AzDave47

The Main Event of the Silver State Challenge is the 90-mile “Sunday Drive” on Nevada Highway 318 between Lund and Hiko, located about 200 miles northeast of Las Vegas. They have speed classes in 5-MPH increments from 95 MPH to 160 MPH, then 170, 180 and Unlimited. Except for the Unlimited Class (course record of 219.6 MPH) the goal is to average closest to your target time (under or over) in your speed class. As you go higher in the speed classes, safety equipment required for car and driver increases. I have done 15 events, 12 of them in the 150 MPH class. This September gave me a chance to get our C8 Z06 properly introduced to higher speeds than are normal for public highways.

For the Grand Sport (130-155) Division cars are required to have a fire extinguisher, 5 or 6-point racing harnesses for driver (and navigator, if riding), fire suit, Snell SA 2015 or newer rated helmet and other personal safety equipment. Most cars also require roll bars. Some of the European exotics and C5-C8 Corvettes are allowed to run with harness bars rather than roll bars due to the design of their rollover protection. Tires must be less than 5 years old and be in excellent condition with no plugs or patches.

Cars leave the starting line at 1-minute intervals. While passing is allowed, most competitors use the same strategy, run below you tech speed (165 in the GS div.) until you get your average to the target speed, then run the target speed until after Checkpoint 6, run faster until you “bank” enough time to compensate for running thru the Narrows, and then true up your time after you come out of the Narrows. The entire course, except for the Narrows, can be run at 150 MPH without pushing the car hard in the corners. Drivers are allowed to use the entire road if they wish.

I had previously run all my SSCC events in our 2009 Corvette Z06 and was very familiar with how accurate the speedometer was (151 indicated was 150 real). The road is nicely paved except for the “bump” at the apex of the last corner southbound in the Narrows and is quite smooth at the posted 70 MPH. It is somewhat less smooth at 150 MPH+. I ran the 09Z in 5th gear at 4800 RPM for most of the course. On the new C8Z I wasn't sure whether I'd have to run in 5th or 6th gear as when you want to make a speed change, you want it to respond reasonably “right now”. The 09Z would take a long time to change speed running in 6th gear so I didn't use it. It didn't take too long to determine that the C8Z was responsive enough in 6th gear to run at 5200 RPM for most of the course.

Our C8Z is a 2LZ with carbon flash painted low aero, CCBs and Forgeline DR1 wheels with the stock PS4S ZP tires and had about 3200 miles on it before the event. I decided to try Sport mode ride with Manual shifting to start the event and that worked very well. The ride was much better than the 09Z and it handled well enough that I found no reason to try Track mode.

I have always run solo in the past, doing my own stopwatch hand timing at the mile markers and have podium'd about half of the time. This time a local Corvette club member and experienced SSCC driver and navigator asked if he could ride and be a “non-talking navigator”. We agreed that he could ride and if my primary and secondary stopwatches failed, he could talk and help me out. My primary watch worked fine so I did not need a talking navigator. His timing ended up agreeing very nicely with the official timing.

When I ran thru the Narrows, I downshifted to 5th just after the long right-hander entrance turn and then down to 4th thru the main part of the esses. When I came out of the esses I had about 2 seconds to true up to the finish line about 18 miles away. At the last mile marker about ½ mile before the finish line I was indicating 0.2 seconds slow so blipped the gas a couple hundred yards before the finish line. My official time was 0. 2582 seconds slow for 3rd place. The class winner in a 1999 Trans AM finished with an excellent .0013 second variance. It is quite common in the 150 class to need less than 0.1 second variance to podium. My best ever time was a 0.0146 variance, .0011 seconds behind the winner, less than 3” over 90 miles at 150 MPH average. It is a fun event and weekend. Usually a 100 cars or more run in the SSCC and the spring sister NORC events.

For more information go to http://www.sscc.us/

Run thru the Narrows:

Vito.A

Sounds like fun.

Propspinner

I live in Nevada and never heard of that. That definitely will be in my future. Thanks

Ragtop 99

congrats on your 3rd place finish.

AzDave47

Administrator, can you meld these two identically titled threads of mine?

Minkster

How did you transmission changes vary from your C6Z, more, less, same? Noticed in the video you dropped two gears going into the climb, was it the same for the C6Z?

AzDave47

The C8Z is an 8-speed DCT, which I ran in manual mode and did the paddle downshifts and upshifts thru the Narrows, 6th to 5th to 4th and later back up to 5th and 6th. The 09Z was 6-speed manual. just 5th to 4th and later back to 5th. Top of 3rd gear in the 09Z was 124 MPH so would have been right near redline, plus the 09Z had about 500#-ft of torque at the rear wheels in that 115-125 MPH range in 4th. 4th in the C8Z is good to over 140 MPH. The way I drove them, both cars pulled nicely thru the Narrows in 4th.

When cruising the rest of the course at 150 MPH I could have used 4th in the 09Z or 5th in the C8Z, but both were responsive enough in 5th for the 09Z @ 4800 RPM or the C8Z in 6th@ 5200 RPM so more revs one gear lower would not have gained me anything and probably would have reduced fuel mileage. Neither would have worked cruising at 150+ in 6th gear for the 09Z or 7th for the C8Z as throttle response would have been too sluggish.

Jridden

Great videos and looks like a fun time. Thanks for posting. How much did the whole affair run?

AzDave47

Entry including the 1-mile trap speed event was about $900, plus 3 nights hotel, 1000 mile round trip driving to get there for me and the initial purchase of the harness bar, harnesses and fire bottle.

The first event you would do would be in the Touring class (95-100-105-110 MPH) and is lower, like $575 but you need to add the rookie school for another ~$200. Safety equipment for the Touring class is essentially a Snell SA rated 2015 helmet or newer, a fire bottle and gloves for your hands. The standard seat belt is accepted in the Touring group. In the lower speed classes you could do the 1/2 mile shootout. Then you can move up to the Grand Touring group (115-120-125) and then the Grand Sport (130 to 155). Car and driver safety equipment increases as do the entry fees as you move up in speed groupings.

While the entry fee may sound expensive, it is not cheap to close 90+ miles of public highway, have over 50 staffed course stations and have a couple airplanes in the air to keep tabs on the course. All this is supervised by the NV Highway patrol and they enjoy being a part of this long-running event which started in 1988.

All the rules and entry forms are listed at www.sscc.us

adamsocb

How much fuel did the run use? I remember you were concerned about making the 90 miles.

AzDave47

Not a problem. For the 90 miles I averaged 8.7 MPG. I topped up at pre-staging 7 miles before the start line and the first gas station is 13 miles after the finish line. When I filled up after the run, it took about 11 gallons and the initial top up was 2 gallons from Ely. In the future I should have no problem with doing the fill in Ely, NV and then at Ash Springs, NV after. My 09Z got 9.7 MPG stock and then with full HCI got 10.5 MPG for the 90-mile run. As with other modern Corvettes the gas tank is ~18 gallons.

tommyc6z06

Nice to see you’re enjoying the car Dave!

AzDave47

It will be another couple months before I do another speed event. I will probably have a 1/2 mile event and then a couple road course events during our "cool" season out here. I will need to get a track alignment and get a set of Cup2R tires mounted up and get Castrol SRF brake fluid in the system. For the road courses I'll put in the rear brake cooling ducts and I should be set to go.

Did you see Part 1 lower down in the threads?

Jaxian

This is interesting, I didn't know this event was around anymore. I built a car to run the Silver State in the early 90's. It was a supercharged inter-cooled 406 in a 1987 C4 with a Richmond 6speed. As I recall the year I finished the car there as a big accident and they said it was not insurable and was canceled going forward. I live in California and things like that never come back so I assume it was never started again. Everyone then moved to standing mile racing and I ended up selling the car and moving to a C5 Z06 to get the extra power needed for standing mile. Much easier to get big power out of a twin turbo LS. Very cool to know it's around again. Not sure after 30 years I am up to that type of racing anymore. Getting a bit old and slow..heh. Looks like a lot of fun, thanks for posting.

ZO6ZO7isme

Very, very cool Dave. Thx for posting….

AzDave47

Old? I raced Datsun 510s when they were new.

tommyc6z06

Yes, I did and am happy for you that you’re enjoying the car. Those Cup2Rs will be $ticky ;-)
Just back from a day at Mosport!

Racingswh

Thank you so much for sharing this. I have never driven there and the backdrop is quite breathtaking. Thank you for your detailed recount of the events. Sounds like your C8Z is performing exceptionally well. You must be pleased with it?

Is it possible for someone to go and drive there without having to go through the initial classes? As I recall it's illegal to go over your class maximum correct? I heard illegal like in State Trooper intervention illegal but could certainly have been an overinflated story.

A person in the next town over where I grew up ran in the unlimited class and was able to go quite quick. His name was Jim Peruto and I did not know him personally. A friend worked for him and I was somewhat familiar with his racing career. I am not sure he participated in the SSCC event very many times before he was in the unlimited class but you obviously would know better than I.

I would like to take a car but I would hate to make the trip to drive 124 mph although it sounds like they make it pretty fun for "rookies".

AzDave47

I remember the name Jim Peruto. I also knew Kim Payson from New England that ran the event in high speed classes back in the early days. Rules and procedures have been extensively modified since those days.

I ran my first SSCC event in 2011. At that point I had over 30 years racing experience in SCCA and IMSA. Because none of that is "open road racing" it counted for nothing. My experience included running a VW GTI 16v in the IMSA Firehawk series where I did a 4 1/2 hour stint and 12 1/2 hours overall in a Watkins Glenn 24 hour with a 3rd place class finish and 10th overall.

I did the rookie school (4 laps at the LV road course) and was signed off to run in the 110 class VMax 124. I did my own timing with stopwatch and mile markers and missed my target time by 2.08 seconds. My next event was in the 125 MPH class, VMax 140, I finished 2nd with a hand-timed 0.1935, beating the GM Buick Regal engineering team that had about $1K of computer equipment. Then I wen to the 140 class and for the last 12 events the 150 class with a VMax of 165. I was very pleased with the C8Z that weekend, but after running the 90 miles I am still not sure where in the 148-152 range the 150 indicated is and that does make a difference, Tire wear, tire temps also influence that and for me, I just try to figure it out "on the run".

In the `150 class VMax 165, using all the road you can take all the corners except the Narrows at 150+ while pulling less than 0.4 Gs so the SSCC, in all but the SuperSport Division, is an exercise in precise timing. In addition to the finish line time variance the do the Check Point Challenge where they add the absolute value of your variance at Checkpoint 3, Checkpoint 6 and the finish line. My best in that is 0.5048 seconds total. The main issue with open road racing below the unlimited classes with a driver with reasonable skills is animals or foreign objects on the road, tire issues or inattention. Inattention for the solo drivers can happen when you pay too much attention to your timing, like look at the mile marker go by at 150, do your stopwatch, look at the time, compare it to your target time for that mile marker, and figure out what your delta is and then make the right corrections. At 150, that takes a 1/4 mile and some of my mile marker times do have a corner in that distance. You also can be running slow and think you need to speed up, but if you are doing 152 you will reduce that time margin by 0.3 seconds in that first mile by doing nothing. Going off into the desert at 150 MPH is not very healthy.

The SuperSports Division, 160-170-180-unlimited require full roll cage, fuel cell and built-in fire systems. The curves on the course would challenge those cars at the higher speeds. Most are race prepped vehicles but a few "street" cars run. One was a V8 powered Corvair driven by Charlie Friend.

You are instructed to attempt to average your target time. Attempting to average you class VMAX will get you banned and they will notify the other Open Road Racing Venues that you do not play by the rules. Big Bend in Texas, Sand Hills in Nebraska and one or two others do these type event and some of those roads are more challenging in the various speed classes. Doing well over your VMAX will also get you banned. I do not know of any cases of excessive speed have been referred to the NV Highway Partrol, bit the event is run under their jurisdiction so beware. I had already run my 09Z to 173 MPH in the Mojave Mile before I started running in the 140-150 speed class so going over VMax was of no interest.

If straight high speed is of interest to you, they have a good event up in ME at the old Loring AFB that would work. My HCI NA 09Z with ~600 RWHP trapped at 201.2 MPH at the Mojve Airport 1.5 mile event when the DA was 4600'. It was the only one of the six cars that weekend that broke 200 that was not FI.


More questions? Ask away.

Racingswh

Thanks Dave!! Appreciate the detailed response. Sounds like your C8Z is living up to your expectations nicely. Is there anything about it's performance you have encountered so far where it leaves you wanting more or something different? In the video the car looks like it's performing fantastically well!

Has it ever rained while you were participating in the SSCC and, if yes, what is their response?