Gentlemen,
I do not mean to put any kind of damper on the enthusiasm of any motorsports event, but I think that several of you have a misunderstanding about what you will be doing in any high speed competition.
To put things in perspective, lets just say you are driving down any local highway at a slightly illegal 80 mph, and you have a tire failure. With reasonable driving skill and and decent road conditions you should be able to carefully pull to the side of the road and stop your vehicle in approximately 500 to 700 feet. Now here you are at the Mojave MIle and you are nearing the mile marker, doing 160 mph, when your tire fails (possibly due to a lack of careful examination before the event) and it will now require a careful and skillful 1900 to 2200 feet to safely bring your three tired GT to a stop.
Energy relates to the square of the speed. Lets say your GT is capable of actually reaching 200 mph in the mile, and the tire gives up right then you are looking to control a three tired vehicle, with those three tires trying to handle those additional forces from the missing fourth tire. It will take you 3300 to 3700 feet to hopefully keep that GT under control and get it stopped safely.
This is why, before any competition, we go over our vehicle, be it the GT or my 217 mph Camaro, front to rear, top to bottom. We are checking all the nuts and bolts, the full examination of the tires (tread, and both sidewalls) looking for anything that might make life uncomfortable at these extreme speeds. Any GT owner who has spent a few moments underneath their car has seen loose pan bolts. Just one of those bolts getting into your tire at speed could ruin your whole day, if not your whole life.
All this just to say, this is serious, not to be taken as a light fun day at the airport.
Richard Hille
The GT School
