The Tire Rack Cannonball One Lap of America

May 11, 2005 - The Pirelli team finished The Tire Rack Cannonball One Lap of America second in class and 25th overall this past weekend. This was a great finish for the Pirelli team in their first year of the competition which had ninety-four entrants. During the awards ceremony Tony Swan, executive editor of Car and Driver magazine, said " I'd like to thank the guys in the other Mustang for letting me win." Throughout the event the Pirelli team and the Car and Driver team traded event wins which made for an interesting competition in the under $40,000 over 3.5 liter class. Although the Pirelli Mustang had no modifications, the team was able to keep pace with the other Mustang GT that was prepared by the Special Vehicle Team at Ford Motor Company. The event was extremely beneficial for Pirelli Tire North America. The Mustang received more exposure and was photographed more than most of the other exotic cars in the competition. The car was shown on the Car and Driver website three times. The pictures can be seen at www.caranddriver.com. The comments from the spectators were very positive noted Gianluca Grioni of the Pirelli team. " Almost everyone that came by the car asked to take a picture, and even though we did not have the specially prepared race car that many of the other teams did, we showcased our Georgia built product on a stock vehicle and came away with a great result." The P Zero Nero performed flawlessly during the 5,000 mile journey from Indiana through 13 states and back again. The team raced on 7 road courses, 1 oval, and 1 dragstrip during the event. Even after all those miles, the 255/35R20 P Zero Neros built in Pirelli's state-of-the-art MIRS plant in Rome, Georgia showed little sign of wear. The event took its toll on the two-man team, though. They averaged about 4 hours of sleep per night during the event. " We were in the first few groups to run each day so we were able to leave early to get to our next event. Many other teams averaged around two hours of sleep each night" , noted Jeff Dinges of the Pirelli team. Throughout all of the events, the team did really well on the road courses with an average finish of 20th position. The best results came at Nelson Ledges in Ohio and Roebling Road in South Carolina where the team finished in the top twenty. Throughout the field of Porsche, Viper, Corvette, and other factory efforts from Ford and Chrysler the team did really well. The team was extremely happy with the results of the event and hope to be a part of The Tire Rack Cannonball One Lap of America presented by Car and Driver next year.