One Lap of America: Day 7 | Sealing the deal at Blackhawk

By Tom Suddard and Andy Hollis

Seal the deal. That’s all we could think about as we drove our Elantra N into Blackhawk Farms, the last track on this year’s Tire Rack One Lap of America Presented by Grassroots Motorsports schedule. We’d have a remarkably consistent week, with overall finishes in the mid-20s and, more importantly, consistent first-place finishes in our six-car economy class.

Now all we had to do was not screw up. One problem: Andy had been here, but Tom hadn’t.

One Lap has no practice and no “best of three” or anything: Each session is three laps from a standing start, with the total session time scored, which meant Tom needed to post competitive times on lap one. But we had a plan: Andy had driven this very track in this very car just a week ago, when he was here for an SCCA Track Night in America event.

But Tom had never been to Blackhawk. Time to go track walking! Over a morning of walking and scootering around, Andy shared his notes with Tom, and both crossed their fingers that it would work. Then the call to grid came.

Helmet on, launch control engaged, zen trance of Andy-ness entered. A few minutes later, Andy came off track having completed his mission: first in class, 26th overall, and zero bent wheels or body damage. Deal sealed.

At least in the morning session…Tom still had one final chance to screw things up in the afternoon, so he headed out to try his best at keeping this effort on the rails. And full credit to Andy’s track coaching: It worked!

First in class and 23rd overall, Tom’s cumulative time difference for the session was just three hundredths of a second behind Andy, and the car was still in one piece. We were now sitting 23rd overall in the 70-car field. We fist-bumped and screamed, “WE SURVIVED ONE LAP.”

At the front of the pack, Tom O’Gorman and Salil Shukla expanded their overall lead, with paddock rumors claiming Tom set a new street tire track record. Andy Smedegard and Alex Moss in their C8 Corvette have effectively locked up second place, but there’s a three-way battle for third place.

Currently in third is Team PGR’s extensively modified Tesla Model S Plaid, but Team Just a Fields Trip’s turbocharged Lotus Evora is only a few points behind, while Toyota PE Motorsports’ Supra is just barely behind them.

It’s anybody’s game as we head into tomorrow’s dry skidpad competition.

That’s right, we all hadn’t quite survived yet: We still had a four-hour transit through Chicago traffic back to Tire Rack’s headquarters, plus tomorrow’s dry skidpad competition. But after winning the week’s last high-consequence event–both in results and car damage–the deal is all but sealed in our Hyundai.

Tomorrow’s goal? With the latest Super 200 tires on most of the field and weather in the mid-50s, we’re hoping to see (or set) some new skidpad records. We’ll see everyone at the dry skidpad.

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