Updating the OPTIMA Batteries OneLapCamaro for 2011 - Getting Down to Business

[James OLC]

Well it’s time to start getting the OPTIMA Batteries OneLapCamaro up to speed for this years Tire Rack One Lap of America which promises to make last years adventure look like a bit of walk in the park. This year we’re doing the same mileage as last year (around 3,600) but we have one less day to do it – that makes for a couple of 500 plus mile days and one awful looking 700 mile transit stage (yech). Fortunately the OLC Team is coming back stronger this year and now we actually have a clue what’s in front of us.

For 2011 Fast Mary Pozzi is joining me as co-driver for race and OPTIMA Batteries is once again sponsoring our efforts. We also have support coming from Hellwig Products and FM3 Performance Marketing who helped us last year as well as new sponsors Baer Brakes and RideTech who are letting us torture test some of their cool new products. This year we’ll also benefit from have a second car running as part of Team OPTIMA – Jimi Day and Steve Kepler will be running the race with us in Steve’s tried and true Z06. Steve has beat on this car as much as I have seen anyone beat on anything so I am sure that he and Jimi will have a blast in the uber-competitive “big bore” class.

For the most part the OLC held up pretty well in last years race – we killed a set of brake pads, cracked some rotors, destroyed some axle seals and obliterated a clutch on the last day of the race but came away in pretty decent shape. Nonetheless, we saw the need for some improvements to defend our title and set about scoping some new bits that should make us a bit more consistent and hopefully more competitive.

We’re working with RideTech to evaluate and dial in their new TA3 Triple Adjustable shocks. RideTech has really stepped up to the plate over the last two years and is making some top-notch Pro-Touring pieces in addition to their Air Ride systems. Last year they released their non-adjustable and single adjustable coil over shocks and at SEMA they debuted their Triple Adjustable offerings. For this year’s One Lap of America we’ll be heading out with one of the first sets of TA3’s and putting them through their paces.

At SEMA last fall Baer Brakes rolled out their new Baer Tracker Full Floating Axle Conversion kit and we were immediately sold. Designed to eliminate axle deflection the Baer Tracker is a huge step in eliminating pad knock back and providing a more stabile, predictable brake response. In addition to the Baer Tracker we’re stepping up to a new set of 6R Monoblock Competition Calipers, which should give us an absolutely incredible brake setup.

We’ve been working with Blake and the guys at SpeedTech for a while now and last month they came up with a solution to adapt the new SKF ZR1 hubs to the ATS spindles so we’ve got a pair of those on the way now. The stock hubs are great but one of our stops this year are the high banks of Daytona and a bit of overkill won’t hurt up front.

We’re also working with Rick’s Stainless on one of their VaporWorx tanks. This will be a huge confidence booster for us since we saw more than one competitor fail last year due to fuel issues. It will also help in the Silver State where fuel consumption is less than optimal. For reference, in the One Lap of America last year we averaged something like 28 mpg on the highway and 2.8 mpg on the track – knowing that you’ve got a bulletproof setup will be a huge improvement for us.

In addition to that we’ve got some more tricks up our sleeves that we’ll share over the next couple of months. New wheels are in the works, necessitated by our tire choice for this year’s event and we’re hoping to have some new aero tricks at our disposal (time permitting) that look like a huge step forward over where we are today. We also need to figure out something for a stereo (to avoid the whole “humming thing” this year) – hopefully we can find someone we trust to do what should be a pretty basic install.