2023 BBORR 2.0 has come and gone. It was a great time and I'm having lunch looking out the window at a very bug splattered car.
My usual partner in crime was unavailable this time so I had to break in a new navigator.

The state closes highway 285 between Ft Stockton and Sanderson. Racers line up according to speed class and get sent one at a time for the best and safest chance at running their number over those 59 miles. At the south end we all gather for a picnic and relaxation while the officials turn the equipment around for the race back north.

This time there were 118 cars entered. We signed up for the 120 mph class. That means no slower than 105 and no faster than 140.
Officials delayed the start because there were 8 elk on the road 27 miles in and another 13 elk at 35 miles. The critters were cleared and we lit the fires.

My navigator, despite being the most experienced road course racer I know, was not prepared for the workload. Things happen quickly at 140 mph, especially when blind hills and curves are involved. He struggled with the stopwatches and notes but we made the run down about a second fast. Not too bad but we had some work to do.
The run back starts at a frantic pace but smooths out for a less hair pulling finish. We crossed the line about a second slow.

We knew we were close but had to wait for the banquet to get results.

At the banquet they recognized a few awards before calling the winners by class. When it came time for Rookie of the Year they added up the time errors for the April race and October. With a combined time error of 0.167 seconds the winner was some guy named Kevin driving a 2013 Mercedes CL65.
Wait. That's me!
Awesome!

When they called the 120 mph class we took 2nd place with a time error of 0.020 seconds. We averaged 119.999 mph over 118 miles. A solo driver using a GPS contraption beat us with a superhuman 0.003 second error. Out of 118 cars entered only one other driver bettered our result with a 0.012 error.

In 2 races with 2 different navigators we've earned a 1st place, 2nd place, and Rookie of the Year.

It's been a ton of fun. However, I'd be struggling if it hadn't been for the help I got from Wade Koehl.

Probably easier to clean the bugs off the Benz than to wipe off your grin ?

Congrats on a great job!!!

I would love to run this race but I think I would do it a little differently. I would take the 120 mph class and floor it, the hell with the time. I would come in dead last but I would just love to drive 118 miles at as fast as the car would go

Congrats again on a great accomplishment.

Non mopar luxury car

AC stay cold?

Probably got 5 lbs of bugs in the belly pan to clean out.

MPG?

Congratulations!

Mopar never offered a twin turbo V12.

Yeah, there are lotsa bugs in the coolers.

We got 12.4 mpg going south and 11.6 mpg heading north. I was leaning on it pretty hard in the hills on the return run.

Not too bad for a 4800 lb car with a loaded trunk and two people running between 115 and 140 mph. Tue trunk had to be loaded with tools and a cooler. If you have to stop for any reason you're on the side of the road till the end of the day.

That is really cool. Well done.

Congratulations to "Some guy named Kevin" tell him I said so if you see him.


The Best or Nothing, Congrats Kevin

Some guy named Mike

The part you'd probably like is the fact that we did it analog. Paper course notes and two stopwatches. One was a backup that we did not have to look at.
No timing computers.
No GPS trickery.
No speed computers.

Paper notes and stopwatches.

So is the key to arrive early, and wait to cross checkpoint? Sit and watch the stopwatch?
Accuracy of those times seems impossible.

Decidedly not!
There are minimum and maximum speeds with radar guns all along the course. Some people get REALLY competitive.
Some people use high precision GPS that gives them an average speed to 0.00X mph. Others use GPS that gets them to the tenth of a mph.
We use visible references with notes showing time to be there and stopwatches.

My first attempt at navigating got us a 0.745 second time error.
My first drive got us a 0.147 second time error.
My second drive got us a 0.0.020 second time error.

We were nearly a full second off on this drive down. Luckily, we were able to make it up on the way back.

For what it is...you and your partner pulled off a pretty astonishing feat.....and what a blast that ride must be.

Motorcycle ENDUROS are done somewhat like this and one of the reasons is because most of the bikes used were or are not totally or fully to the law street legal and public roads are used so they say it's not a RACE but a timed/distance event and you are not really racing or racing against other competitors in the EVENT. Then motorcycle enduros penalize you double and five times the points for being early which is supposed to discourage "racing" or going too fast down the road or similar sections. You could probably use some of the motorcycle enduro timing equipment to keep you within a second of the time you need to be. Sounds like a lot of fun and challenging. What the penalty for being "Too Fast" in sections and what's the grace?

Kinda funny.
We were both struggling.

Nick had looked over the notes and was able to get the lay of the land on our drive through the course days before the race. However, he wasn't ready for the workload. Several times he tried to call out an upcoming curve but we hit it before he got the words out. He got his head up for the checkpoints but was consumed by the notes and stopwatch for most of the run.

As for me, I was struggling with the car. Cruise control backs off the throttle when turning so it's not a viable option. It was easy to hold 110 mph in April but it refused to hold 120 mph. The car wanted to run away. The speed kept walking upwards. It seemed like I was lifting more than pressing the pedal. 130 to 135 was easier to hold.

On the good side, I checked oil temp while running 135 mph up some steep hills my oil temp bumped 216 degrees but went back down to 204 on the flats.

to do all this with just notes and a stopwatch is just making my head spin................
VERY GOOD JOB !

The penalty for being too fast anywhere on the course is disqualification.

Abuse it and you get banned.

What is "too fast" and how do you recover time if you get behind your schedule, like say if there's an animal on the course or you have to slow for a disabled other competitor or.......

Do you have a link to the event rules? Thanks.