I know it’s been a couple months since this event took place and a whole a lot of controversy has flowed under the bridge since then. At the conclusion of that event I encouraged Ray to put together a video like he did for the last Texas Mile. Because of that controversy the video has never been posted for general viewing and only a select few of us have been able to enjoy it. It was an amazing few days and I was thrilled to be there to witness it all. The build Team at Ford put together a most capable and very beautiful second-generation Ford GT. A few dedicated enthusiasts have made the new Ford GT as legendary as the original. Martin Bartek of Matech Competition, David Bannister who created this Forum, and Ray Hofman are three that immediately come to mind.
The Miami Mile extended weekend started for me on the Wednesday before the event. I had told Ray I would be flying my Cirrus SR22-G2 out to Florida to watch the shootout. He told me he was sending his jet to California to pick up John Mahovitz, Brian Sakata, and his ace tuner Naoto, and that if I liked they would stop in Scottsdale and pick me up as well. Cool, I’d rather bartend in the back of your Learjet at 550 MPH than fly sober in my plane at 205 mph. After picking me up in Scottsdale we flew to the Chino Airport in California where we loaded up on engine building and tuning talent. Next stop, Midland Texas to pick up Ray, Janna, and their little guy. I had time to brew up some Makers Mark Manhattan’s before the pilots called me up to the cockpit to view a strange phenomenon directly under the nose of our plane. A huge fire was burning out in the middle of the Gulf. Just a few hours earlier the Deepwater Horizon rig had exploded and the flames and smoke were clearly visible even at 41,000 feet. We didn’t know exactly what it was until we read about it in the paper the next morning.
After landing in Sarasota we went straight to Heffner Performance to check everything out as final preparations were being made to Ray’s yellow GT. The team at Heffner had been working on the car almost every day since its return from the Texas Mile. Just about every major component of the car had been modified or improved since the Texas event. Everything looked good so the cars (Torrie’s car was being transported to the runway as well) were loaded into Ray’s rig which would depart shortly after midnight. After a nice dinner and cocktails we all retired to our respective rooms at the Holiday Inn in Sarasota and we would follow in the jet early the next morning.
The runway is out in the middle of the East Jesus, buried somewhere in the Everglades. There was nothing around and it looked like we were landing in the middle of the Amazon. The runway itself was in better condition than the one used at the Texas Mile and it’s a half-mile longer as well. Chris Wheeler was there in his red/white Camillo-Heffner twin turbo GT and he made a couple runs on pump gas to join the 200 mph club with a best run of 206.6 mph. Torrie made several runs in his TT as well. At one point during the weekend there were five Ford GT’s gathered around Ray’s trailer and all five of them had twin turbo chargers!
I will not divulge all of the changes and improvements to the yellow GT, I’ll leave it up to Ray to do that if he feels so inclined, but changes in some areas revealed weak spots in others. The addition of traction and launch control is an example. The first run of the day on brand-new fresh Hoosiers saw Ray easing the car off the line, short shifting well shy of the redline, and backing off well before the 1 mile mark. A nice, laid-back, easy 240 mph trap speed was the result! Before making a hard run a test of the launch/traction control was in order. With the launch controller keeping rpm at a specified level, a rapid release of the clutch resulted in……….. a broken half shaft. The team was well aware that this component was a potential weak link and a spare half shaft was on hand. An hour later the car was repaired but as no additional half shafts were available, the car would have to be launched very softly for the rest of the weekend as another break would send us all home. This is the reason for the relatively long elapsed times for Ray’s runs. He had to ease the car off the starting line which burned up a lot of time but this had only a minor negative effect on his top speeds.
Ignoring the safety measures that would be required during the actual event, several of us stood right by the runway filming the car as it went by us at 260+ mph! Most of the video footage you see in Ray’s Miami Mile film was taken by me with my unsteady hands. Run by run Ray and his team dialed things up culminating in a 269.9 mph pass at the end of the day.
The cars were loaded back up, and the rest of us piled into the jet for the short hop back to Sarasota. A celebratory Makers Mark Manhattan toast to our good friend Daniel was made during the flight followed by an enjoyable dinner at one of Sarasota’s local watering holes. Early the next morning preparations began for Sunday’s event.
Everything was inspected, tightened, adjusted, and checked. Jason Heffner's shop was a beehive of activity with two or three individuals working on yellow GT from morning till night. Work continued all day and a final engine run was made close to midnight on Friday night. Something had gone wrong. The engine started running rough and one of the cylinders dropped off-line. Everybody’s blood pressure shot up and what should have been a good nights sleep had instantly turned in to an all nighter for the crew. Accufab ace John Mihovetz was already asleep back at the hotel but he cheerfully accepted the late-night phone call and was on-site within 30 minutes. By two in the morning John, Naoto, and Brian had determined that a broken valve spring was the culprit. It was the exact same valve spring that had broken just prior to the Texas Mile. But why? It was ultimately determined that the seat that that spring sat in was improperly machined and the slight angle of that spring caused the break. At four in the morning we were all still on site with the crew working furiously to complete the necessary work in the 36 remaining hours before the event. I told Ray he should go back to the hotel and go to sleep as he would need to be sharp to drive at warp speed on Sunday. Ray’s response to me was no. He told me he could not expect his crew to work around the clock for 36 straight hours if he was back at the hotel asleep. And so Ray stayed with the crew all night. There’s a reason guys like Ray are more successful than others.
Repairs were completed, the car was loaded into the trailer, and sometime after midnight on Saturday night Ray’s motorhome/trailer rig headed for the runway. This time I did not ride in the jet. I crashed on the sofa in the motor home and was still asleep when it arrived at the Florida Exotics Event. I awoke to the sound of a Learjet taxiing up behind my mobile bedroom.
Sunday was a hot windy day with a 15 mph headwind blowing straight down the runway. It clearly had a negative effect on speeds that day. The rest of the story is pretty well known. I spent most of my morning applying clear helicopter blade tape to many areas of Ray’s car to make it more aerodynamically clean. Brian and Naoto dialed things up run by run. John and Jason kept tabs on everything. A tornado of bluster and bravado blew out of the Performance Power pit area culminating in a video camera and assault rifle festooned covey of “pants on the ground” young men streaming into Ray’s pit area. :bored Ray told them to get their guns out of his pit area, and no, he was not there to "side by side" race. :bs Have a nice day.
After final adjustments had been made to the event’s timing equipment, whether or not those adjustments provided absolute accuracy, everybody was running under the same standard. The Hoffman Motorsports/Peak Racing GT bested the fastest run by Performance Power by a considerable margin. Johnny Bohmer made one final attempt to beat Ray’s top speed. His white GT blew something and trailed smoke during the second half of his final run. His top speed didn’t even come close. If he had bested Ray’s speed I can assure you he would’ve crowed about that achievement. As he did not, he claimed the entire exercise was meaningless because of timing equipment.
And until the Texas Mile, that’s where it’s going to stand which is fine by me. Did Ray’s car actually go as fast as his timing slip indicated at that event? He actually went a bit faster, though not quite as fast as the 269.9 registered on Thursday without the big headwind. Detractors will just have to wait for the Texas Mile in October, and that's okay too. Though it’s a shame that the event’s timing equipment was not up to snuff, it was still a hell of a weekend, Ray has put together one hell of a video, and it would be an equal shame not to share it with our membership. So at the direct request of my good friend Ray Hofman, here it is. Enjoy it, and we’ll see you at the Texas Mile.
All the best.
Chip
http://www.vimeo.com/11705117
The Miami Mile extended weekend started for me on the Wednesday before the event. I had told Ray I would be flying my Cirrus SR22-G2 out to Florida to watch the shootout. He told me he was sending his jet to California to pick up John Mahovitz, Brian Sakata, and his ace tuner Naoto, and that if I liked they would stop in Scottsdale and pick me up as well. Cool, I’d rather bartend in the back of your Learjet at 550 MPH than fly sober in my plane at 205 mph. After picking me up in Scottsdale we flew to the Chino Airport in California where we loaded up on engine building and tuning talent. Next stop, Midland Texas to pick up Ray, Janna, and their little guy. I had time to brew up some Makers Mark Manhattan’s before the pilots called me up to the cockpit to view a strange phenomenon directly under the nose of our plane. A huge fire was burning out in the middle of the Gulf. Just a few hours earlier the Deepwater Horizon rig had exploded and the flames and smoke were clearly visible even at 41,000 feet. We didn’t know exactly what it was until we read about it in the paper the next morning.
After landing in Sarasota we went straight to Heffner Performance to check everything out as final preparations were being made to Ray’s yellow GT. The team at Heffner had been working on the car almost every day since its return from the Texas Mile. Just about every major component of the car had been modified or improved since the Texas event. Everything looked good so the cars (Torrie’s car was being transported to the runway as well) were loaded into Ray’s rig which would depart shortly after midnight. After a nice dinner and cocktails we all retired to our respective rooms at the Holiday Inn in Sarasota and we would follow in the jet early the next morning.
The runway is out in the middle of the East Jesus, buried somewhere in the Everglades. There was nothing around and it looked like we were landing in the middle of the Amazon. The runway itself was in better condition than the one used at the Texas Mile and it’s a half-mile longer as well. Chris Wheeler was there in his red/white Camillo-Heffner twin turbo GT and he made a couple runs on pump gas to join the 200 mph club with a best run of 206.6 mph. Torrie made several runs in his TT as well. At one point during the weekend there were five Ford GT’s gathered around Ray’s trailer and all five of them had twin turbo chargers!
I will not divulge all of the changes and improvements to the yellow GT, I’ll leave it up to Ray to do that if he feels so inclined, but changes in some areas revealed weak spots in others. The addition of traction and launch control is an example. The first run of the day on brand-new fresh Hoosiers saw Ray easing the car off the line, short shifting well shy of the redline, and backing off well before the 1 mile mark. A nice, laid-back, easy 240 mph trap speed was the result! Before making a hard run a test of the launch/traction control was in order. With the launch controller keeping rpm at a specified level, a rapid release of the clutch resulted in……….. a broken half shaft. The team was well aware that this component was a potential weak link and a spare half shaft was on hand. An hour later the car was repaired but as no additional half shafts were available, the car would have to be launched very softly for the rest of the weekend as another break would send us all home. This is the reason for the relatively long elapsed times for Ray’s runs. He had to ease the car off the starting line which burned up a lot of time but this had only a minor negative effect on his top speeds.
Ignoring the safety measures that would be required during the actual event, several of us stood right by the runway filming the car as it went by us at 260+ mph! Most of the video footage you see in Ray’s Miami Mile film was taken by me with my unsteady hands. Run by run Ray and his team dialed things up culminating in a 269.9 mph pass at the end of the day.
The cars were loaded back up, and the rest of us piled into the jet for the short hop back to Sarasota. A celebratory Makers Mark Manhattan toast to our good friend Daniel was made during the flight followed by an enjoyable dinner at one of Sarasota’s local watering holes. Early the next morning preparations began for Sunday’s event.
Everything was inspected, tightened, adjusted, and checked. Jason Heffner's shop was a beehive of activity with two or three individuals working on yellow GT from morning till night. Work continued all day and a final engine run was made close to midnight on Friday night. Something had gone wrong. The engine started running rough and one of the cylinders dropped off-line. Everybody’s blood pressure shot up and what should have been a good nights sleep had instantly turned in to an all nighter for the crew. Accufab ace John Mihovetz was already asleep back at the hotel but he cheerfully accepted the late-night phone call and was on-site within 30 minutes. By two in the morning John, Naoto, and Brian had determined that a broken valve spring was the culprit. It was the exact same valve spring that had broken just prior to the Texas Mile. But why? It was ultimately determined that the seat that that spring sat in was improperly machined and the slight angle of that spring caused the break. At four in the morning we were all still on site with the crew working furiously to complete the necessary work in the 36 remaining hours before the event. I told Ray he should go back to the hotel and go to sleep as he would need to be sharp to drive at warp speed on Sunday. Ray’s response to me was no. He told me he could not expect his crew to work around the clock for 36 straight hours if he was back at the hotel asleep. And so Ray stayed with the crew all night. There’s a reason guys like Ray are more successful than others.
Repairs were completed, the car was loaded into the trailer, and sometime after midnight on Saturday night Ray’s motorhome/trailer rig headed for the runway. This time I did not ride in the jet. I crashed on the sofa in the motor home and was still asleep when it arrived at the Florida Exotics Event. I awoke to the sound of a Learjet taxiing up behind my mobile bedroom.
Sunday was a hot windy day with a 15 mph headwind blowing straight down the runway. It clearly had a negative effect on speeds that day. The rest of the story is pretty well known. I spent most of my morning applying clear helicopter blade tape to many areas of Ray’s car to make it more aerodynamically clean. Brian and Naoto dialed things up run by run. John and Jason kept tabs on everything. A tornado of bluster and bravado blew out of the Performance Power pit area culminating in a video camera and assault rifle festooned covey of “pants on the ground” young men streaming into Ray’s pit area. :bored Ray told them to get their guns out of his pit area, and no, he was not there to "side by side" race. :bs Have a nice day.
After final adjustments had been made to the event’s timing equipment, whether or not those adjustments provided absolute accuracy, everybody was running under the same standard. The Hoffman Motorsports/Peak Racing GT bested the fastest run by Performance Power by a considerable margin. Johnny Bohmer made one final attempt to beat Ray’s top speed. His white GT blew something and trailed smoke during the second half of his final run. His top speed didn’t even come close. If he had bested Ray’s speed I can assure you he would’ve crowed about that achievement. As he did not, he claimed the entire exercise was meaningless because of timing equipment.
And until the Texas Mile, that’s where it’s going to stand which is fine by me. Did Ray’s car actually go as fast as his timing slip indicated at that event? He actually went a bit faster, though not quite as fast as the 269.9 registered on Thursday without the big headwind. Detractors will just have to wait for the Texas Mile in October, and that's okay too. Though it’s a shame that the event’s timing equipment was not up to snuff, it was still a hell of a weekend, Ray has put together one hell of a video, and it would be an equal shame not to share it with our membership. So at the direct request of my good friend Ray Hofman, here it is. Enjoy it, and we’ll see you at the Texas Mile.
All the best.
Chip
http://www.vimeo.com/11705117
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