I protoured the *bleep* out of Optima COTA (Roadtrip!)

[Chad-1stGen]

I'm still feeling the excitement of the craziness and success that was this past weekend and wanted to share. I debated for way to long if I really wanted to take my car all the way from Southern California to Texas to compete. I love autocross and track days but I loathe long distance driving. However, I began to think about actually driving my 1968 Camaro to compete there and back rather than trying to trailer it and something about adventure of it combined with running my pro-touring car on an F1 track sealed the deal. Now that I'm back home I have a greater appreciation for just how big of an undertaking this event was! Yes I successfully drove my Camaro from SoCal to Austin TX and back while beating on it pretty hard all weekend.

Here are some pics and video of the experience.

Over 100 miles of rain in eastern New Mexico (still about 100* out though)


Chris D in an S197 Mustang met up with me the end of day 1. He was also nuts enough to drive his car the whole way to Optima. We drove the rest of the way to Austin together but drove home separately.


Crossing into Texas


Loving the 80mph speedlimits in Texas.


However, after passing the very first 80mph speed limit sign in TX, Chris and I passed a state trooper with radar gun out and he quickly chased us down. I was panicking about weather I really saw an 80 mph sign or yet another 60 mph sign (the speed all through El Paso). After getting tailed and I'm sure both our plates ran the trooper pulled up alongside me and both cops in the car gave me the thumbs out.

Finally made it to COTA. In the tech line watching the sunrise.


COTA!


Awesome pic Dusty Nixon got of my car on the autocross


After autocross and speedstop I needed to change all 4 brake pads to ones that will handle the heat and abuse of the COTA road course. I waited until dark to do the swap in the Marriot parking lot. Mistake, it was far more humid and zero breeze once the sun set. I sweated more in the one hour brake pad swap than I did all afternoon autocrossing in the sun.


Getting some media love from the Optima guys on Sunday


Here is video of my fastest runs from each of the three driving events.


My wife met me in Austin Friday night and was a HUGE help all weekend. She really made it much easier to bear the sweltering heat all weekend by helping unload and load the car, monitor tire pressures, hold an umbrella to shade me in the staging lanes etc. Plus she drove probably 900 of the 1,400 return miles. She was my MVP for sure.

Collecting the boarder crossings on the way home.






Yeah it was hot along this drive. Thank goodness for air conditioning!