Archive for the ‘Spectre 341 Challenge’ Category
Speed by Spectre 341 Challenge: The buzz online
Thursday, August 11th, 2011Amir’s Spectre 341 Challenge Wrap-Up coming soon
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011The 2nd annual Spectre 341 Challenge is complete and we know you are all waiting for a recap. Here’s the problem…
We had so much fun, and have so many amazing photos and video clips that we haven’t been able to decide what to post yet!
While Amir writes up his thoughts, and our art team sorts images, why don’t you take a second to ponder some of the numbers of this year’s event.
Number of entrants – 2011 had almost 2X as many as 2010
Number of runs – last year 205, this year 391!
And this year was a lot faster than last year – by a huge margin no matter how it is measured!
Average time for the top 5 fastest in 2010: 3:23 – for 2011: 3:21
Average time for the top 10 fastest in 2010: 3:33, for 2011: 3:26
Top time 2010: 3:19, for 2011: 3:14
Top time in 2010 was 3:19. In 2011 we had 2 guys in deep in the teens – a 3:14 and a 3:15!
In 2010 we inducted 7 new 3:41 Club members.
In 2011 we had five returning 3:41 Club members improve their initiation times AND we added 8 more members to the club in addition to the five. That’s 13 people ( about 1/3 of the entries ) under 3:41!
Top time improved by 5 seconds! The 10th fastest time improved by 20 seconds! In 2010 the 10th fastest car was 3:53 – in 2011 the 10th fastest was 3:33. Wow!
THIS WAS ONE HELL OF A FAST GROUP!
Only one very minor boo-boo and 4 minor mechanical breakdowns out of almost 400 runs. Truly epic.
Yes, you can be very focused and very careful and very safe and very, very fast….
Final Results will be up tomorrow!
Unofficial Spectre 341 Results
Sunday, June 19th, 2011The Second Annual running of the Speed by Spectre 341 Challenge in Virginia City is complete.
We promise you a full recap with video and driver features and all kinds of Virginia City weirdness but we’re going to work backwards on this one.
We know that everyone is eagerly awaiting the results and since they’ll be out before our videos are ready, we’ll just say that this year there were amazing cars, the fastest drivers we’ve seen and a wonderful safe finish.
While we organize the results and finalize the new 341 club entries, here’s the unofficial times (because you won’t stop asking us!)
Repeat, these are unofficial times and we are missing a couple of folks in this list. Don’t panic, we’ll have final results up in a few days.
# Name State Vehicle Fastest Run 1 Jody Takagi WA 2001 Porsche Boxster 04:15.690 11 Stephen Murphy CO 2010 Mitsubishi Evo 03:39.695 13 Bobby Danger WA 2004 Mini Cooper S 04:06.050 14 Duck Fuson CA 1974 Porsche 911 03:15.225 15 Dan Weishaar CA 1968 Road Runner 04:01.314 16 Aaron Pfadt UT 2010 Chevrolet Camaro 03:32.093 17 Jeff Rosen CA 2009 Porsche GT3 RS 03:22.273 18 Josh Mac CA 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS 03:57.678 19 Peter Zlamany CO 1992 Laser RS AWD 03:46.354 22 Justin Wilson WA 2004 Porsche GT3 03:33.538 23 Darrel Holmes CA 1983 Porsche 911 SC 04:17.941 24 C.J. Sloan WY 2004 Cadillac CTS-V 03:55.538 25 Joaquin Barroeta CA 1989 Nissan 240sx 03:49.690 26 Jeremy Kappus NV 2006 EVO IX RS 03:24.173 28 Lou Gigliotti TX 2010 ZR-1 03:14.449 29 Randy Harris NV 2000 Chevrolet Corvette 03:31.340 30 Justin Schuh WY 2012 Nissan GT-R 03:31.791 32 Mike Ido CA 2006 Pontiac GTO 03:50.159 33 Ryan Conningham 2007 Subaru 04:15.308 34 Michael Seeliger NV 2010 Ferrari California 03:40.142 37 Jeff Smith CA 1965 Chevrolet Chevelle 03:51.652 38 Thomas Berndt NV 1987 Toyota MR2 Mk1.5 03:46.138 40 RJ Gottlieb CA 1969 Chevrolet Camaro 03:29.994 41 Jason Allen CA 2007 Aston Martin Vantage 04:00.822 42 Ryan Tauchen NV 2007 Chevrolet Corvette 03:41.846 43 Kevin Wesley 2010 Dodge Challenger 03:39.921 44 Frank Vanson 2008 Chevrolet Corvette 03:46.863 66 Edward Hugo CA 2008 Dodge Viper 03:32.845 83 Saroja Cunningham Spectre Car 04:30.867 90 Jake Lingeman Spectre Car 04:28.053 91 Mathew DAndria Spectre Car 03:51.284 93 Kevin Wesley Spectre Car 03:39.069 95 Christopher Campbell Spectre Car 03:47.825 96 Evan Smith Spectre Car 03:45.214 97 Aaron Robinson CA Spectre Car 03:42.327 RV Clark W Griswald Winnebago 08:21.512
Speed by Spectre 341 Challenge
Thursday, June 16th, 2011A friend recently made a comment that too many fast cars in one place might change the rotation of the earth.
We must have done a few too many group burnouts during Power Tour, because it’s already time for the 341 Challenge in Virginia City, Nevada.
Just in case a few of you are new to the blog, the Speed by Spectre 341 Challenge is a 5.2 mile dash up a mountain road in Virginia City. Think mini Pikes Peak meets mini Nürburgring, but with full size thrills. It’s a serious race.
Participants and journalists are rolling in. Friday will be all tech and sighting laps, safety meetings and Q&A.
Thursday night? Well, that’s mostly western saloons and admiring the cars in the moonlight.
Stay tuned for updates.
Power Tour Friday : Hello Motor City
Saturday, June 11th, 2011In an earlier post, we talked about how different the Power Tour experience is for the vendors on the trucks as compared to the road trip participants.
For the drive from Muskegon to Detroit, we hitched a ride with the Morrows in the CTS-V wagon, acting as chase truck for the semi.
As the Muskegon show wound down, the rest of the Spectre crew headed off to their hotels for dinner and a bit of fun in town.
Steve and Lee loaded up the truck, Mike and Lisa took the GTO and we rode with Brandy in the Cadillac.
After we left town, we made a quick stop along the highway for dinner and a Walmart visit — There’s nowhere else in the country to go when it’s 11:30pm and your shopping list includes: ice, socks, batteries, underpants, moon pies and an ipad.
It was several hours after midnight when we finally met up with Steve and Lee in the dark and empty show field. They locked up the truck and we all drove to the hotel and prepared to grab a few hours (minutes?) of sleep before the sunrise.
The truck drivers had to be back at the rig by 6:00am to start setting up the display, and by 9:00, there were already show participants rolling in. The Spectre cars arrived around 1:00pm and they brought the rain with them.
To give credit to the kind of people who come out to Power Tour, most of them simply pulled out slickers and umbrellas, shut the hoods on their cars and continued to check out the other rides.
It’s a pretty amazing thing to find yourself in Detroit watching rain roll down the fender of an altered wheelbase Funny Car.
That about covers it for Power Tour 2011. by the time you read this, everyone will be home, planning their next project cars and road trips.
Our next road trip is in a few days, up to Virginia City for the 2nd Annual Speed by Spectre 341 Challenge. Check in here to see photos and videos from that event.
In the meantime, make sure you head over to Hot Rod Magazine’s website for more photos and adventures from Power Tour 2011.
Spectre 341 Challenge Interview: Jeff Smith
Thursday, May 12th, 2011We have just over one month before the second annual running of the Spectre 341 Challenge. We’ve posted here before about how the best thing about the event is not the ghost town feel of Virginia City’s wild west setting, nor even the 5.2 miles of thrilling, twisting road, but rather the people who participate.
One of the very first people to sign up for the inaugural race last year was Car Craft Magazine editor, Jeff Smith. Now, Jeff spends every day talking about cars, test driving cars, working on cars and writing about cars, so we wouldn’t blame him if he got a bit blasé, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Jeff showed up with his famed blue 1965 Chevelle in 2010 and cheerfully tackled the hill, enthusiastically bench racing with other participants and even swapping in a new alternator mid race in order to make another run.
Jeff is a great story teller, so we’ll let him take over and tell you what it’s like to run Hwy 341 and why everyone should have four or more Chevelles.
What do you do (day job)?
I am the Senior Technical Editor for Car Craft Magazine
Have you always liked cars, or did you get in to cars because of a friend or family member?
I have been into cars about as long as I can remember. When I was ten years old, I started hanging out at my grandfather’s Skelly gas station in Boone, Iowa and he put me to work pumping gas. That was the real start of my love with cars. I graduated high school in 1972 right at the end of the muscle car era so I was around them all the time. It was a great time to be a kid – just young enough to miss Vietnam and just old enough to really enjoy all those muscle cars. My first car was a ‘66 GTO with a 389 and 4-speed, but my favorite car that I still own is my ‘66 SS396 Chevelle 360hp car that is slowly being restored — with an emphasis on slowly…
What’s your dream car?
That’s really a moving target, but strangely I’d really like to own an early CTS-V Cadillac! I never thought I’d hear myself say that, but that car really does something for me. And there’s room for all my big friends, which is a plus.
How long have you had the Chevelle?
I traded a V6-powererd Vega for my ’65 Chevelle somewhere around the early ’90s. It has competed in or participated in an amazing list of different events and competitions. I’ve bracket raced it, it has done the Power Tour twice in the early days (when I was with Hot Rod), I’ve raced it twice in the Pony Express 100 (hitting a top speed of 167+mph), it competed in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational in 2010, two of the west coast Pro Touring Run to the Coast events, and an uncounted number of cruises and car shows. I also want to run it in the Muroc Mile standing mile event sometime. I think it will do 140+ mph if I work on the aero a little. It’s kind of a brick. But when you say “the Chevelle” we have to be specific as to the ’65, because I have three other ’66 Chevelles plus a ’65 El Camino. It’s a sickness for which there is no cure.
What are some of the modifications from stock?
The short version is an absolutely ancient Lingenfelter-built 420ci small-block Chevy with a Accel Gen VII EFI system, AFR heads, a Bow Tie block, and a Crower rotating assembly. It only has a Richmond 4-speed behind it along with a 3.31:1 geared 12-bolt. The biggest change, and what we continue to work on is the suspension. It’s a rolling billboard for Global West Suspension with a complete tubular upper and lower control arms and a coil-over front conversion. The rear also has a Global coil-over shock conversion using a set of verrry nice set of Penske double-adjustable shocks on all four corners that have really made a huge difference in the handling. Tires are BFG 27535R18 KDWs mounted on 18 x 9.5-inch wheels with six inches of back spacing. Most Chevelle guys don’t believe you can get that much tire under a stock wheelwell but you can if you pay attention to the backspacing.
What was the first competitive driving you ever did?
It was a class race after I graduated from my first driving school at the Jim Russell British School of Motor Racing at Riverside around 1980! We were driving Van Diemen Formula Fords with Cortina four-cylinder engines and a Hewland gearbox that was really hard to shift correctly. It was way too much fun and cemented my feeling that turning corners was more challenging than going straight on the drag strip.
What other racing events do you participate in?
Pony Express 100 in the 140 and 150 mph classes in two different years with my Chevelle. I’m most proud of the fact that I finished both of those races. It’s a lot harder than you think. I also rode shotgun with John Lingenfelter in 1990 at the Silver State Classic where we went 206 mph in his red ‘86 Corvette. That was cool.
I also participated in something called the Triathlon of Motor Sports in Las Vegas – two passes on a drag strip, two laps on a 3/8-mile paved oval, and four laps on a 1.6mile road course that has since been replaced by the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. That was a fun event – I was competing in the A-Production class against Corvettes and finished second in two events to a Lingenfelter ‘Vette. I’ve also done a bunch of track days at Willow Springs, Buttonwillow and Fontana. I also raced with a buddy Dan Livezey with a Street Prepared 5 Camaro in Pro Solo where we did well.
How does competitive driving differ from street driving?
Mainly you can concentrate on your line and not worry about cross traffic or what some idiot in the next lane is going to do, or not do. You just cannot let it all out on the street – it’s just too dangerous. That’s why I do so many track days since I use them to tune my car.
How does driving a muscle car differ from competing in a new car?
New cars are great, but they lack personality. Racing with an older muscle car adds personality, but also grief (which is the real cost of owning these cars) since they break all the time and at the most inopportune moment (usually when the most people are watching). This is what happened to me at last year’s 341 race with a dead alternator. Subsequent electrical problems sidelined me at later events until I finally put a whole new wiring harness in the car. Can you imagine? A 36 year-old wire harness that failed! New cars present far less grief unless you start modifying them – then they’re just like older cars, just more expensive.
How did you find out about the 341 Challenge?
I’ve spent too much time around Amir lately and his boundless enthusiasm easily rubs on me. If I’m not careful, I’ll be volunteering to help run the streamliner car and getting sucked into that deal. It would be very easy…
(Ed. Note: Done, you’re on the team, Jeff….)
What did you think about the event last year?
I didn’t come adequately prepared for as many laps as we ended up running. The main thing was I forgot that we were at 7,000 feet. I probably didn’t need nearly as much octane as I thought to run my normally aspirated engine. I need more experience with tuning my engine for altitude to know how much octane I can get away with.
Why do you want to return to 341 this year?
It’s like any other competitive event, I want to improve on last year’s lap time.
Do you have any recommendations for the newbies this year?
Have fun and don’t be intimidated by the mountain.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about yourself, your car, or racing in general?
If I start, we’ll be at this for hours….
Spectre 341 Challenge Interview: Jeremy Kappus
Monday, April 4th, 2011There are many aspects of the Spectre 341 Challenge which make it an unusual race. Everything from the surrounding town (which seems straight out of a spaghetti western) to the race course itself (which seems to have been cut right out of Germany’s Nürburgring) makes a run at 341 different from the normal track event.
The most amazing thing about 341 though isn’t the wooden sidewalks or the off-camber turns, but rather the fact that every participant has an equal chance at glory, because this isn’t a racetrack you can memorize, it’s a real road, and the landmarks and surface change every year.
No one better demonstrates the egalitarian nature of racing 341 than 2010 driver, Jeremy Kappus. A Reno native in a self-tuned ‘06 Mitsubishi EvoIX RS, Jeremy shocked everyone on the first day of racing by turning a faster time than any other racers on the grid, including big names like Millen, Gigliotti and Gillies. While the high horsepower cars eventually claimed the top three spots, Kappus stayed close by and finished with amazingly consistent results in the mid 3:25 range. Pretty impressive!
Jeremy is coming back for 2011, and we caught up with him to get his thoughts on race cars vs. street cars, why driving is the best way to tune a car and what new 341 drivers should expect from the Virginia City hill.
What do you do (day job)? For the last 3-4 years, I’ve been working on cars, specializing in mainly Evos, doing everything from regular maintenance to track prepping and performance part installs (clutchs,cams,turbos etc). Along with mechanical work, I also tune Evos, Subarus, Nissans and the occasional unusual project. I’m currently helping (fellow 341 participant) Adam Auerbach tune his GMC Syclone to run on E85. I specialize in tuning stock ECUs.
Have you always liked cars? I’ve been working on cars since I was a teenager. I originally was in to stereo systems and lowriders, but it wasn’t terribly fulfilling, and the first time I saw Rally racing on Speed TV, I knew that was a direction I wanted to go in. Seeing those 4-wheel drive 4-cylinder Turbo cars was exciting, those cars are insane!
How long have you had the Evo? I bought the Evo new in 06 after getting frustrated with my previous project. I had learned a lot about tuning on a pretty extreme Subaru build, which, like many projects, had gotten way out of hand. It had a full turbo kit and a programmable ECU and at that time in Reno, you couldn’t just throw it on the dyno at a local shop and get a good tune. I had to teach myself, and mostly by ear. Try something, drive it, if it rattles, back it down…it wasn’t the best way to build a car and it was especially difficult to get all those aftermarket parts to work together properly. I got tired of blowing it up and rebuilding it, and I had read that the 2006 Evo offered a fully programmable stock ECU, which I found intriguing.
What are some of the modifications from stock? The Evo is such a good, solid platform that you can do great things just by refining and blueprinting the stock package. I felt like people rarely drove or tuned these cars to their potential. The motor has never even been out of my car. It has upgraded Alcon brakes and KW coilover suspension and I did change the cams and springs but the turbo is stock, and on these cars, the turbo is really the powerplant. I wanted to see how far I could take it with the stock turbo. It’s actually pretty amazing, even in mostly stock trim, the car is fast enough to scare me.
I did change the seats to racing seats, trying to stay in the seat during a turn by holding on to the steering wheel isn’t how you want to race!
What was the first competitive driving you ever did? I’ve only been driving on a track for maybe four or five years. I started out by going to the drag strip with guys to help tune their cars, and then a friend took me to Reno Fernley Raceway. There I was, on the track in the Evo, hanging with trailered Porsches and I knew that I wanted to keep doing that kind of driving.
Driving on a track is so different from driving on the street. Even the most aggressive street driving is only maybe 75% of what you can do on a track. On the street, in the back of your mind, there’s always the concern of cross traffic, of speed limits…on the street you always have to think, “How am I going to save it?” And the thing is, you can’t.
Racing a closed course allows you to clear your head of normal thoughts and 341 is even more fun than a racetrack.
Why did you run the 341 Challenge in 2010? I believe that it’s really important for people in the car community to support racetracks and race events, so when I saw on the forums that someone was doing another race on Hwy 341, I wanted to make sure I did my part to support it. Also, the entry fee is incredibly cheap for that much track time.
What did you think about the event last year? I ran the Ferrari club hill climb early in 2010 and it was really fun. Racing the Spectre 341 was interesting because it was a first time race and because of the other participants. Racing with Lou (Gigliotti) and Steve Millen was cool. You can’t bench race it. You can’t practice. Driving up at 45 mph in one lane is totally different than driving the same road at speed. I genuinely had no idea how I’d do against those guys, and really, neither did they. It was the first time for them too.
Why do you want to return to 341 this year? This kind of racing is the best ever. After a few runs, you blank out the cliffs and it’s all about the actual road and corners. Each corner flows, compared to the race tracks I’ve been on. There’s no slow corners, no bumps.
From what I’ve heard, racing Hwy 341 was almost a cult in the old days and that makes sense, it’s really really fun, it lets you test your memory, your driving skill, your tuning skills. It’s just a perfect test of driver and machinery.
Do you have any recommendations for the new entrants this year? Make sure your car is fully functional and reliable before you get to the hill. It could ruin your day if you waste your runs due to mechanical problems. If it isn’t mechanically sound, you can’t tune it, and if it isn’t tuned, you can’t drive it.
Go to have fun, let go of all your expectations and just see what it’s all about. Don’t go to compete with anyone else. It’s all about you and your car. Look at yourself, see how you can better your own driving. The cars are all too different to compete with. Don’t let someone else push you off the cliff!
Any last thoughts for readers? This is what I like doing. I just want to see what my car can do. Racing shows you where you’ve cut corners in the build, and I want to do things right. Road racing makes you a consistent driver, and it reminds you to keep all the fasteners tight. My advice to new racers: Use a torque wrench.
The Spectre Why: Amir Explains Why We Run Highway 341 in Virginia City
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011Spectre founder Amir Rosenbaum explains the importance of the Spectre 341 Challenge:
THE NÜRBURGRING of NÜVADA
by Amir Rosenbaum
What’s the best way to tell which street car is the fastest?
You can subject it to the very basic metrics of 0 – 60, 1/4 mile and drive it in a big circle. But all that gets you is a car that goes 0 – 60 quickly, runs the 1/4 mile swiftly and goes fast in a circle. Who drives their car like that every day? On the street?
The next step is to put it on a track and get a lap time. Maybe compare it to other cars and see which gets the fastest lap time. The thing is, a track is designed to be a safe place to drive fast. There are drive-off areas, specially designed guardrails, track camber angled to help the car through the turn and it’s usually level. Some tracks have a little hill and boy does that feature make them special.
Inevitably, when you see or read these tests they always include a road section – if it’s a magazine test, the editors usually find some nice twisty back road near the track, and they drive the cars there.
Then, when the results come out, the “winner” is often times not the car with the fastest 0 – 60, 1/4 mile, lateral -g or even lap time. Then angry letters from readers ensue. They all want to know one thing:
Why?
Why didn’t the fastest car win? Usually the editors not so diplomatically reply along the lines of: “Because it’s a piece of crap. It didn’t make us feel good when driving it – there was a lack of confidence….” and so on. And so far, that hasn’t satisfied anyone.
So then, how can you determine a way to find out what the fastest street car is?
The Europeans have a solution. It’s called The Nürburgring.
It’s where car companies test their cars. It’s a road with a timing system. It involves sections where the driver has to feel fully confident in the capabilities of the car, and how it communicates with the driver, how it responds to driver input, because………. well……………there’s no other way to say it – you could die. They lose about one a week at the ‘Ring.
And that is why the car companies test there, even the manufacturers from the USA and Japan. That’s a long way to go to drive a car – but, it’s been the only place where you could test for the intangibles. Until now!
Introdücing The Nürburgring of Nüvada: The Spectre 341 Challenge. This is the place you find out how fast your street car really is. Not how fast it does 0 – 60 or the 1/4 mile – for that you could go to a Wednesday night test and tune session at you local drag strip, or you could sign up for one of many lapping sessions at the road course nearest you but all that will tell you is how fast your car is at a track, not on the street.
The Spectre 341 Challenge is for all intents and purposes, legal street racing with a timing system.
This is where you test your car for things there are no metrics for: The intangibles. Those ethereal and spectral flavors and traits of a car that can make it special……. or a piece of crap.
Hey, given enough time and money anyone can build a car to go fast on a track. So what? Real roads don’t look or drive like race tracks. This is a real road. This place has real consequences. The Spectre 341 Challenge answers the question: What is the fastest street car? Is it yours?
Sign up for the Spectre 341 Challenge HERE
Listen to Amir talk about 341 on AutoWorld Radio (Go to March 20, third hour)
Announcing the 2nd annual Spectre Performance 341 Challenge
Saturday, August 14th, 2010Spectre Performance announces 2nd annual hill climb road race challenge where the fastest street cars on earth will race up infamous Nevada Highway 341
When: June 17-19, 2011
Where: Nevada Highway 341, South of Virginia City, NV
More Info: Available soon at www.Spectre341Challenge.com
Spectre Performance is heading back to Virginia City for the second running of the Spectre 341 Challenge on one of the most technical and thrilling mountain roads in the United States. After a stellar turnout at the inaugural event in 2010 that included world-famous drivers and high-profile media coverage, the 2011 event promises to be even better with a variety of exotic cars and new activities. The race, set for June 17-19, 2011, will pit supercars, muscle cars and imports against the clock in a full-throttle blast up the mountain road, which will be closed to the public for the event.
The Speed by Spectre 341 Challenge is a rare opportunity to drive flat-out on one of the most technical and aggressive stretch of mountain road in the country, without the worry of oncoming traffic or law enforcement. The paved course is 5.2 miles long with 22+ turns, a 1,216-foot rise in elevation, steep drop offs and no guardrails! Vehicles must be street-legal and registered. Tires must be DOT legal. Event highlights will include a track talk, warm up laps, class qualifying, a car show and parade through the iconic old-west style mining town, two days of racing and a banquet for all participants. The road will be closed for racing in coordination with local agencies, and once again competitors will have a chance to be inducted into the exclusive “3:41 Club” if they can crack the three-minute, forty-one second barrier.
“This is one of the only events in the world where a driver can show up with a street car and truly test the vehicle and themselves in a real-world environment,” says Spectre Performance founder Amir Rosenbaum. “We are in the speed business – we engineer and sell cold air intakes for muscle cars and late model vehicles. This is more than a race – it’s about having fun. We work with FM3 Marketing to present a professional, well-organized, fun weekend at a cool old-west town where the entire family can show up, hang out with other car nuts and have a great time. The 2011 Spectre 341 Challenge will feature even more racing and family activities.”
The original Virginia City Hill Climb was founded in 1972 and run through 2002. Rosenbaum holds the all time record for the event, running the course in three minutes, ten seconds in a Ferrari F40. Six new members were inducted into the 3:41 Club in 2010.
Driver Profile: Jeremy Kappus
Saturday, August 14th, 2010This Lancer Evo RS was one of the fastest vehicles at the Spectre 341 Challenge, thanks to a host of subtle engine and chassis mods and a Reno-based driver who knows Highway 341 like the back of his hand. That combo of experience, power and AWD created a nearly unstoppable and shockingly consistent competitor, and everyone in attendance was thrilled to watch Jeremy Kappus run.
Driver Profile: Steve Millen
Thursday, August 12th, 2010World famous race car driver Steve Millen gives us a tour of his Stillen Nissan GT-R rally car at the Spectre 341 Challenge in Virginia City, Nevada. The Stillen #10 car was one of the fastest competitors at the event and and Steve is now a member of the exclusive 3:41 Club.
Spectre 341 Challenge: The Race
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010The Inaugural Spectre 341 Challenge
By Amir Rosenbaum – Founder
Mark Gillies, Car & Driver Executive Editor and accomplished race car driver extraordinaire looked me in the eye and murmured something to the effect of; “You know, they lose at least one a week at the Nürburgring…… ”
No, I didn’t known that.
Was that supposed to be comforting?
It was 4:45 pm. Our First Spectre 341 Challenge had just finished and the last 2 cars were up on the course. The paramedics and fire truck crews stationed at the top and bottom of the hill had packed up their stuff and were ready to pull out and go home when the call came in on the radio “……… car over the side……… ”
Shit!
The Spectre 341 Challenge is a very unique happening in that it is very real. It is all about reality. And I’m not talking about reality TV, which is anything but real. Reality consists of intangibles. The human condition consists of intangibles. We are all irrational illogical creatures trying to act rational and logical. But we can’t. We live in a super high tech world where we try to break everything down into precisely defined measurements using micro-metrics and nano-bytes. And while we are able to measure just about everything, the most important stuff, the intangible stuff, can’t be contained within any sort of metric.
We can’t even describe it.
Intangible: adj. – impalpable, untouchable, incorporeal, abstract, elusive, indefinable, ethereal, ghostly, spectral.
The Spectre 341 Challenge is a 5.2 mile mountain road with 22 [ or so ] turns and is most emphatically not a race track. It wasn’t designed by a race track designer, it was built to conform organically to the side of a mountain so that ore carts, and later, trucks, could bring their deposits to a place where they could be processed.
It is as real a road as you will ever encounter anywhere, other than probably the Nürburgring. None of the turns are the same. The camber of the roadway changes radically, for no rhyme or reason. From afar, some of the straight sections of roadway look like a long piece of orange Hot Wheels track, twisting back and forth. Never straight or flat. A “correct” line here means avoiding the snow markers, which are sometimes positioned right where you would want to apex a corner. And sometimes not. And they get replaced every few years with new ones that crop up in different spots.
There are very few guardrails. None where you think they should be. There are no run-off areas, no tire walls, no hay bales, no berms, no nothing. The drop offs are everywhere and they are unforgiving.
It certainly wasn’t an easy event to put on. On our first day, just as we were scheduled to start running it started to rain. That’s right, in the Nevada desert. In June! Are you kidding me? This cannot be happening. Rain? Really? Or, I guess, reality.
And then it stops raining, and we are about to flag our first car on the course when the paramedic van and fire truck pull out, sirens blaring and lights flashing. WTF? Turns out that if there is a highway emergency nearby, and they are the closest, they get the call. And of course reality dictates that a highway emergency will occur just when you are about to start. But we paid for them to be here! For us! Doesn’t matter, someone needs them more than we do, and so off they go. And we don’t go. Man, this reality is starting to suck.
After only 20 minutes or so the fire truck and paramedic van returned and we finally got going. By Saturday afternoon we had logged 204 runs. That is truly amazing and a testament to all the time, hard work and professionalism invested by our crew at Spectre Performance and the terrific organizers we hired; Jimi Day and Wally Olczac of FM3 Marketing.
In 2002, after 13 years of running the hill, I set an all time record of 3:10 in my not so highly modified Ferrari F40. Everyone thought it was highly modified. OK, we ran a cheater hose from the waste gates to fool them into thinking the car was at sea level, which increased the boost a little. That’s about it. The secret to running so fast? It’s all in the intangibles……..
So everyone is asking me what I think about the possibility of my record getting broken. And I respond with a pat answer, something like “yeah, well, you know, records are meant to be broken……..”
What a crock.
The truth is I had already started to put my F40 back together after running it on the Bonneville Salt Flats at over 220 MPH. I’ll be ready and running at the Second Annual Spectre 341 Challenge in 2011. You can count on it!
Records are be made to be broken my ass.
But this year, for the Inaugural Spectre 341 Challenge, we had a bunch of phenomenal drivers, awesome cars and some very very fast times. Here they are, from the top of the hill:
Mark Gillies, from Car & Driver magazine showed up in a 2010 Viper ACR. It is a “borrowed” car, on loan from Chrysler/Dodge/Fiat whatever they are called now.
I wonder, what did he tell them he was going to do with this car? A road test? Check the mileage? Well, yeah, this would be a test all right. The car shows up with 80 tread-wear tires, and for this, our first inaugural event, we had spec’d a 100 tread-wear minimum. We decide to let him run in an exhibition class, and what an exhibition it was! A 3:19. First time ever on this hill. What does this mean? It means that Mark Gillies is a very very competent race and street car driver, possessing intangible skills that cannot be honed on race tracks. This is a street racer’s street racer. Mark got 14 runs in, as well as the two fastest times. Until you come here and drive the course, you can’t really imagine how fast a 3:19 is for a first time driver. Or for any driver. Hopefully Mark will be back next year, with boost. If he does, he’ll be way faster. This guy is really good. The real deal. And, Mark gets inducted into the Spectre 3:41 Club, of course.
The official First Place, with a time of 3:21 goes to Lou Gigliotti in his super bad 2010 Corvette ZR1, bristling with all sorts of LG Motorsports parts and exhausting what smelled an awful lot like what you smell at the airport when jets take off. Lou got to run a total of 13 times, another first timer at the hill, but with a pair of 3:21’s and a pair of 3:22’s, he got it going on in a big way. No small thanks to hill veteran and ultra fast driver himself, Guy Cunningham, who would have competed more this year, except he and his lovely wife Soraja handled all of our catering. Guy gave Lou a ride in the Griggs Racing GR40 Mustang, and Lou, consummate professional and quick study that he is, promptly knocked 6 seconds off of his times, and cinched 1st place and membership into the Spectre 3:41 Club.
Second place for 2010, with a time of 3:22, goes to Steve Millen. Yes, that Steve Millen, of IMSA, LeMans and Pikes Peak fame and owner of the super parts company Stillen. Steve brought a race prepped looking Nissan GT-R, a crew, and enough pre-event smack talk to embarrass a politician leading in the polls, boasting on his website that not only were they going to beat the record, they were possibly going to go under 3 minutes. Then reality struck. It looks like the Kiwi gets to eat crow, right? No, not so fast [ hah, pun! ]. See, Steve and crew had to rush the car to the event, and also worry about having to prep it and stick it on a boat on the Tuesday morning after for an event in Steve’s homeland, New Zealand, which meant that the car showed up on its stock Bridgestone run flat tires that weigh probably 65 lbs. each and have the frictional grip of olive oil on a Teflon pan. Steve only took 9 runs, declaring the course “greasy” and stopping early.
If you don’t understand the value of tires, then you can’t possibly understand the heroics pulled off by Steve in running a 3:22. This is not the proverbial knife at a gunfight. This is bringing a note from your Mum to the gunfight. Steve says he’ll be back next year, with a second car for son Kyle too, and tires that do more than just hold air. I can’t wait. Steve gets a Spectre 3:41 Club membership as well.
Third place is probably the most impressive to me; local boy Jeremy Kappus in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo RS, with some modifications, sure, but at the end of the day it’s still a 4 cylinder car up against these monster engined machines. Jeremy ran a 3:25.5 on Saturday afternoon. He had already run a 3:25.8 on Friday. In fact, on Friday, at the end of the day, he had the fastest time of anyone. Most of his 14 runs were in the 3:27/3:26 range, so he is not only very fast, he is also very consistent. And like I already said, just outstanding! It is an honor to present Jeremy with membership into the Spectre 3:41 Club.
Next up: Guy Cunningham, a veteran of the hill, who ran 3:28 in the Grigg’s Racing 2007 GR40 Mustang. I am sure that were it not due to his catering commitment, for which we are all grateful, Guy would have run even faster yet. And even though Guy was already a 3:41 Club member since 1999, he did improve his time by 1 second.
Ezra Dyer, one of the funniest car journalists I know, showed up in another “loaner” car, a bone stock 2010 Porsche Turbo. With only 9 runs, due to having to leave early to catch a plane, Ezra beat the living daylights out of this showroom fresh [ not anymore ] car with a best time of 3:33 and membership into the Spectre 3:41 Club. That’s at an average speed of almost 88 MPH. That’s average. Many of the corners are marked at 25 MPH, so even if you triple that, it’s honking fast.
Our last 2010 entry into the 3:41 Club goes posthumously to Alexander Djordjevic with a time of 3:36, run on Friday, in a highly modified Porsche 996 Twin Turbo. In order to respect the families’ wishes, I will only say that this was a tragic and unfortunate incident that is all too real. Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to his friends and family.
Besides the 3:41 Club inductees, there were several other drivers of note that helped make this event so special: J.P. Rademacher, in a Subaru WRX STi had the most number of runs with 20! I believe he had to go get gas twice in order to accomplish this feat.
Another local boy, Adam Auerbach brought out what is probably the most intensely engineered GMC Syclone on the planet. You have to see the pictures to believe it. Truly an epic exercise in performance engineering.
Gaetano Cosentino brought out a beautiful ‘69 Camaro and Jeff Smith brought his ageless ‘65 Chevelle and both guys ran under 4:00 minutes, with 3:59 times, which is incredible when you think that this is their first time on the hill, driving cars that are over 40 years old! Seriously, is there any worry about metal fatigue? Lack of technology? Who needs technology? Check out the photos as these are some of the best looking cars on the hill for sure, and they are very fast too.
Jody Takagi drove 15 hours straight from Seattle in her Boxster, after being nominated by her Forum group (6-speed Online), and then did them proud by running a very respectable 4:22 with an average speed of 71 MPH. This is an excellent result for a first timer at the hill, who brought her mom for moral support. Jody livened up the weekend with her enthusiasm and infectious smile. We want her back for sure! And mom too.
One other mention I need to highlight is Paul Feeny, who couldn’t bring the car he wanted to bring, so instead he bought a Miata on eBay for $202.50 and brought that, and ran a 4:14 at almost 74 MPH, and for sure got the best bang for the buck of anyone. That’s real too.
We will be announcing the dates and rules for the 2011 Second Annual Spectre 341 Challenge very soon. We’re planning for a bigger and better event next year where once again, we try to define the intangibles of what is the fastest street car on a real road, ever. In the mean time, keep it real.
Driver Profile: Jeff Smith
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010Jeff Smith of Car Craft Magazine brought his road race prepped 1965 Chevelle road race car to the Spectre 341 Challenge hill climb. From Silver State to countless track events, Jeff and this car literally helped start the pro-touring movement, so it was fun watching the heavy Chevy scream up the mountain.
Driver Profile: Ezra Dyer
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010Ezra Dyer of Automobile Magazine showed up at the 341 Challenge with a brand new 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo, and after acclimating himself to the road, he promptly logged a series of blistering runs that secured his membership in the exclusive 3:41 Club.
Driver Profile: Jody Takagi
Monday, August 9th, 2010Jody Takagi raced up the hill in her modified Porsche Boxster S, and was selected by 6-speed online to represent the online community at the event. One of the coolest competitors at the hill climb, Jody showed all the boys what a woman in a Porsche can really do.
