[Timbo-1LE]

This was past Saturday @the Kennedy Space center with JB Racing as part of a high speed aero test. I know this is not what the car is built for, I have had it @ Sebring and Daytona, but this was too good to pass up...

A few things to give you reference

1) Length 15K feet, width 300 feet

2) Perfectly flat, meaning it does not follow the contour of the earth, I was led to believe this is unique. The interesting part is how you perceive things (Look for it in the video, you can see a Space Shuttle about half way on the left, second video from PDR). It simply gets larger, vs the norm of you seeing the top of an object and it grows by the “Top down”

3) It is grooved like a waffle, sheds water very fast, as you can see we did run once the rain let up a bit.

4) The runway surface changes mid-way, this was a high-tech mixture to take the Shuttle braking (It felt better to me too!)

5) Before you think I’m totally crazy, it is actually safer to a point, if you spin, you spin and do not flip. A Porsche 918 ($1.5M) did spin off the track, he was fine & car had minor damage (He hit a bird cannon, something they use to scare the birds off). Dude was skilled driver for sure.

6) The Porsche did 209MPH in 2.7 Mile

I did 174 on the speedometer, but the official timing was 172.701. My car was the cheapest $50K, but did impress a lot of people with McLarens, Lamborghini, Dodge Demon’, etc. Especially since it is stock from the factory, others had many modifications and taped off every gap to get every mph…

Videos:


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmw..._as=subscriber

1) First is “in car” during 1 Mile run (155.5) Cool thing, you can hear the tires “Sing” just like a plane when you go down the runway.

2) Second is the 2.7M run to 172, you can see how fast I get to 5th gear and the aero drag is simply too much to overcome. Rain was light, but you can see up to 116, the car’s traction control working like it should (PTM in Wet), It simply would not pull the last 400 RPM's, but still pretty good I think.

[Tulsa_SS]

Nice!

[slvrsrpnt]

that is awesome!

[Boost Creep]

Nice!
I wonder if you could have picked up a few mph running the narrower stock SS wheels/sizes along with taping the gaps like the others were doing.

[Uncle Sam]

Very nice!

I read somewhere that our cars would do 172 MPH or 176 MPH at top speed, here's proof.

[Timbo-1LE]

Agree, taping would have helped. I did chat with a couple of people who do this a lot, they felt the weather also was taking a few miles off, regardless, I pretty impressed considering this car was not designed for it. Having worked at the Cape for over 10 years, this was just too cool to pass up.

[fishjr8]

Originally Posted by Timbo-1LE

Agree, taping would have helped. I did chat with a couple of people who do this a lot, they felt the weather also was taking a few miles off, regardless, I pretty impressed considering this car was not designed for it. Having worked at the Cape for over 10 years, this was just too cool to pass up.

Wish I would have known you were doing this ... I would have come out and watched. What building do you work in?

[Uncle Sam]

How is there a shuttle parked outside? One, I thought there were only three left and one is in the Air and Space Museum Dulles annex near D.C. Two, why would you leave it outside? It's funny that I was so focused on the car that I missed A SPACE SHUTTLE !!! parked nearby.

Also, I wonder why the landing area had to be perfectly flat?

[Boost Creep]

Originally Posted by Uncle Sam

Also, I wonder why the landing area had to be perfectly flat?

Otherwise you would be landing on a hill. Shuttle has no engine thrust for any kind of correction. Glide path is calculated, and mathematically landing on a flat surface is easier to calculate.

[Uncle Sam]

I looked for runway info but only found this:

"The landing strip is not perfectly flat; it has a slope of 24 inches (61 centimeters) from the center line to the edge to facilitate drainage."

So, that's side to side, 24 inches of slope in 150-200 feet.

You would think that the slope over 15,000 feet would be very minor.

But, I would still drive it!

[Timbo-1LE]

I do not work at the Cape any longer, do miss it. Was the IT Director for Atlas, Titan and Delta.

Thanks for the update on the runway, again that is what I was told, but it is one flat table! The Shuttle is a mock up, not one of the original vehicles....

Highly recommend it, total blast....

[LS3JM]

OP is your car stock? I was wondering how fast our cars can go stock. Not sure if we have a speed limiter?

[Buzzberd6]

Damn Timbo, I would have loved to get in on that. I still work out there and live just across the river! I wonder if I could have gotten to the V6 limit of 156?

Originally Posted by Uncle Sam

How is there a shuttle parked outside? One, I thought there were only three left and one is in the Air and Space Museum Dulles annex near D.C. Two, why would you leave it outside? It's funny that I was so focused on the car that I missed A SPACE SHUTTLE !!! parked nearby.

Timbo is right, it's a fake. But it is full scale and pretty accurate.
Also, there's usually nobody around there at sunrise.
(I had a KSC SWAT friend of mine with me, I told him to look the other way that day)

[IMG][/IMG]

[Timbo-1LE]

That is a cool pic! If the question was to me if my car is stock, yes 100% stock GM w/6500 miles on it.

Not sure about the speed limiter. I assume 5th gear is not kind (as it hits a wall), and trust me the aero drag at that speed is crazy, just lifting off the gas, speed drops like a rock...

I would do it again, prefer road course, but met some great people, saw Porsche 918, McLarens, Lamborghini's, a viper with a cage and Nitrous, a really neat day. Even took my son for a ride on the 1 mile....