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                                        One Lap Of America

The Pittsburgh team of Paul Pigman and Scott Schober is driving a 1993 Porsche 911 RS America in the 4,100-mile One Lap of America, one of the most demanding endurance races in the country and inspiration of the film, Cannonball Run. Here is the latest report of their adventures.

By Paul Pigman

Day 4 ends:

Both Scott and I had a good track day at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, SC. This is a place I would come back too. 157 mile drive to the BMW performance center in Greer, NC. I must admit we are getting a little punchy and our backs are getting sore. 

The BMW folks set up a rally course on their test track. They invited the public and their employees to watch us run the course, so we had a crowd. It was cool to see all the latest greatest vehicles from BMW in one place.   

Another 253 miles to Danville Virginia and the VIRginia International Raceway.

Day 5 (Thursday):

VIR is truly the country club of tracks. There is a beautiful lodge and spa on site and three separate track configurations. We ran all three and had a blast. 

Now we are now heading 481 miles to BeaveRun Motorsports near Ellwood City, north of Pittsburgh. Since we are close to home, we are going to be able to sleep in our own beds. Yee Ha.   

A couple of thoughts on road travel so far: 

• The left lane in Texas is reserved for slow drivers.
• Kansas has the smoothest highways. 
• On that note, we agreed never to complain about PA highways again. Compared to the rest of the country, other than Kansas, our roads are pretty good. 
• Alligators can be road kill in Louisiana.   
• The best road snack is Red Bull and beef jerky. 
• Always bring a paper road map for back up. 
• Some of the most distressing times enroute were when the two GPS systems we had decided to choose different ways to our destination and one indicated an arrival time one hour shorter than the other.
• A word of advice: Make sure you can disable the announcer voice on the GPS. Nothing scares you more than on a long run when you are  in the zone, your driving partner is asleep and a load friendly voice interrupts with "if possible make a safe U turn".

Day 6 (Friday):

The ride from VIR to Pittsburgh was uneventful and we ripped off 481 miles no sweat.

We were able to sleep in our own beds. Being on the road for 5 days you develop a routine of drive, gas up, (both fuel and food) drive some more, then crash (sleep) hard, wake up in a few hours, drive to a track, race and start the process all over again. A stop at home was a welcome interruption to the marathon routine.

Scott was able to take his son to school in the One Lap car (very cool for a 13-year-old) before he picked me up to make the start of the BeaveRun event. BeaveRun is our home track, so we did well. Thanks to those who came up to cheer us on.

We headed to Avon Lake, Ohio for a media event. More rock star stuff. We are now on our way back to where we started in South Bend. 110 miles to go.