I just finished up competing in the Big Bend Open Road Race.

www.bborr.com (http://www.bborr.com/)

It's held in West Texas, on a 60 mile stretch of highway. They close the road off for the day, and you get to race on it. Everyone races up, eats lunch, then turns around and races back.

You can either try to hit a target average speed (from 85mph to 150mph) or run the unlimited, where you just drive as fast as you can.

I entered the 130mph target class, which meant that I was trying to average 130mph over the entire 118 mile course. Because I was in a convertible, I was only allowed to drive a maximum of 168mph.

Highly recommended. With 60 turns on each leg, elevation changes, blind crests and blind corners, and long Texas straights for high speed cruising, it was a blast. There was also two days of practice and qualifying, parties, barbeques, a car show, etc. Not a bad way to spend some time if you enjoy cars.

Some video:

5 minutes of in car footage:

www.larsonweb.com/car/BigBend.rm (http://www.larsonweb.com/car/BigBend.rm)

Some footage from the qualifying rounds and the car show:

www.larsonweb.com/car/BigBendshow.rm (http://www.larsonweb.com/car/BigBendshow.rm)


(video is in realplayer format. Right click link and save as to download)

Damn dude, nicely done. Looks like a boatload of fun.

A fellow SCF member and I had a plan to do a similar race up in New Foundland but the 10 grand entry fee was more than either was willing to spend, or had.

Anyways, two questions:
1-What was your average speed?
2-Was it tough readjusting to using all of the lanes instead of just the right side of the road?

Damn dude, nicely done. Looks like a boatload of fun.

A fellow SCF member and I had a plan to do a similar race up in New Foundland but the 10 grand entry fee was more than either was willing to spend, or had.

Anyways, two questions:
1-What was your average speed?
2-Was it tough readjusting to using all of the lanes instead of just the right side of the road?

Average speed was 131mph.

It wasn't too hard to use all the lanes. The difficult part was when I would come up to a blind hill, and not remember which way the road turned over the crest. It was a long course (almost 60 miles each way) so it was difficult to remember the road.

Are you speaking of the Targa Newfoundland? Is it really $10k?

And who was this member?

I think you overshot it a little bit. The entrance fee is around $3,000, but this inculdes everything, like insurance, meals and lodging, plus a couple of parties I think.

It was 3 grand? It seemed more like 10, we needed a fast car dude, and beer money.

BTW, it *was* Mopar.

Nice job ssssnake!

I think you overshot it a little bit.

Yep.

The guys who win typically finish less than a second off their target time.

I finished about 27 seconds too early, which put me 13 out of 14 in my class. :o I really have no chance of winning, as I had no navigator and was only using a cookie timer for keeping track of my time. Plus, I really don't worry too much about my time. My goals are to not wreck my car and not finish too slow. I just go because it gives me a chance to drive fast.

I'm headed to a similar event in Nebraska this August (Sandhills Open Road Challenge.) Should be fun. The road race is a bit shorter than the Texas race I just got back from, but it is a lot more twisty. I think that the unlimited record on the Nebraska course is 132mph average if that gives you some idea of the nature of the road. They also have a standing mile drag race, which they hold the day before the road race. I went to the Nebraska event last year and had a ball.

Coming back home from the race was pretty fun too. The roads in West Texas and New Mexico are pretty empty.
According to MapQuest, it is 958.7 miles from the center of Fort Stockton to my home in Colorado. It took me 10 hours, 44 minutes from the time I left Fort Stockton to the time I pulled into the garage, including a break for lunch, several stops for gas and snacks, and a long slow section between Colorado Springs and Denver dealing with snow and sleet.
No tickets.