Mojave Mile Conquered: 181.8 MPH

After a week of intense preparation, we showed up in Mojave at 6PM the night before the Mojave Mile. Our goal: get the car tech inspected so we can fix any last-minute problems if necessary. Tech inspection was supposed to last until 8PM and we arrived at 6PM. Upon arrival we asked the event coordinators if they wanted our car on/off the trailer for tech inspection. That's when the tech inspector pointed to this gorgeous Mercedes Red-colored Black Series and said "that's the last car for the day, we're closing tech inspection." For some reason an 8PM deadline to those guys was a 6PM deadline to us -- and we're already too late. The only thing we can do is show up at 7AM the following morning and get in line with the hoards of other late-comers.

The paddock was supposed to open at 5:30 AM so people could get their own work areas. With the M3 off of the trailer, I arrive at 5:30 AM and wait until about 5:45 when the same tech inspector shows up and says "no racers allowed this early -- don't come back until 7AM." I return to the hotel, waste some time, then show back up at 6:45 AM. When I arrive, not only are the gates already open, but the paddock area is pretty full as well.

Tech Inspection

The first order of business is tech inspection. The tech inspectors look over the car and conclude that everything is perfect... But wait, they start talking among themselves, pointing, and come back to me and say "your fire extinguisher isn't up to code. You need a metal bracket, not plastic. Inspection failed." Our bracket for the roll cage was a very well fitted Sparco aluminum bracket, but the fire extinguisher bracket itself (supplied with the fire extinguisher) was plastic. We look around in the paddock for a team that might have an extra: nothing. I go into Mojave at all of the gas stations: nothing. I call my wife -- who is on her way from San Jose -- and tell her to stand by because I may need her to pick something up along the way. As soon as I return, a guy who was in the same situation as us had just returned from Lancaster (30 miles away) and handed me his receipt and said "Auto Zone" has them in stock...you better hurry." As I hop in the Durango, I call my wife back and tell her "never mind" right before calling Auto Zone to confirm that they will set aside an extinguisher. On the phone, Auto Zone informs me that they are now sold out. Knowing that my wife is just approaching Tehachapi mountains, I call Auto Zone in that city. Luckily they have the extinguisher in stock and set it aside for my wife who literally arrived five minutes later. Tehachapi is only 20 miles away, so within 45 minutes we were back in the tech inspection line and passed. The car is now qualified up to 205 MPH. The only thing left is for us -- the drivers -- to qualify for 205 MPH as well.

Driver Qualification

Driver qualification is simple: on your first run, don't exceed 150MPH. They do allow you some margin for overshooting, but they're really looking to see if you're the type of person who follows instructions. When it's my turn to go, I launch into 1st, short shift into 2nd, then accelerate hard into 3rd and 4th. I have the video vBox hooked up with a digital oLED display in place of my speedometer. I accelerated so fast that I looked down and made the mistake of looking at the digital speedometer: 155MPH. Until that moment, I was pretty calm. When I realized I was going 155 MPH and I couldn't see the end of the track, I got scared and slowed down. I was looking for the finish line and it wasn't anywhere in sight. After looking over the vBox data, I realized I was only at the 1/2 mile mark -- and already travelling 155 MPH. For the remainder of the run, I stayed in 4th gear and just cruised around at 150 (or so).

Upon my return, I talked to Sam and told him how the car handled. We were pushing real hard to the left, slowing from 150 is no problem, the brakes are fine. During my run, I also noticed that the only timing device (or radar) was at the very end. This allowed Sam to take a different approach during his qualifying run: go as fast as you can, then slow down to 150 before crossing the finish line. So that's exactly what Sam did. He accelerated up to 165 MPH -- in a scant 3400 feet -- before slowing and finishing his qualifying run at 154 MPH.

Top speed runs -- and more drama
Now we're both qualified to 205MPH, the car is qualified to 205 MPH, all that's left is to get back in line and make a speed run. But now, it's time for the second surprise of the day: we need arm restraints and didn't have any.

During my qualifying run, the inspectors at the grid said I would be limited to 165 unless I had arm restraints. This was another huge surprise to us. We looked over the rule book at least 5 or 6 times and didn't see anything about metal brackets on fire extinguishers, or arm restraints for runs above 165 MPH. After searching for nearly 30 minutes, we found a woman with an extra set who was willing to loan them to us. This was great news because only 5 minutes later my line of cars was taken to the grid.

I knew from my practice run that the car was pulling rather hard to the left. There was a 15-20 MPH head/cross wind that was also throwing the car around quite a bit. During my first run, I got scared -- so I knew I had to work through my nerves. I decided that I wouldn't look at the digital speedometer and instead I would hit the pedal to the metal and concentrate on the run. My strategy all along was to short-shift first because the tires were going to spin anyways, drop into 2nd and modulate the throttle into hard acceleration. At the top of 2nd, I got some wheel spin, dropped it into 3rd, 4th, and then 5th. At the end of the run after taking my foot off of the gas, I looked down at the speedometer and saw "181.7" -- that was when I knew I had a really good speed. I left the track and picked up my time slip on my return to the paddock. The timekeeper looks at the slip, hands it to me and says "that's a really good speed!" Thanks!

Next was Sam's turn at top speed. Luck wasn't so kind to Sam as it was to me. After my run, we inspected the car and noticed the driver's side inner wheel liner was rubbing against the wheel. It seems that the high speeds were taking its toll on the car. When Sam left the starting line, I could hear him spinning tires in 1st and 2nd. When he reached approximately 150 MPH, the wheel liner departed the vehicle and took along with it any sensors attached to it. We heard the PA announcer say they were closing the track because the BMW shredded a tire. We already knew it didn't shred a tire because Sam finished his run and posted 178.9 MPH. We also saw him driving back, so I immediately knew the wheel liner dislocated itself from the car. Within five minutes, the fire inspectors came to me and handed me the BMW temperature sensor they found on the track. I was impressed: they found a 2" x 2" piece of plastic and returned it, along with all of the pieces of the wheel liner.

Fixing the car damage

At this point, the car is black flagged unless we can fix it. We take it to the
paddock, jack it up, and begin to work on removing the remainder of the wheel
liner. After its removal and a few zip ties later to secure the supercharger air
filter and oil drain line, we go back through tech inspection and back into
line. By this time it was nearly 4PM and little did we know the next run would
be our last. Sam asked who was going to drive, and assuming we had two runs
left, I said I would drive. We discovered again that the event coordinators had
a slightly different definition of "run until 6PM" than we did. Had I known the
next run would be our last, I definitely would have let Sam have it -- to
complete his unfinished business.

On the last run, it's clear that the car is pulling harder and harder to the
left. The missing wheel liner helps the aerodynamics of the car by keeping the
wind away from the tire. Now, there's nothing stopping all of that wind from
hitting the tire and screwing up our time. Between runs I analyzed the vBox data
and noticed that I short-shifted 4th-5th. I shifted at 155 MPH, when I could
have gone above 170. I figured this affected my time somewhat, and was hopeful
that I could break my earlier 181.8. But there was no such luck. With the wind
getting nastier and nastier, the car struggled to break through and topped out
at 175.6 MPH on our last run of the day.

Conclusions

A lot of people might find it totally surprising that we are just two amateurs
with a goal of hitting 200 MPH. Many people doubted us, called us liars, and
said prove it at the Mojave Mile. Well, we proved it. We ran faster than 60-70
other cars. There were only a very small handful of cars that even came close to
180 MPH, let lone cracked above it. Best of all, we did it on stock wheels, and
stock tires. That's right, we didn't have any racing wheels, nor racing tires.
We did all of this on bone stock 19" BMW wheels and tires!

Final pictures of the car:

More Notes

In the picture above of the starting lines, you can see the Red-colored "Black Series" Mercedes. The owner says there are only ten red-colored Black Series Mercedes in the country. His best time was 161 MPH. There were about 10 Ford GT's at the event. I asked two drivers their times, and it was the mid-high 170's. Another GT driver posted a 188.

Sam did tell me that a few cars broke into the 190's. Maybe he can fill in details because I didn't recall hearing any 190's, except "Big Red" (see below).

The fastest car at the event was "Big Red" -- a nitrous breathing old-school Camero with 1100 horsepower. He posted 200.07 MPH.

I was the only BMW at the event. I found that a bit surprising considering what I thought were commitments from others to run their cars at the event. In the final analysis, we were the 9th fasted car overall at the entire event.

Here's the pictures of my three time slips. I don't have Sam's...maybe he can post them if he has time.

 

Here's the car's vital statistics for the Mojave Mile:

Description	Data
Vehicle	2008 BMW M3
Motor	RD Sport RS-46 4.6L "Stroker" V8
Supercharger	ESS VT2 for ESS46
Horsepower	613 whp
Torque	429 wtq
Boost	6.5 PSI
Fuel	50:50 mix of 91 Octane / Q16
Wheel	Bone STOCK 19" BMW factory wheels
Tires	Bone STOCK 19" BMW factory tires (Conti Sports)
Curb Weight	3295 pounds (1/2 tank of gas)

 

Acceleration Data:
 

Description	Run-1 Est. Time	Run-1 Tr. Speed	Run-2 Est. Time	Run-2 Tr. Speed	Run-3 Est. Time	Run-3 Tr. Speed	Run-4 Est. Time	Run-4 Tr. Speed	Run-5 Est. Time	Run-5 Tr. Speed
0-60	8.04		8.01		6.08		7.13		6.54
60-130	10.22		9.23		9.07		9.26		9.36
1/8 Mile	11.08	85.16	11.12	87.52	9.49	92.48	10.37	90.02	9.82	90.53
1/4 Mile	15.47	115.16	15.38	122.88	13.61	125.29	14.58	122.57	14.02	122.64
1/2 Mile	22.28	147.18	21.94	153.37	20.09	153.18	21.16	151.55	20.62	150.01
3/4 Mile	28.23	156.15	27.60	149.97	25.73	168.58	26.74	168.25	26.30	164.66
1-Mile	34.15	151.48	33.64	152.26	30.84	182.47	31.91	179.51	31.57	176.27

 

Time/Distance-to-speed Data:
 

Speed	Run-1 Time (Secs)	Run-1 Distance (ft)	Run-2 Time (Secs)	Run-2 Distance (ft)	Run-3 Time (Secs)	Run-3 Distance (ft)	Run-4 Time (Secs)	Run-4 Distance (ft)	Run-5 Time (Secs)	Run-5 Distance (ft)
10 MPH	1.48	11.64	1.55	13.13	1.06	9.17	1.72	12.51	1.17	8.71
20 MPH	3.47	57.95	3.40	52.56	1.98	29.07	2.63	32.40	2.19	30.42
30 MPH	4.62	99.50	4.49	92.44	3.05	68.25	3.80	75.08	3.16	66.42
40 MPH	5.51	145.18	5.86	65.98	3.92	112.76	4.82	127.17	4.09	114.28
50 MPH	6.39	203.77	7.21	254.44	5.19	196.60	6.13	215.90	5.58	210.31
60 MPH	8.04	337.06	8.01	318.79	6.08	268.18	7.13	296.10	6.54	287.66
70 MPH	9.28	454.88	8.79	393.58	6.92	348.32	8.04	382.75	7.42	371.37
80 MPH	10.47	586.32	10.27	554.97	7.75	439.71	8.92	479.79	8.31	469.41
90 MPH	11.66	734.94	11.41	698.10	9.20	620.41	10.36	659.60	9.75	650.18
100 MPH	12.86	902.29	12.57	859.16	10.39	786.32	11.60	831.81	11.02	826.80
110 MPH	14.11	1093.65	13.76	1042.15	11.61	974.22	12.88	1028.38	12.30	1024.78
120 MPH	16.37	1474.16	15.00	1252.55	12.88	1189.36	14.22	1255.65	13.65	1252.80
130 MPH	18.26	1821.30	17.24	1660.75	15.15	1606.60	16.39	1653.25	15.90	1667.29
140 MPH	20.45	2253.93	19.19	2047.06	17.10	1993.53	18.56	2083.28	18.15	2113.64
150 MPH	23.06	2810.72	21.24	2483.23	19.08	2414.95	20.78	2556.73	20.62	2639.15
160 MPH			23.47	2991.75	23.07	3320.41	23.30	3130.51	23.51	3295.92
170 MPH					26.23	4085.98	27.49	4146.48	28.60	4525.19
180 MPH					29.81	5005.16

 

Gear Shifting Data:

Gear	Run-1 Speed (MPH)	Run-1 Distance (ft)	Run-2 Speed (MPH)	Run-2 Distance (ft)	Run-3 Speed (MPH)	Run-3 Distance (ft)	Run-4 Speed (MPH)	Run-4 Distance (ft)	Run-5 Speed (MPH)	Run-5 Distance (ft)
Shift 1st	18.59	28.25	38.64	130.78	42.73	127.19	45.62	155.97	39.38	110.42
Shift 2nd	55.27	240.55	72.85	421.88	82.75	467.65	81.79	497.23	84.50	516.43
Shift 3rd	112.21	1139.27	122.41	1308.65	125.64	1329.37	124.21	1361.62	127.03	1437.63
Shift 4th					153.38	2575.80	164.38	3400.47	162.31	3461.60