So, I would take it easy on leg 1, which for me was a 2-hour drive to Indianapolis International Airport to pick up my co-driver, Chris. Chris and I had done Tire Rack One Lap of America before in 2001, 2004, 2006, and 2007, always in various MR2s that he owned. One of those years we were supposed to use my 91 turbo MR2, but it wasn’t properly sorted in time. Sometime between Dec 2014 when I bought the Fiesta ST and early 2016, I started thinking about One Lap again, and started thinking about taking the Fiesta. I was getting Grassroots Motorsports magazine and I noticed there had not been any Econo car entries in 2015. In 2016 again there were no Econo cars. My memory said that this class usually had a few cars in it, normally including one giant-killer…some sort of creation that started as an economy car but had been swapped/pressurized/lightened to the point where it could be a top-20 contender. I floated the idea with Chris and he seemed skeptical at first…he was up for another One Lap, but in a Fiesta? I told him it was fun to drive, still under the warranty, and hey, we might even win the class if no one else entered. He flew in and we shared the car for an SCCA Track Night in America event at Putnam Park during the summer of 2016…he agreed we would take the Fiesta ST in 2017!
On the way to IND, driving carefully at 60 mph in the 70 zone because of the heavy rain, leaving behind my wife and kids in Cincy for a whole week, I was already getting a little glum and homesick! I was wondering why I was driving off in this weather to rack up close to 4000 miles on my daily driver on tires totally unsuitable for the current weather. Somewhere before Indy, though, I was passed by two sticker-covered Toyotas from Kentucky and my excitement spiked. As they drew alongside I saw the One Lap stickers on their doors, and gave them a quick wave. At that point I only had the Full Throttle Indoor Karting sticker on my back door, but they knew that spotting a Fiesta ST towing a track day trailer northwest in heavy rain on a Friday morning in Indiana was no coincidence…a few of the passengers were checking out my little rig with some curiosity. Anyhow, my mood immediately brightened and I knew I was going to meet a bunch of interesting people driving a wide variety of cars, and I would quickly forget all about work and being homesick as I entered the 1-week long alternate reality that is One Lap of America.
Chris arrived on time to IND, but we only had 3 hours before the Driver’s Meeting at the hotel in South Bend, so we got on the road and got moving. Thankfully, the rain tapered off and stopped as we got north of Indy, the temp came up a little closer to 45 or 50F, and the car was feeling much better on the road.
Despite averaging only about 60 mph on the summer tires in the heavy rain, the little Fiesta, which normally delivers 29 mpg around town on my commute to work, was now showing 21 mpg. The trailer and a strong headwind were taking a toll!
When we pulled into the parking lot of the Waterford Estates Lodge, I was not disappointed. Lined up next to each other in this random hotel parking lot in South Bend, IN was easily a couple million dollars’ worth of machinery of all shapes and sizes. Just thinking about the time that went into preparing the cars/trailers/machines parked in that lot, let alone the dollars, was pretty staggering.
We checked in, then stickered up for tech, which was basically a sticker inspection.
We still needed to get some dinner and Chris was familiar with South Bend from some work trips, so we headed out on the town, sans trailer. I had a giant burger at the Oaken Bucket, then we checked out the downtown area. By coincidence there was a big Studebaker reunion going on in South Bend that weekend - there were hundreds of cars to check out, including a bunch of cool pick-ups.
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