So some remedies for street-legal cars have been created: track days, open road racing, and standing mile "shootouts". Track days organize groups of cars, with just a few safety additions, onto a race course for driving sessions at speed. Wheel-to-wheel racing is discouraged, there are no "winners", just time tracking of lap times to allow drivers to improve their skills.
Open road races, held in some remote areas of the USA, block off a normal highway for a few hours to allow drivers to race against the clock and average some target speed (90 - 100 - 120 mph and so on) over a distance of 30-60 miles, without exceeding a "tech" speed (120 or 140 mph, depending on class). Winners are determined by the amount of time they vary from a "perfect time" over the given distance; often the top 10 positions are all within a few tenths one another. Remarkable.
Then, "standing mile" competitions. Simple enough: from a standstill, how fast can your vehicle go in one mile? Unlike a drag race, the course isn't timed, and vehicles don't compete side-by-side with one another. Just the "trap speed" at the end of one mile is measured. A popular version of a standing mile event is held in Beeville, TX in the spring and fall each year, so in late 2012 I started making plans to attend the Spring 2013 races.
Planning to run The Texas Mile
We have a MINI Cooper S and a Corvette Z06 in our garage, and we planned to take both of them to the Texas Mile. The Corvette was an obvious choice: a special Corvette model with 505hp on hand, carbon-fiber bodywork, titanium suspension, and a factory rated top speed of 198. The question we were most asked is: "How fast have you had it?". Which, sadly, wasn't all that fast. We picked up this car in Albuquerque, NM in Summer 2011, and drove it home across New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma. On an early summer evening in eastern NM, somewhere on I-40, we had stretches of highway with 4+ mile visibility, and who wouldn't want to see if all 505 horses were under the hood? So we did a few 4th gear runs to 135 or so, which sounded and felt great. The thought of just turning this thing loose for a whole mile? Yes, please.
But who'd take a MINI Cooper to the Texas Mile? Well, no one really had. A diligent YouTube and past Texas Mile record books found only one prior MINI visitor, a convertible that ran 126. My MINI has a factory rated top speed of 145, and I'd crested 100 a few times just horsing around on the empty interstate. But I was curious to see it "be all it could be" in a mile, and how close to topped-out I could manage.
The Texas Mile sells out every time, so I kept an eye peeled for the sign up date for the Spring 2013 session. That was in January, and I entered both our cars online as soon as registration opened. The safety rules for cars under 199 mph aren't too rigorous: add a 2.5lb fire extinguisher, all-cotton clothing, SFI driving gloves, and Snell-approved auto racing (not motorcycle) helmets. Then, cars in good condition: no leaks, good tires, and so on.
With the event held on Friday-Saturday-Sunday, we planned to drive STL to Tulsa OK on Wednesday night after work, then a long day from Tulsa through Ft. Worth and Austin to Beeville on Thursday. The opening driver's meeting was being held at 6pm that Thursday night, and we hoped to be able to attend it and thus make the first runs of the day on Friday morning, 8am. The driving plan went well; we arrived in Tulsa at bedtime, about 10:30pm, got up in good shape, then made good time (and in some rain) through Ft. Worth with a lunch stop (at Whataburger, it had been awhile). But then Austin: I hadn't been through there since the 90's, and traffic on I-35 *sucked*, about 45 minutes to an hour lost just sitting in creeping traffic. There's a reason they built that mega-$$ new toll road bypass, it seems. So that, plus the route south of Seguin being all two-lanes (even if posted at 70 & 75 mph, there were still a few small towns and stops) meant we had to give up on the early driver's meeting, and just go to our hotel.
Beeville is population 12,000 or so, so it's a real town with everything. It's more than an hour northwest of Corpus, and maybe a bit more than that southeast of San Antonio, so it's far enough away to be self sufficient. That meant we found a very nice self-serve car wash to erase road grime memories from our cars, and were able to select from a good half-dozen "Taqueria (Fill in Family Name Here)" restaurants before tucking ourselves in for the night. A long day, it had been a good day for sightseeing. That road from Seguin to Beeville included brahma bulls, flaming oil derricks, the aforementioned 75-mph two lanes, pear cactus, and countless white crewcab pipeline company pickup trucks all hauling ass.
At the Texas Mile / Racing a Corvette and a MINI Cooper S
The Texas Mile was held at Chase Industrial Park Airfield, which had been the Chase Naval Air Station and a place to train pilots during World War II and just after. It is *not* the same place as the Beeville Municipal Airport, a fact that became very clear when we drove to the airport and found just a few lonely Cessnas, not a few hundred race cars. This Friday was a little gloomy, with a fog / mist / dampness (no one wanted to admit that it was actually light rain, since "it has never rained at the Texas Mile"). Anyhow, it was starting to clear some, and we got seats under the Driver's Meeting tent after checking in and getting our materials. We drove our cars to the pit / parking area, and found an unused spot. Due to a mix-up on the hotel reservations, we ended up having to move hotels each night, and had all our "stuff" with us. The "stuff" had to come out before we raced...we thought to ask someone if we could stash our gear under their trailer for the day. About then, Steve Jones, a Beaumont, TX Mustang Boss 302 driver, pulled in next to his 5th-wheel car hauler and was kind enough to help us with our plight.
We used shoe polish to put our entry numbers on the windows, then lined up for our first runs. It took awhile. A couple of cars had issues, which closed down the track until corrected, and we were almost ready to run when they broke for lunch at noon. So our first runs didn't get off until early afternoon. It was still cool, and cloudy, and with a pretty strong headwind straight down the runway. That wouldn't bother the Corvette much, but my small-engined little box of a car wouldn't like it at all.
The Z06 should run 170-180 or so, but as novice drivers (I'd also signed up to drive the Corvette, who wouldn't?) we each had to make a qualifying pass over 140 but under 160 to be cleared for 160+ driving. My wife got her qualifying run on her first pass, 153mph, easy to do. With my MINI, I'd calculated that I'd use 5th gear to finish the mile, probably almost at redline, so 130 mph or so. Even so, with the headwind I only managed 125, very disappointing actually. We both pulled around for another run, with again a long wait.
But with these long waits in the staging lanes gave us a chance to check out the other cars, almost 300 of them! A first takeaway: we were likely the only two completely stock vehicles in the competition. Probably half or more of the cars came on trailers, and almost all of them had some level of modification: open exhaust, intakes, camshafts, oversized injectors, running nitrous, running methanol. Most sounded *serious*, and were. Over 40 Corvettes, a dozen CTS-V Cadillacs, fifteen Porsches, a half dozen Ford GT's. A much-modified Ford GT set the record last year at 263 mph (and broke that record this year with a 267 pass!). Many Mustangs, Challengers, BMWs, Mercedes (eerily quiet when running, a CLS AMG ran in the 180s, and an opened hood revealed: lots of expensive German hotrod stuff!).
My wife made another run, this time 160-something, she missed a shift and wasn't pleased. My second run was a 127 something, and now I was concerned that I wouldn't break 130 for the weekend. That would be very disappointing after driving all this way. Stacy set a goal of running 170+, somehow. And that concluded our first day at The Mile.
We had hotel reservations in George West, TX for Friday night, about 30 miles west of Beeville. George West is mainly an interstate exit with a couple of hotels...it took a while to even locate a restaurant, and I had to give up on thoughts of a nice steak dinner. Just another night of that great TexMex food at a family restaurant, then some rest.
Saturday, we didn't get to the track and soon as we hoped, so only got in one run before noon. With the headwind gone, my MINI ran a 130.2, now *that* was more like it! My wife ran the Corvette, another low 160 pass, and was determined to shift at higher RPM on her next run. We staged the cars, then had some lunch during the break, and got ready for the afternoon. That's when it got weird. My wife said she was having a great run, but then at an indicated 165 or so, her power/rpms just tailed off, and finished in the low 150s again. She was understandably concerned, had something failed? And this far from home? Sheesh. We took the Corvette off the grounds, on TX221 nearby and tried a strong run in 2nd gear to check it out. It seemed fine. We agreed that I'd park my MINI after my next run (I ran a 132.3, very happy), and I'd take the Corvette for *my* qualifying run and I could see how it acted on the track.
I staged for my qualifying run, just needing to get something from 140 to 160, and I'd also get to see if something was wrong / failing / failed with the car. My run started, my first time driving the Corvette in a month or so, and I did strong pulls in first and second...seemed to be running fine! With my quick shift to 3rd, I missed it entirely, and kept going in 5th. Oh swell. But a couple of things: I just floored it in 5th, and this car is such a freak that it still ran a 153 after missing 3rd and 4th gears entirely! And also...nothing seemed amiss, it felt strong / well / stout.
So at that point, we needed to do some re-planning. We'd planned to leave for home Saturday night, making an overnight stop in San Antonio to visit Sandra, Ellen, Daisy, and Alec, our former next-yard neighbors who'd moved there in 2012, giving up the Sunday race day to make a short driving day on Monday to get back to St. Louis. But then: with the Corvette's goal unmet, and news of snowpocalypse forecast for St. Louis (a freak storm in late March, it actually snowed 14" in our part of STL!) we decided to come back to Beeville Sunday and race again. We'd race, then pack and leave late afternoon to go north to Dallas, hopefully, Sunday night and then finish the drive to STL on Monday. Good plan. Oh, and also, discover some explanation for the weird "165mph shutdown" that my wife had experienced.
I'd wanted to take my wife to the RiverWalk in San Antonio for a while, and that worked out for us. We walked for a while in the upper 80's sunshine, saw the Alamo, navigated through throngs of Final 16 / Great 8 / something fans who were also in town, downed a Patron margarita, and met our friends for dinner at Acenar. Modern place, I thought very tasty, I ordered a goat dish (my first) which ended up being a type of goat stew, so it was indistinguishable as goat, just a good stew. We said goodbyes, then back to our hotel for some rest.
And research! From a Corvette forum, we learned that the recent Corvettes with stability control / traction control left in "street" (normal) mode will have it intervene. At 165mph. Thinking you've gone off a cliff, the deep end, something. Anyhow, the description matched *exactly* what had occurred with Stacy, so we were convinced we'd found it. That was good news for sure.
Sunday, we arose a little later than planned (too much Patron) and drove the 1.5 hours back to Beeville and the track. Uneventful, we found Steve Jones again and offloaded our overnight gear, then added some tire pressure and made ready for our first runs of the day. This day, sunny but cool for Texans (low 60s), also featured a nice *tailwind* that should make for some good runs. For everyone, not just small boxy MINIs!
My wife ran first...and achieved her goal, a 171.4mph pass! Atta girl, I heard her results in my car since they were broadcasting the PA system over FM locally. I got ready for a pass in my MINI...and ran it without mistakes, shifts at the redline, a 135.9! It was a little puzzling to us where the speed trap / measurement point was at the end, so we both had chosen to keep our foot in it until the first set of flashing red strobes past the mile marker. At that point, my Garmin GPS showed I'd reached 140, pretty close to maximum speed altogether. I was thrilled, and done at that point, mission accomplished.
There was time left for another run; Stacy was satisfied leaving with her own mission-accomplished goal of 170+, so we staged the Corvette for a last pass. My second time driving it that weekend, of course so different in feel / size / capability from my MINI, but I'm an long-time hot rodder who thinks he can drive anything. Anyhow, with my helmet on, my head did firmly contact the roof, and that made for a pretty "jarring" ride through the course. I remembered to switch off the traction control, and then was pretty cautious in leaving the starting line...we'd just bought new tires for that car last year, the rears are $550 each! So no smoky burnouts for me. Good pull in first, really going in 2nd, careful shift to 3rd then plant it, fast into 4th, then 5th till the finish. WOW this seems fast, speed thrill indeed...then the marker, and easy onto the brakes. Over the FM: "Car 574: 171.4 mph". Just like my wife's run! How bizarre, *exactly* the same speed, but she kicked my butt in the half mile, 143 to my 130-something, I'm a little more careful about her tires than she is, apparently!
So: both goals accomplished, a great weekend of racing. We said "thanks", and goodbye to Steve Jones who'd been so kind to us, but not before he wrangled a good friend over to speak with us about the Big Bend Open Road Race this fall. West Texas? Average 100+ over 50 miles or so? Might be fun! Finished packing, removed our racing numbers, and began our drive to Dallas for the night. A great weekend of racing...though on reflection, that was a long trip there and back just to run about 10-12 minutes at speed. Yes, we're that addicted!
