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PRE-RACE, June 23
With sightseeing over with, Thursday was
'prep' day. First order of business was registration, with
the requisite waivers and liability issues as found in
any race. We applied our race numbers then went off to
tech inspection, which the Land Rover passed easily.
The next phase was the addition of sponsorship
decals. Looking more like a NASCAR stocker every minute,
the photo shows John Williamson attaching decals. Sponsor
placement is according to the cash spent, so the locations
are specific and consistent from car to car. For the most
part, we are actually using these products. We have an
Interstate battery (provided free of 'charge', so to speak),
we now have Coker tires (more on that below), we advertise
in Hemmings, and Land Rover is now owned by Ford. Additional
decals include the Army National Guard (main event sponsor),
Geico, and a few more not shown. There are patches of light
green paint still visible in places.
We met the owner of Hemmings, Jim Menneto,
a very nice fellow who liked the Land Rover a lot (not
that those two are related in any way). Hemmings is getting
back into the race after a long absence, and Jim has owned
it 3 years now since its founder passed away.
Wed hooked up with Coker's semi this afternoon,
and they had our tires on board. The consensus was that
the Dunlop T28 Trackedge tires, original to the Land Rover,
we not designed for long periods of use on some surfaces,
such as asphalt. They are lousy off road tires as well,
much happier digging holes than anything else. So, we chose
poorly, and we're smarter as a result. We know that tire
selection makes all the difference, so we went with a
6.00 x 16 light truck highway tire, bias ply as per the
rules. This one has a narrow tread and is shorter in diameter,
but is silent in operation (which helps a lot: the directional
T28's were noisy) and will grip wet pavement a lot better.
New tires change the speedo calibration,
so we went out this evening and ran the 7 mile speedo calibration
3 times. We made the correction, and we're ready to race
tomorrow.
The 'Trophy Run' is a one day 'tune-up'
race, run for awards but primarily to make sure everything
is working correctly before the big race start on Saturday.
We're told the course is tough, which makes it hard to
know if our speedo is set right; the errors may be in maneuvers
as opposed to the instrument. Anyway, we go tomorrow
morning at about 9:30 AM, and we'll see if the Landie
can pull some competitive numbers.
Steve
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