(QQ, Fall 2003) — Procrastination is a good thing, as long as you look at it from the right point of view. It's an ideal way to condition oneself into thinking on ones toes in panic situations-albeit self-induced. If you think about the concept of procrastination in the context of driving on a racetrack, you realize that it applies in nearly every aspect. Late braking, late turn-in, and late apex are all standard practices on the track that are supposed to make good things happen, and they all imply waiting until the last minute to do something. Using that logic, one could argue that it might actually be a competitive advantage to apply the procrastination theory to every day life. That said, it's no surprise that the final hours prior to departing for the 2003 Cannonball One Lap of America were scheduled with a heavy to-do list. I was in the middle of wrapping up final exams, and father Norm had his hands full working with Champagne Motorsports in efforts to get our MTM Hoppen Audi S4 back into shape for the twentieth running of the One Lap. The decision to run this year was made less than four weeks earlier on the final day of the Open Track Challenge in Las Vegas, where we were sitting third in our class, and had a lock on the AWD Cup. The primary reason we were competing in the OTC was the fact that we both had made prior commitments that conflicted with the Cannonball. Fortunately, both of those commitments managed to dissolve which resulted in the following chain of events:

Wednesday-Thursday (4-30 & 5-1) -- The Cleveland Connection

Since the geographical relationship between my father and me tends to be less than convenient, Colorado and Arizona respectively, simply making the rendezvous point is the first logistical challenge that faces us on one of these events. We had successfully negotiated this obstacle on the 2001 Cannonball by meeting in Cleveland so there was no sense in deviating from what worked. I hopped a red-eye Wednesday night, and found my father sneaking a power-nap down in baggage claim, early the following morning. He'd spent the last few days towing the Audi from Colorado, stopping along the way to visit with friends and family. We had a 300 mile drive to the Lodge on the Greens motel in Painted Post, NY, a small town near Watkins Glen International Raceway, and the official One Lap of America headquarters. We arrived that afternoon, unloaded the Audi and began to sort through the contents of the trailer to decide what we thought we should bring along. Though similar events, the Open Track Challenge and One Lap of America have a few key differences-one of which being the use of support vehicles-and the latter does not allow them. The S4 would be our home on wheels for the next week, so a carefully balanced mix of tools, spare parts, and clean underwear were loaded into its tail section.

Friday (5-2) -- Painted Post, NY -- Event Registration
We awoke to a steady drizzle of rain-normally a delight to an Audi pilot-alas, today was only tech inspection. More and more competitors began to show up throughout the day, and the speculation as to who and what would be the pace setters in each class began to grow. The classing structure is fairly open. For example, a team entered in an Audi S4 could be a bone stock 250hp unit, to a 500hp monster with a nitrous system with JATO bottles strapped to the deck lid. The S4 is placed in the Luxury Sedan class (sedans and wagons over $35k) amidst other models from marques such as BMW, Mercedes, and Jaguar. Only Audi and BMW would be playing in the Luxury Sedan class this year with the BMW M5 of Roy Hopkins as the reigning class champion. In the Audi camp, we had the Baron Rene Von Richthofen in his 2000 S4, and Trevor Frank in a 1993 S4.

We knew Rene from previous events and caught up with him and his co-driver John Wyllie early that morning. He was introducing his newfound partner to the glory and mystique of the Cannonball by having him apply the event sponsor decals to the car in the pouring rain. All this while Rene supervised the entire process from the shelter of his motel room doorway-barking commands to John in a thick, German accent. "Noo… not zat one dare, poot zee ozer one dare! Oh look… eet's cwooked!" Rene really is a nice guy, but he does require a certain amount of effort, understanding, and a demented sense of humor. No co-driver has ever returned for a second round with the Baron.

Later that afternoon, the skies finally cleared up. We were able to complete the prep-work on our car, and sailed through tech inspection without incident. We got back together with Rene and John and went into town for dinner. The four of us had a great time BS'ing over a few drinks and good food, and we came to know John and Rene as good friends. All in all, a stellar evening.

Saturday (5-3) -- Watkins Glen International Raceway -- Watkins Glen, NY
No rain this morning but it was windy and cold, and the skies were threatening. We made the short 35 mile hop over to Watkins Glen about 7am to find the garages open and filling up fast. We managed to grab one of the last spots, and unloaded the car. Pops would be handling the driving today, as he's had much more seat time on this particular circuit.

After setting the tire pressure and a few minor adjustments on the Shade Tree PDA I began to check out the competition. There was a Dinan turbocharged BMW 540 that looked like it could be tough, an older M5, and of course the Hopkins M5 that dominated the class last year. The Baron could also be a problem, however the S4 of Trevor and Christopher Frank had not shown up yet.

Pops took his place on the grid, and the waiting began. The event officials sent the first run group out on the track, shortly before nine am and the fastest of the fast go first. Normally, the cars are sent out from pit lane, in groups of seven, at about fifteen second intervals. That group of cars takes one practice lap, and comes to a stop in single file at the start/finish line. Each car in the group then takes a green flag standing start (about 15 seconds apart), and runs as fast as they dare until they take the checkered flag-usually three to four laps. Once the checkers fly, a cool down lap followed by pit lane exit and the whole thing starts all over again.

Roy Hopkins had earned a spot in one of the first run groups with his performance last year. We both watched in horror as he piloted his M5 around the track passing two Corvette Z06's inside of three laps. That HAS GOT to be difficult for a Corvette driver to swallow! We both agreed that we were going to keep our cool, aim for second place, and see if attrition was on our side. Many things can happen on the Cannonball and if there was a Corvette Lynch Mob out there somewhere we had a pretty good idea as to who they'd be looking for. Dad turned in a couple of solid runs on the day to give us second place in class, and twenty fifth overall-right where we hoped we'd be.

Putting the procrastination theory to the ultimate test, Trevor and Christopher Frank finally showed up mid-morning in their 1993 S4. They'd drove the car in from California, slapped on event sponsor decals right over the top of the dead bugs, and passed tech inspection in time to make their first run. Rene took third in Luxury Sedan in the morning, and Trevor took third in the afternoon.

Sunday (5-4) -- Indianapolis Raceway Park -- Indianapolis, IN
We rolled into IRP feeling pretty good. The weather was nice and cool, and we were able to clock about three hours of sleep the night before and a shower. I was to drive today, so my stomach was in knots. Rene was kind enough to point out all the concrete barriers around the course. "Looook et all zees cement volls", he said. "You muzt dwive vewy zlowly zo you do not heet zem untz veck yo fahzers cah". The man has no shame. I took my spot on the grid and put down what felt to be a fairly clean set of laps. Translated: I deed not veck zee cah!

At lunch, the times were posted for the first of the two sessions for the day. Much to our surprise, we finished tenth overall and first in class beating out the M5 by a little over a second. Suddenly, the one-day-old plan of playing it smart and letting victory come to us had swung too far over to the conservative side. We might just have a good battle on our hands!

On the second session, I was only able to improve by three seconds total, and dropped to twelfth overall. The M5 trimmed eight seconds and grabbed tenth-sort of brought us back into the earth's atmosphere, but there was a new attitude in the Audi camp. On to Road America!

Monday (5-5) - Road America -- Elkhart Lake, WI
It had rained most of night on the way up to Elkhart Lake, and showed no signs of letting up the following morning. We probably should have been doing back flips over the weather conditions, but the overwhelming reality of the situation left us both a bit apprehensive. Road America is very long, very fast, and was completely foreign to us both. That, coupled with the rainy conditions and the thick layer of pea-soup fog that blanketed the last half of the front straight was more than a little unnerving, AWD or not.

That morning at the drivers meeting, the Cannonball officials announced a few changes to the normal format, due to the weather conditions. Rather than run one three lap session in the morning, and one in the afternoon they would put all the cars on the track at once, and run a four lap familiarization session behind the pace car. Then we'd run a four lap competitive session to finish the day. That would get us on the road sooner, a good thing considering the 900 mile journey that lay ahead of us that evening. The next concern was that of the "kink" a very fast, dangerous turn at the back of the course. The officials decided to mark a section just before the kink, and have each car do a stop-n-go on every lap. The format changes made in the name of safety didn't seem to bother anyone, and there were no casualties at the kink. Some of the other corners on the racetrack however, were not so forgiving.

Dad had the driving duties today, and I was thankful for that. Taking shelter near turn 6, I watched several big horsepower cars as they tip-toed around the circuit. Pops turned in an epic performance, taking 11th overall and 1st in class. The Baron also ran a quick set of laps picking up 14th overall and 2nd in class. Only one other car in the Luxury Sedan class managed to complete the session-and it wasn't the Hopkins M5. He ended up buried in the kitty litter on his final lap resulting in a DNF for him, and the class lead for us.

Tuesday (5-6) - Hallet Motor Racing Circuit / Tulsa Speedway -- Tulsa, OK
We hit Tulsa, OK at around 3:30am, and we figured we'd have more sleep time if we just went directly to the track and slept in the car. A couple hours later, we woke to the business end of a movie camera peering through the windshield. There was a film crew following the One Lap competitors all over the map, gathering documentary footage for an upcoming piece on TNN. I guess we were chosen to do the drool and snore scene-super!

Today would be a warm one. We were definitely not in Wisconsin anymore. The folks in charge of the track were very friendly and mowed a sign in the weeds that said "WELCOME ONE LAPPERS." The course turned out to be a treat as well, with some nice elevation changes and plenty of run-off room in most areas. As I've alluded previously, I'm not big on concrete barriers. We snatched tenth overall in the morning session, but the M5 finished ninth overall by less than a second. By the afternoon session, the track was getting greasy from the heat. The quattro is absolute magic in those conditions-we chalked up an eighth place finish, and stuck one more pin into our Bavarian voodoo doll.

The final event of the day took place at Tulsa Speedway, a 3.8 mile dirt oval about 45 minutes from Hallet. Thanks to this particular venue, there's a handful of people in this country that can honestly say that they've seen a Lamborghini Diablo, letting it all hang out on a dirt track. The point spread between first and second in Luxury Sedan grew even larger, after Roy looped his M5 in turns 3 and 4. That left us with some breathing room, and neither of us had ever been on a dirt oval. We decided not to push it, and managed to take second in class. Rene turned out to be a regular dirt track demon in his S4, topping the Luxury Sedan class, and taking tenth overall.

Wednesday (5-7) - Memphis Motorsports Park -- Memphis, TN
Days like today are usually scheduled to happen on Mondays. Sometimes however, there's a disturbance in "the force" or the planets aren't aligned quite right and you're handed a Monday on a Wednesday. The brutality started early, as the sleep deprivation had caught up to us both at the same time about an hour shy of Memphis. A brief power-nap along the side of the road granted us enough life to hammer out the last few miles, but it wasn't pretty.

We hit the motel sheets around one am. Fifteen minutes later the telephone exploded with a wake-up call that even Elvis must have heard. The clock was sporting a big "5:45" on its face. How does that happen? I opened the curtains to reveal a very soggy situation outside. Pops had run the Memphis course before so he was elected the driving duties for the day. "Aw," he muttered, as he caught a glimpse out the window. We had a fairly comfortable lead, and our strategy had become much more concentrated on defending it. In addition, the rain makes for a miserable day in the pits so neither of us was terribly thrilled. We arrived at the track to find there was no shelter from the downpour. As luck would have it, the rain stopped shortly after we unloaded. Then the sun came out with a vengeance and began to suck all the moisture from the ground. It was like… raining backwards!

The car had developed a problem with the shifter at Hallet. I had tried to play with the alignment adjusters, but didn't have much luck. We'd been logging "random misfire" fault codes since Road America, but they hadn't been noticeable on the road or the track until today. The car wasn't happy, the heat and humidity were ridiculous, and the track and its facilities weren't very impressive. We soldiered through the day and managed to finish reasonably well, all things considered. Suffice to say, neither of us had any fond memories of Memphis. Sorry Elvis.

Thursday (5-8) - Carolina Motorsports Park -- Kershaw, SC
Mike Hoppen called us on the road about an hour out of Memphis to see how things were going. We told him of our woes and he offered up some adjustment tips that we could apply with the PDA while we drove. During a fuel stop, I spent a little more time adjusting the shifter. It was still finicky going into first, second, and reverse but the appropriate ritual of shaking and wobbling would finally land it home. There were no rooms to be had when we finally hit Kershaw, SC so we motored on over to the track and zonked out in the car.

We woke up later that morning to see what a nice little camping spot we had. I guess it pays to get to the track early. We unloaded, gassed up, set the tire pressure, and crossed our fingers. On the morning session, we managed to take twelfth while the M5 took tenth. But the afternoon heat did its number on the track and turned the advantage our way. We took 9th in the second session to the M5's eleventh. The car seemed to be holding up okay. It sputtered a bit after each session, but worked beautifully on the track. Our lead in Luxury Sedan looked to be pretty safe but we were sitting twelfth overall and were hoping to break the top ten. We had one more day to make it happen.

Unfortunately, the Audi S4 of Trevor and Christopher Frank had to retire from the event after the first session due to a mechanical failure. They had been running very strong, and pulled sixth in class despite missing the last day.

Friday (5-9) - BeaveRun -- Koppel, PA
It was about 2am, the car was missing badly again, we were both tired and stinky, and I must have missed the exit we needed to get us off I-79, and onto I-76 at least four times. We finally arrived at a motel, showered several states worth of mung off the anatomy, and slept in actual beds-if only for a few hours. Later that morning, we awoke to more rain. Oh joy!

BeaveRun is a new facility located just a few miles north of Pittsburgh, PA. When we got to the track, we learned that the truck with the racing fuel had arrived but they'd forgotten to bring the pump. We decided to just run 93-octane, and leave the car on the street settings. The schedule for the day was to run two sessions on the go-kart track, and one on the road course. We then had to make it back to Painted Post, NY by ten pm that evening for the official "finish".

The rain finally let up later in the morning. We managed to be the fastest Luxury Sedan on all three sessions, and were now faced with the longest 300 miles of the week. Larry Koerner from Champagne Motorsports called to tell us that we'd broken into the top ten overall and confirmed our class win-assuming we could make it back to Painted Post, NY. Dad was fairly optimistic, or at least he pretended to be. I was an absolute wreck-the cars misfiring just kept getting progressively worse with each mile. By the time we rolled into the motel parking lot it sounded like an asthmatic V-twin. It did however, get us to the finish and even managed to limp into the trailer under its own power.

That evening, we enjoyed a celebratory meal with Rene and John. They managed to bring their S4 home albeit just off the class podium in fourth place. Just finishing an event like One Lap is a victory in itself-but no matter how you do, finish or not-when it's all over, you're left with one thought: NEXT YEAR!