What is 'One Lap of America'?

"Personal hygiene takes a holiday and friendships (sometimes marriages) are stretched to the limits"  - from the One Lap website

I found this description of the race, from AsiaCD.com, which I think about sums it up:

"An Arabian king has ordered his son Sheik to re-run the cannonball race after losing the game in America. The big reward had attracked (sic) many racers and also Old Don's son Don-Don.  The old don tries to kidnap Sheik for a ransom but the plan is screwed-up by other racers.  Eventually Sheik is safe and a bigger reward is in store for the winner."

OK, so maybe that really didn't sum it up...

The current iteration of the Cannonball One Lap of America is an extension of the old Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash - an honest-to-goodness speed contest that started out of a NYC hotel and ended in a hotel in Redondo Beach, CA.  Due to the changing litigational and transportation environments, the race became too risky to run, and thus was born One Lap.

While One Lap attempts to retain the spirit of the original competition, the speed portions now take place within the legally sanctioned confines of various motorsport venues across the country.  The event itself consists of driving around the country virtually non-stop, with precious little time devoted to such luxuries as sleep and personal hygiene. Now in its 22nd running, the 2005 event will take place primarily on the Eastern half of the US (even us nuts have our limits!), and for Christo and I, will entail some 5,200 miles of driving (not including the distances driven at the competitions) over the course of 8 days. 

The Venues

It's been difficult to dig up a lot of detailed information on the various venues that the 2005 One Lap event will visit (for example, I've yet to be able to get a decent address for Nelson Ledges - best I've got is it is about 20 miles NW of Warren, OH, near the intersection of Route 305 and US-422 - we need a GPS).  I've compiled a list of links for all of them - most of them have their own web page, but some don't and thus the links are to 3rd party web sites that I can't verify the accuracy of the details listed for the venue.

The Events

The events consist of the following: dry skidpad, wet skidpad, low ET drag racing, bracket drag racing, and timed circuit. Christo has assigned Eric  the skidpads and the drag racing while Christo, being the only one qualified to do the track lapping, and being pretty good at track lapping, too, will do the track portions (timed circuit).  Think of Christo as Jackie Chan, and Eric as the guy with the head band sitting in back.