after 18 years the KOTH is still winning races

[ZRWON]

I thought you all might be interested in this recent Open Road Racing event, i.e., the Pony130 which runs from Battle Mountain to Austin NV. At 130 miles it's the longest ORR in the US.
We were competing in the 155 mph class.
At an average speed of 155 mph (can't exceed tech limit speed of 172 or you'd be disqualified) a perfect time would be 50 minutes, 17.032 seconds. 155 is 2nd fastest speed group. The 160mph group, unlimited class, is the fastest speed group and usually includes only the guys trying to make the
200 mph club. There's no tech limit on their top speed. Only 4 cars ran in
that group and 2 didn't finish.
I was navigator in Bob Wood's '06 Z06, and Ted Zaleski, a long time ZR-1 owner and REGISTRY member, started exactly one minute behind us in his beautiful '90 black ZR-1. About 40 miles down the road that Black ZR-1 was passing us!!!
At the end, the top three results for our 155 mph group of cars were:
1st place time was 50:17.694 vs the perfect goal of 50:17.032 Ted Zaleski '90 ZR-1 winner
2nd place was 50:18.028 Bob Wood and me in his '06 Z06
3rd place was 50:19.552

Ted's one of the best drivers out there and his old BEAST is pretty good
too!!
To other audiences I bite my tongue and tell them he beat us only because of his superior driving skills but we all know it was a result of the
magnificent KOTH with a little help from Ted.
Congratulations Ted on your a great run,
Bill Strowbridge

[tccrab]

Congrats to Ted! =D>
LONG LIVE THE KING!!!

And Bill, don't take too hard, second place isn't all that bad.
I'm sure you guys tried very hard, but at the end of the day age and experience will always prevail over youth and enthusiasm.
Just remember, "Second place" means "First Loser".


TomC

[ZRWON]

Originally Posted by tccrab

Congrats to Ted! =D>
LONG LIVE THE KING!!!
And Bill, don't take too hard, second place isn't all that bad.
I'm sure you guys tried very hard, but at the end of the day age and experience will always prevail over youth and enthusiasm.
Just remember, "Second place" means "First Loser"
TomC

Thanks for your comments Tom. We did so well because I had one of JVD's little Pirate Racing decals on the back of my helmet for luck...besides Ted only beat us by 334 thousandths of a second. I am always amazed that ORR folks can drive so far at those speeds and end up with only a small fraction of a second separting them. One of the 2 finishers in the 160mph group finished with a perfect .000 variance from the perfect time. I have never seen nor heard of this ever before! He got a standing ovation when they announced his award. He also got another 200mph club award! He must have 6 or 7 of those by now.

[threestar40]

Make no mistake, Ted is a kickA$$ driver and very experienced.
The really cool thing is that his drive train is pretty much a bone stocker according to him and I believe him.

I've stood right next to his car though and the interior is anything but stock.

He is the nicest guy you'll ever meet.

ORR is a thrilling thing to do and our cars were built for it.

I highly recommend doing an event before you sell, die, get too old or whatever...It's quite an experience.

The bad news is there are only four or five events in the whole country.

Rick =)

BBORR AND RRORR Survivor 2007

[cward]

Congrats to both Ted and Bill. Way to go. Ted and I go way back. He and I both raced in the 1999 BBORR. I think that some of the pieces from #364 are on Ted's car, in particular, the exhaust system and possibly the roll cage. I haven't talked to Ted in a couple of years but perhaps he will come the the Texas Gathering in New Braunfels this October. I hope so. I seem to remember a short dash when we met on the Big Bend highway a couple of months before the 1999 race as we were checking it out. Being race drivers meant that we had to test out each other a little bit. I think I got up to about 175 during that dash. We both made our cars faster over time. If you look at the archives of the 1999 race, you will find a DQ by my name. It was my first Open Road Race and I made the mistake of getting caught on radar at 179 on a 160 tech speed. I was running in the 150 class. The next two years, I was not DQ'd but then in 2002 I was caught again going a little too fast. By the way, Ted has been caught going too fast also. He is an excellent ORR driver and has won his class many times. I sure do miss racing ORR. I made many friends at those races.

Curtis