2008 Cannonball One Lap of America Blog

Event Notes - How the One Lap of America Works

During the Cannonball One Lap of America, teams compete on racecourses all over the United States. At each road course, we are allowed only one reconnaissance / warm-up lap, followed by three timed laps. At the end of the recon lap, teams are placed for a standing start on the course. The finishing position is based on the cumulative time of the hot (timed) laps. Our team has only been to one of the tracks on the 2008 One Lap of America route. With the exception of one course, the recon lap will be the very first time our competition driver, Mark Murnahan will have ever seen these tracks.

Call Me Ishmael

01 May 2008 12:33

Like the beginning of an epic novel, we begin our blog of the 2008 Cannonball Run One Lap of America! It is 12:33 PM CST. Mark Murnahan is at the wheel of CopMagnet II (2008 Corvette Z06) as we begin our journey of 6000 miles in 9 days, crossing America to compete in the 25th Anniversary of this historic event.

Please join us for a virtual ride in our 2008 Corvette Z06, and kindly tell others to tune in as well!

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Z06 Brake Rotors

01 May 2008 18:05

We ordered brake rotors with time to spare, or so we thought. When the brake rotors arrived, we found that they were the wrong rotors for the car, so we started making some phone calls. Luckily, Jim Butler Chevrolet stocks the C6 Z06 rotors. We were able to stop by the dealership in Fenton, Missouri on our way from Topeka, Kansas to South Bend, Indiana and pick up a set of front brake rotors. We would like to thank Jim and Andrew at Jim Butler Chevrolet in Fenton Missouri for stocking the rotors we need for the Z06. These guys are as cool as can be and very helpful ... we recommend them highly.

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LaPorte County, Indiana Sheriff

01 May 2008 22:05

While stopping for a much needed tank of gas late on the night of 1 May in LaPorte County, Indiana, we met CPT Steven C Pierce and two of his deputy from the LaPorte County Sheriff's Office. They were a great group of guys and allowed us to take pictures of them with our car. They even went so far as to pose their three patrol cars behind the vette with their police strobe lights blinking! We will add photos very soon.

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Gipper's Lounge at Quality Inn, South Bend, Indiana

02 May 2008 02:30

After arriving at the Quality Inn, we were excited to see the other teams and enjoy some drinks at Gipper's Lounge. Sadly, we just made it in time for last call, and all of the other teams had been gone for hours. We ordered the strongest drinks we could think of, and left to prepare for the Sticker Day in just a few hours.

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2008 One Lap of America Sticker Day

02 May 2008 23:05

Today was a very busy day for One Lappers. Friday, as we call it, is Sticker Day. It is the day when we receive all of the event stickers (current One Lap of America door decals and numbers) and the event sponsor stickers. it is also the day when we sign additional papers and bring our beastly machines through a long line for technical inspection.

Our day began with a surprise break in the windshield of CopMagnet II. We heard a lot of things along the road, and we heard a few loud bangs, but we did not know that one of them caused an eight inch star break in the windshield. Apparently, somewhere between Topeka, Kansas and South Bend, Indiana, we picked up a Gremlin in the machine.

We moved on and decided that since we had a few minutes, we should wash the 700 plus miles of road grime off the Corvette before we covered it in more stickers. While we were soaping and scrubbing the car, we met with another Gremlin in the car wash machine. In just an instance, the water Stopped! While the paint was suffering from soap drying quickly, Steve ran to find somebody at Water Works Car Wash (in South Bend Indiana) to fix the problem. All the while, Mark is frustrated about the brand new eighty thousand dollar paint job roasting under those drying bubbles.

They finally got the water back on and we made it to The Tire Rack where we discussed our anxiety over whether we would pass technical inspection with a broken windshield. With advice and assistance from our sponsor, Ron Butler of Butler Collision and Damage in Merriam, Kansas, we made efforts to have the windshield replaced with a deadline of only a few short hours.

We passed tech with the broken windshield, and it was not mentioned. Perhaps the wet weather helped to hide it. While preparing to drive through the inspection tent, the windshield wipers were carefully avoided. :-)

The day moved on and we took many great photos and visited with new and old friends. The cars here are truly amazing! Loren from Organic Racing brought an all new car. He is still finishing his hand-built Ultralight, which will boast an unbelievable power-to-weight ratio. The car has 337 horsepower and weighs 1500 lbs! he said that he completed seven back-to-back skidpad tests at 1.7G. He described it by saying that "it felt like it was going to suck my eyeballs out of the side of my head". This is the same guy YourNew.com Racing tied with up to the last event (dry skidpad) in the 2007 Cannonball One Lap of America.

There is a 1950-something Plymouth Rat Rod with clearcoat over carefully crafted rust. It has a supercharged LS1 V8 and coilover suspension. You simply must see it to believe it. It is perhaps the coolest car in the 2008 One Lap of America.

The Mongoose Racing team has some incredible drivers and awesome cars. Danny Popp is a hugely strong competitor and perhaps the most favored to de-throne the four-time One Lap of America (the LAST four) winner, Mark DaVia. The Mongoose is so small and Danny Popp's co-driver, Jeremy Hertzberg is so tall that he actually has to remove the seat and sit on the floor to drive! We can only imagine what he will feel like after thousands of miles driving while sitting on the floor of a Mongoose. We recommend that he stay away from acidic foods and bring a lot of Preparation H!

The competition will be strong tomorrow at Road America, but if it rains, we can conservatively expect Honda Manufacturing to have a win in a race-built Honda Oddesy. It sounds funny to some, a race-built minivan, but it is here, and it is very fast.

Photos are coming soon. We are planning to allocate much time to compiling our photos and recorded video on our road trips tomorrow from South Bend, Indiana to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (Road America) and from Elkhart Lake to Pacific Junction, Iowa where we will be at grid to compete at Mid-America Motorplex at eight the following morning.

More to come soon ... laptop beeping for batteries!

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Skidpad Shootout at The Tire Rack Test Track

03 May 2008 02:05

I hope that the car will race as well tomorrow as the driver's mind is tonight.

We are well prepared to shoot it out on the wet skidpad at The Tire Rack test track in a few hours (minus sleep).

If you do not watch it live, be sure to see our archives!

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Skidpad Shootout Results (wet)

03 May 2008 09:30

Mark met his nemesis yet again, and improved slightly upon his 2007 One Lap of America standing of 60th place. The results were bleak, with a 58th place finish at 0.738 G (wet). Although this is bad, the team will surely overcome this poor ranking in the upcoming road course events.

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Road America 7th Place Finish

03 May 2008 17:30

Road America was quite interesting. Mark met the pea-gravel pit on the outside of Canada Corner on a recon lap. Fortunately it was just a recon lap and did not count. Early into the second hot lap, the guys in the 2009 Dodge Challenger placed their car on top of the wall at turn one, which caused a full-course black flag and a re-start.

After the re-start, Mark turned up the heat on the competition with a 7th place finish with a total time for all three laps of 8:18.026 (first lap is a standing start). It is starting to look like YourNew.com Racing is the dark horse for 2008 One Lap of America.

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Long Drive to Pacific Junction, Iowa

04 May 2008 15:30

The drive to Mid-America Motorplex in Pacific Junction, Iowa ended in disappointment when we found that there were no available hotel rooms for hours around, due to a huge conference in town. We went directly to the track to sleep in the Corvette, but were offered the training room floor. We took the floor and Steve slept in a rug and Mark wrapped himself up in a rain tarp and used Steve's gym bag for a pillow.

With less than two hours of sleep and mush for brains, Mark took the grid for to show these guys the true meaning of FAST at Mid-America Motorplex!

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Mid-America Motorplex 6th and 4th Place Finishes

04 May 2008 16:30

Mark came to the pits with a heavy heart and tears in his eyes. There was a terrible feeling that he left something on the track and did not give it all that he had. The line was conservative and there was a whole lot more room on the exits that must have cost us precious time.

SURPRISE! Mark took a 6th place finish in the first time trial followed up by a 4th place finish in the afternoon! The lap times for the three laps totaled 5:10.497 and 5:07.781, respectively (first lap is a standing start).

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WIBW-TV in Topeka Kansas

04 May 2008 16:40

We took a detour on our long road to Texas World Speedway and Mark interviewed with good friend JB Bauersfeld of WIBW-TV, Topeka, Kansas.

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The Characters of One Lap of America

04 May 2008 23:20

One Lap of America attracts some truly amazing people. The people are the most incredible part of the event. Here is just a bit of what we see along the long road which is One Lap of America.

The Mongoose team are great fun to hang out with. Jeremy Herzberg and Danny Popp are hilarious guys and awesome drivers. Here is a short clip of Jeremy Herzberg getting out of a Mongoose. Note that Jeremy is 6 ft 7 inches, whereas the car is 3 ft 3 inches.

Here is just a little more craziness from the Mongoose team. Jeremy Herzberg dribbles a car. he actually bounces the car 4-6 inches off the ground!

Texas World Speedway 56th and 24th Place Finishes (wet)

05 May 2008 15:40

Texas World Speedway was a mess! It rained so hard that many One Lappers only hoped to get through it without getting hurt. During the first session, the rain was pouring into the car directly onto our Webcasting equipment. We had to move the equipment and relocate it to the center of the car, but not before having to disassemble it and put it on the dashboard for the defroster to dry the circuit boards. This distraction only added to the fright of turn four, where even the very first car on track, driven by Chris Winkler, slid off track. It was a really messy time, and many cars slid off track. The first run looked like Mark was driving in the grocery store parking lot. This resulted in a 56th place finish and total lap time for all three laps of 8:56.568

Due to serious concerns for safety and time constraints, the event coordinators decided that we would run a shorter course, eliminating the dreaded turn four. After reviewing the miserable loss of points from the first time trials, Mark decided to make a stronger effort and remove all fear from his mind. The second session resulted in a 24th place finish with a total for all three laps of 5:03.430

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Lonestar Motorsports Park Cancellation

05 May 2008 15:40

The drag races at Lonestar were cancelled due to weather. There is a possibility of make-up runs at No-Problem Raceway.

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No Problem Raceway 13th, 11th, and 21st Place Finishes

06 May 2008 16:40

No Problem Raceway was no problem at all for this team, except for the drag races. We succeeded in taking a tidy 13th place finish with three-lap total time of 4:18.450 in the first road course event, followed by an amazing run and 11th place finish with a three-lap total time of 4:14.208 in the second road course event. The second run included a lap timed at 1:14 which is a second off the standing track record of 1:13 in a GT3 car. That is pretty awesome for a stock Corvette Z06 on street tires! The only reason we did not place at the very top was an unfortunate off-track excursion that robbed us of time.

Low E.T. drag racing was the third event at No Problem Raceway. Unfortunately, we were truly under-powered for drag racing. It sounds funny that a 505 horsepower 2008 Corvette Z06 is under-powered, but in the class of cars brought to One Lap of America, we were underdogs. Drag races are hard on cars, so we completed the drag races conservatively, in order to avoid breaking a drive shaft or over-cooking something. We ran a 0:13.121 quarter mile which gave us a 21st place finish. If you ask Mark, he will tell you that drag races are just for guys dressed in ladies clothing ... he thinks the best way to win a drag race is to throw your bra out the window and land it in front of the other driver. We did not have a dress or lipstick packed in our gear.

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Carolina Motorsports Park 8th and 10th Place Finishes

07 May 2008 15:30

Since we did not arrive in Kershaw South Carolina until about 5:30am, we decided to go directly to the track where we slept in the car for just a wink. Mark rushed to take a shower at the track, when he heard his call to grid while still undressed.

Mark nearly fell asleep at the grid, and the gridmaster asked "are you alright?" To say the least, this was an uphill challenge. We pulled it off with an 8th place finish and combined lap times for all three laps of 5:29.027 on the short course followed by a 10th place finish with combined lap times of 5:23.481 on the long course. We probably lost a place or two as Mark was fixing the Webcast camera through turns three and four after it fell down due to the vibration caused by the turn two curbing.

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BMW Performance Center 12th (or 30th) Place Finish

07 May 2008 18:30

This event has made the team question whether the event coordinators really know how to run a proper race or not. The run was fast and clean, with a combined lap time of 2:48.608, which would secure a 12th place finish. However, since Brock Yates apparently never actually read anything about cone placement or scoring, he decided that he could put a penalty on drivers for hitting a cone BEFORE the start of the race. Yes, you read that right. We were penalized for hitting a cone on the recon lap, before the time-trial even started. It was a nasty ten second penalty, which would drop us from a nice 12th place finish to an ugly 30th place finish. Many of the racers were very upset by this action, and some have said that they would not plan to return.

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Virginia International Raceway 53rd, 51st, and 15th Place Finishes (wet)

08 May 2008 16:45

It was another rainy event at VIR, but more so for the frontrunners than the rest of the pack. This would be a day when the leaders would fall and the followers would catch up, because of the weather. Each of the leaders showed a significant loss of position following the first and second events, and it was clearly a matter of racing luck. We were running 7th position at grid (because of our qualifying at Road America) and ran during the wettest part of the day. The track dried out a lot for other groups, but for the first few groups, there were many off-track excursions, including second placed driver Chris Winkler, seventh place driver Danny Popp, and, of course, Mark Murnahan in the CopMagnet II 2008 Corvette Z06. Fortunately, the off-track portion of the event was during our recon lap. Nevertheless, we finished poorly on an extremely slick Virginia International North Track. This event brought us to our knees with a 53rd place finish and combined lap time of 4:44.604.

The second event was on the VIR South Course, and was not much better. However, it was a much more exciting portion of the park. We had a 51st place finish with combined lap time of 5:59.589.

In the afternoon, we raced the full course at Virginia International Raceway, with a significant improvement. The track was dry, and we were ready to set things straight with the guys who lucked out with a dry surface due to their starting placement. Our team earned a 15th place finish on the full course, with combined lap time of 6:52.381. The dry afternoon provided a much more enjoyable time, and a great learning experience.

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BeaveRun 22nd and 8th Place Finishes

09 May 2008 14:45

We were honored by the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Gerber (Steve's parents) at BeaveRun. It was a great pleasure to show them around and introduce them to racing. We think they really had a good time, and as any racer knows, it feels really good to have support at the track.

BeaveRun feels like a really small course after competing at Virginia International Raceway full course, but it can be tricky. Like any track, it requires that you exit each turn in a way that will set you up for the next turn. On the first lap, it is easy to read a track wrong. Mark had an on-track spin and a slow re-start of the car, which cost precious time. We were lucky to get rolling again quickly and capture a 22nd place finish at a combined time of 3:32.509 with a full 360 degree spin. The second event was even stronger, and earned us an 8th place finish and 3:16.866 combined lap time.

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Brock Yates Live on CopMagnet.com Webcast

09 May 2008 15:45

During our stop for dinner and media event at Design Engineering Inc. (DEI), we caught up with Brock Yates Sr. to have him say "Hi" to our CopMagnet.com Webcast viewers. This is the originator of the Cannonball Run, and legendary author of Cannonball Run, Smokey and The Bandit II, and many books and publications including many years with Car and Driver. Brock is truly an automotive and racing industry legend. Brock Yates is also a very kind and friendly man.

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Tire Rack Test Track Skidpad

10 May 2008 13:45

As the final event of 2008 Cannonball One Lap of America, we needed a good finish in the dry skidpad. During this event, Danny Popp raised the bar with a 1.095G run, beating the all-time track record that he previously set. This is what many people would say is impossible to do with street tires, even for the highest level of driver. Danny Corcoran impressed us all with a would-be record breaker of 1.086G. These are huge numbers, and far from reality in the 2008 Corvette Z06 without huge modifications, race tires, and a nice coat of VHT on the course. We finished the event very impressively with a 1.018G run which gave us a 9th place finish.

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Current Standings and Other Updates

We are proud to announce that our position in One Lap of America is improving.

We will provide a lot of updates and great stories soon, but we just had to report this information now. :-)

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CopMagnet.com is brought to you by Mark Murnahan and YourNew.com, Inc.
You may reach Mark Murnahan toll free at 866-A-Web-Guy (866-293-2489).