By Vince Bodiford

  It all started in Santa Fe, New Mexico during the media launch of the 2001 Saab 9-5 Aero wagon.

  Dave Young, co-host of The Weekend Drive® weekly radio show; and I were there with other media driving through the northern New Mexico countryside in the newest iteration of the Saab 9-5, and visiting with John Orth, Kevin Smith and Steve Janisse from Saab Cars USA, Inc.

  The 9-5 Aero Wagon is a brilliant execution of a luxury sport wagon. To demonstrate the variable boost turbo, Kevin Smith arranged for an all-out, flat-out drag race between the Aero, and wagons by BMW and Volvo. The Aero won. Saab threw in some theatrics that included strapping altimeter-equipped watches to our wrists and sticking “Breath-Right®” strips to the intake of the Volvo and Bimmer.

  “Good show,” as they would say at Disneyland®.

  Impressed with the car, it occurred to me that a great venue to show off this, or any of the new Saabs, would be Brock Yates’ annual nut-case race, The One Lap of America. In 1994, I won the overall championship of the One Lap in a factory Porsche 911 with racer Price Cobb. I suggested the entry idea for the upcoming 2000 race casually with Orth and Smith. Then we all went home, not giving another thought to it for a few weeks.

  I learned that the event would be run in May instead of June as it had been in the past, and that it would start and finish at Gingerman raceway in South Haven, Michigan. It would run over 4,200 miles of highway, with 14 timed events at 7 racetracks.

  We finally settled on entering a Saab 9-3 Viggen 5-door, which as luck would have it, was available in a press car leaving service and parked in Detroit, Michigan. A week and a half before the start, we were all committed, and the race to get into the race began. Entered in the Luxury Sedan Class, the Viggen was the only completely showroom stock car in that class.

  Okay, maybe road racing is not the first thing you think about concerning a Saab. But maybe it should be. The Viggen truly is a high performance car, much more than a nice yellow badge on the fender and trick wheels.

  With complete factory support from Saab, the car was entered and prepared for the event at Saab of Troy. There it was fitted with new Michelin tires and a fresh set of brakes. Dave and I mustered the support of Cabela’s, the world’s foremost outfitter, to outfit our team with night vision, radar detectors, radios, and other gear. On-Star was added to the car for navigation support.

  The 9-3 proved to exceed our expectations over the road and on the track. To prepare for the 4,200 miles of road driving, we added red film over the interior lights to preserve night vision, which we used along with Saab’s exclusive Night Panel. The Night Panel is no gimmick - it works as advertised and is a feature overlooked by most of the motoring press. To save weight, we removed the rear seats, and at each track practically stripped the car of everything to lighten the load. Safety was a primary goal, and most of our gear or equipment was there for a purpose, with safety at the top of the list.

  Along the way, we were never far from Saab fans. Regional club members showed up at Gingerman, Saab USA showed up at Road Atlanta in force, along with a half-dozen other Viggens lined up in the paddock to intimidate our competitors. Steve Goldberger from Nines magazine visited and photographed the Viggen in competition at Nelson Ledges. And throughout, Saab owners, fans and aficionados would stop and talk about their car, our car, or just wave and honk at us as we drove down the Interstate.

  The event began with practice and qualifying at Gingerman on May 6, and then the first two time trials the following day, May 7. At the drivers meeting, Brock said the qualifying order did not matter. Taking it easy, we put the Saab in the show and qualified 98th. We learned later it did matter - affecting our starting order at the subsequent tracks. Our first scored time trails at Gingerman were hampered by transmission fluid left on the track after another car blew a tranny.

  At Michigan International Speedway three-quarters of the track, plus the infield road course were used. Our starting order in the back of the pack allowed nearly everyone to compete on a dry track - our trials were made in a torrential downpour. Even so, the Viggen stuck to the wet speedway and rocketed through turns three and four, and onto the front straight at speeds exceeding 145 miles per hour - leaving a rooster tail - and the slower cars - in it’s wake.

  On the front straight at Road Atlanta, a mechanical over-rev cost us the engine. Lucky for us, Saab was on hand. With typical Saab enthusiasm and teamwork, Saab pulled together and found a donor Viggen at the Norcross headquarters to replace the engine in our car. Even with a blown engine, we were proud that we did not leave a drop of fluid on the track. Four hours later, Saab had installed the new engine and we were back in the show.

  For any road course enthusiast, driving on the legendary course at Sebring is a thrill. We used half of the course for the time trials here, but were still denied a clean run due to debris on the track and the wreck of the BMW 2002 in our path.

  Virginia International Raceway is the completely rebuilt and newly opened “motorsports country club” in the pristine hills of southern Virginia. The field of competitors began to thin here, with one of the Audi A4’s in our class losing its turbo and others failing mechanically. The Viggen was strongest here, with the first of the two timed events proving to be our best in the whole event - placing 56th overall - faster than fully half of every car in the show and finally beating the other BMW in our class, a fully race prepared 535. From Virginia on, that BMW never bested our speed on the track. Not bad for a literally showroom stock car against fully race-prepared competitors.

  The contrasts between Lime Rock Park and Nelson Ledges couldn’t be more opposing. Our performance at both tracks moved us from near dead-last overall to about 81st, which is where we ended up finishing the event at the last two time trials back at Gingerman on May 13th. Considering the points lost due to the two DNF’s at Road Atlanta and a missed sticker stop, we climbed back to a respectable 8th in Class to finish. Brock Yates said we easily would have finished 4th or 5th in Class, and about 50th overall had we not lost the points at Road Atlanta.

  So what about next year? We have already talked to Saab about competing in the upcoming 2001 One Lap this year, and those gears are already turning. In retrospect, we did not give the factory enough time to properly prepare the 2000 event, but there is plenty of time now to talk about things like Brembo brakes, stiffer suspension, three-piece BBS wheels and a reprogrammed Trionic box.

  And I think I’ll hang onto the Post-It® note left on our panel by the technicians in Norcross after changing the engine - neatly illustrating the shift-gate from First, to Second, to Third, Fourth and Fifth gears! The Swedes have such a sense of humor.

  Kevin Smith has moved on to an assignment at Cadillac (who, by the way, had an entry in the 2000 event), and Steve Janisse is now in the Saab communications hot seat that Smith left empty.

  And Steve Janisse and I have some ideas. Turn a wrench here. Use these tires instead. Bolt on those bigger brakes. Even without all that - as was the case with last years’ attention-grabbing One Lap Viggen - I’ll do it again in a heartbeat. If for nothing else, the chance to drive another 9-3 some 4,000 effortless non-stop miles across America.

Contents Copyright (c) 2001, Vince Bodiford's The Weekend Drive, All Rights Reserved. Enjoy the drive - remember, always buckle-up, obey all traffic laws and drive safely.