Wal-Mart in Tulsa. While the Wal-Mart team was busy changing the oil, I walked over to Pep Boys to get a new thermostat. Pep Boys had the thermostat we needed - I knew all that clean living would pay off. The Wal-Mart team helped us get everything back together and get down the road. We left Tulsa about 7:30 pm, about two hours behind schedule now. The car is running nice and cool, but we are carrying a couple of jugs of coolant, just in case.

Fortunately, Memphis is only, did I say only, about 450 miles from Tulsa. We just got in at about 1:30am without any further developments. Day four is in the books.

Keeping it shiny side up,
Mark and John

• Saturday, May 3^rd: Watkins Glen Raceway, New York- 2 time trials and Summit Racing passage control.
• Sunday, May 4^th: Indianapolis Raceway Park, Indiana- 2 time trials and Tire Rack Skid Pad Shootout.
• Monday, May 5^th: Road America, Wisconsin- 2 time trials.
• Tuesday, May 6^th: Hallet Motor Racing Circuit, Oklahoma- 2 time trials and 2 dirt oval time trials at Tulsa Motor Speedway.
• Wednesday, May 7^th: Memphis Motorsports Park, Tennessee- 2 time trials, drag racing and bracket drags.
• Thursday, May 8^th: Carolina Motorsports Park, South Carolina- 2 time trials.
• Friday, May 9^th: BeaveRun Motorsports Complex, Pennsylvania- 2 time trials and a surprise!
• Saturday, May 10^th: Finish at lodge on The Green

You can also learn more about the Cannonball One lap of America by visiting their website by clicking, http://www.onelapofamerica.com/ where you will find links to the different tracks that the competitors compete at, amongst other useful information.