The German Autobahn has always held a certain place in the hearts of the automotive obsessed for not having blanket speed limits for cars and motorcycles.  Blasting down this famous stretch of highway is cause for countless daydreams and declarations of unadulterated high speed runs in a rented Porsche or Mercedes.

But here's the deal, one doesn't need to travel to Germany to have these dreams come true.

You can go to Ely, Nevada.

Nevada is the site of the Silver State Classic Challenge, which is a four day event where dreams of speed come true.  It's an event where your personal driving limits can move closer to that of your cars, which is a process that can take a very long time if you have a Dodge Viper or a car that approaches 800 HP.  All events at the Silver State Classic, including the Z2Z or Zero to 200mph to Zero competition, are held on public highways that are closed off to the general public.  Other events during the weekend are the Z1Z (Zero to 100 to Zero) and the High Noon Shootout, where cars have either a half mile or a full mile to get up to their top speeds.

The Silver State Classic Challenge is a 20 year old authorized open road race that is held on a 90 mile stretch of highway on Nevada's Route 318.  This race attracts the automotive obsessed, but not the kind that can be found waxing and shining their car on the weekend.No, these are the types of aficionados that get up at 5AM on a weekend for a 100 mile drive before their family wakes up to eat breakfast.  The Challenge is all about speed, but how fast you get to the finish is determined by which class you compete in.Classes go from 95 mph all the way up to 180 mph, which means you need to average exactly the speed of your class to have any chance of winning. Usually the difference between 1^st and 2^nd is thousandths of seconds, so extreme accuracy is the name of the game.

My partner in crime for this event was none other than James Schiefer of Schiefer Media, Inc. Not only does James come from a family with rich automotive history, he owns a vehicle that many people refer to as the "German Sledgehammer," a 2004 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG. Its hand crafted AMG V-8 cranks out a head snapping 470 HP with 516 lb-ft of TORQUE.  It has the ability to get to high speeds very quickly and has an electronic stability control system that makes sure you stay on the road, especially at speeds exceeding 100mph.James and I competed in the 100 mph class, which meant we needed to travel the 90 miles in exactly 54 minutes which was really fun, but not the most glamorous class in the event.

There is one class that demands the respect of all who follow and compete in the Silver State Classic and that is the Unlimited Class.  Unlimited means exactly that.  The only limit to what you can do is what you or your car can handle. Two cars competed in the Unlimited Class this year, driven by Richard Hille and Paal-Arvid Blytt, also know as Polly. Polly was a pleasant surprise that came all the way from Norway.  His story was very interesting because of all the trouble it took for him to get his car from Norway to Nevada. The car was supposed to be shipped to New York then onto Los Angeles, but it got diverted to England due to an invoice mishap.

Polly had to fly to England, then to New York and travel with the car all the way to LA so he could trailer it to Las Vegas/Ely.  I'm glad he did, because he brought 50 friends from Norway and Amcar Magazine, a Norwegian magazine that covers American cars. Needless to say, the parties got interesting.

It's important to note that Polly isn't some rich oil type from Norway who has all the money in the world to buy cars.  The exact opposite is nearer to the truth.  He loves his car and spends virtually all his time and money on it. Polly didn't end up winning the Unlimited Class with his blazing fast 181.6438 average speed, but he did have the highest radar trap at over 220 mph.  Richard Hille won the Unlimited with an even faster average speed of 198.5413.

It's crazy to think that the all-time Silver State Classic Unlimited Class record is 207.7801 mph, held by the late great Charles "Chuck" Shafer.  Chuck's wife, Cindy, drove with Chuck's record breaking navigator, Gary Bockman, this year to pay tribute to her husband.  A great story in itself, and what the Silver State Classic Challenge is truly about.  My role at the Silver State was as navigator to James' driving.  Navigating in the other event that I do every year, the Bullrun Rally, is much different because the Bullrun is more navigational and requires skills with a map.  General safety and spotting the occasional Highway Patrolman is also very important since we're not on a closed course.

At this event, my job was to make sure we were not only averaging 100mph, but EXACTLY 100 mph, not 99.8 or 100.2.  We equipped ourselves with exact time splits for each mile marker for the entire 90 miles.  This way I could tell James exactly where we were on time no matter where we were at on the course. It all seems very easy to do except at about 70 miles into the course is a two mile stretch called "The Narrows" with some pretty scary turns when traveling over 100 mph.  We needed to figure out whether or not we should bank time going into "The Narrows" or make time when we came out, but we weren't too concerned since the E55 can hold 100 mph easy on each turn.  I could only imagine what was going through the heads of the folks running the 170 mph Class.

James and I made a great team as we took 2^nd place in our Class, which is not easy to do for Silver State "Rookies".  Despite the thrill of driving fast and finishing in the top two in our class, our experience could be greatly defined by the people we met on the event.I've always felt that automotive events are more about people than cars.  If automotive events were summed up by you getting in a car and driving fast, then you can have an automotive event on the way to work if you wanted.  Driving events are all about meeting people with similar interests and I had an amazing time hanging out with my friends and meeting new ones.

The boys from Torque.TV's Silver State Classic Sponsor, Optima Batteries, sure knew how to party and party we did into the wee hours.  The fact of the matter is I didn't need to hop on a plane to Germany and drive the Autobahn to fulfill a dream, but I have to say Oktoberfest sounds real interesting.Oktoberfest: Sponsored by Optima Batteries anyone?

This entry was posted on September 25, 2007, 6:07 am and is filed under Class Sports Miscellaneous Torque.TV Racing/Events

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