LeMons Carolina...who all's goin'?

Our event went pretty good.

The Audi ran clean and fast - no mechanicals and no black flags all event. They ended up 5th.

Our Corolla... Well... http://jalopnik.com/5198479/schumacher-taxi-service-fx16-gets-shiny-side-down-nobody-hurt

Our MR2...
We go to go through tech and the car won't start. It's already not shaping up to be a good weekend. We have an electrical gremlin that's eating ~20amps. We can't find it at all on Friday. We resolve ourselves that it's going to be there and that our alternator can handle the load. So it gets back burnered.

Race day: 15 minutes into the first lap, our driver radios back in that we have no clutch. He sticks the car in third and finishes the rest of his stint. We run through all our drivers with no clutch and the car stuck in third. We had to pull it back to paddock a couple of times because the electrical gremlin wouldn't let the car start.

Once racing is over, we look it over and see the clutch master is leaking. We have one of those and swap it in. It takes forever to bleed but eventually we get a clutch. Our driver goes back out on Sunday and three laps in says the clutch is gone again. He comes in and during the driver change, our next driver has second thoughts about going out and bails out of the car in the hot pits once they are strapped in. We pull back to paddock and do another driver change. During the curse/church, we try and get the clutch back again but with no luck. The driver who bailed was my wife and I paid for her stints so I took her stint and my stint. With 10 minutes left to race, I hear our muffler fall off. I get black flagged. Back to paddock, where our team "fixes" it. I think it falls off again in the first corner. Back into the paddock. They weld the hanger onto the car and go to send me back out but right then, the electrical gremlin hits and won't let the car start. Time ticks down but I don't get to see the checkers. Right after I get out of the car, one of the team plays with the master cutoff switch and all the power comes back.

The water was just the overflow overflowing. The car was running hot and after that stint it became mandatory to turn off the supercharger (it was on a switch) a couple of laps before coming in to cool the engine off. On day two, we ran without the engine cover and temperature wasn't a problem.

i don't think the Nemo crash was really either team's fault. the tbird was sitting in that area for a while, from what i can recall. i was on track at the time, and i remember passing it a few times on that straight. no flags, nothin'. no warning that it was sitting there or barely moving on the outside of the fastest part of the track.

Jensenman wrote: The Schumacher Taxi Service's FX16 flip was wild looking, glad no one was hurt. Post some in car video, guys! During the morning stints, their MR2 pulled in and was spraying water big time from the engine area. I was pretty sure it was going to blow up, yet it was still running strong the next day.

i don't think they were taking video. but the car is going to be OK, and i'm told will return. probably could have kept running if it had been allowed.

the MR2's water was from our coolant catch can...it was a 20 oz water bottle that shrunk to about 10 oz from the heat (apparently they are not intended for automotive use). as it turns out, the new size did not provide enough capacity. once enough had spilled out, all was well. we replaced it w/ a bigger one on sat night.

as Rob said, the big problem besides the electrical gremlins was that we had no clutch all weekend, so we ran the entire race in 3rd except for about 15 laps on sunday morning.

We might be interested. I am not sure - give us a week. We may end up with something slightly bigger anyway.

Our other SCR-SCCA team, the Saturn 5, was in 11th at the end. They said the transmission went wonky late on Saturday but was fine on Sunday and it gave no further problems. They had a very good race; their only incident was getting sandwiched between the red Miata and the white Thunderbird at the end of the front straight. They had to do the 3 legged thing.

That Saturn had fabulous brakes, by the way.

I left early because our car was toast and had my wife and kid with me. Does anyone have a rundown of the final standings? I've been itching to see them since last night but nobody has posted results yet other than the winner.

tuna55 wrote: That Saturn had fabulous brakes, by the way.

Did it, now. They were complaining about them. I guess they better count their blessings.

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1081081

Friends of mine ran an '85 SAAB 900 Turbo and finished 3rd. Had FTD and was leading on Sat. when the race was stopped for the night. One driver,the fastest, was only 16.

RobL wrote: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1081081

I owe a beer to whoever named their team "Poor Man's Derrike Cope".

One of the highlights of the weekend, for me, was helping to build a clutch plate from scratch for the German team. Team pictured here http://jalopnik.com/5198257/the-bs-inspections-of-the-24-hours-of-lemons-south

iceracer wrote: Friends of mine ran an '85 SAAB 900 Turbo and finished 3rd. Had FTD and was leading on Sat. when the race was stopped for the night. One driver,the fastest, was only 16.

that Saab was FAST! and it managed to stay intact and running the whole time. by far the best Lemons Saab performance i've seen or heard of.

JENSENMAN_IS_MY_HERO:

~11:00PM on Saturday night: We've successfully swapped the motor (from the 'good' motor to "old clacky," only to fire it and find the radiator gained ventilation in the process. We swap the radiator for an integra spare. Some "fabrication" is involved. berkeleying great. This one leaks too.

Before the tools start flying, we take a smoke break. We're all drunk and exhausted. Here comes Mike (Jensenman) and his boys, hauling a HUGE pot of frogmore stew: Sausage, shrimp, corn, etc., and just enough spiciness to light a fire in our bellies to get our piece of E36 M3 running.

Thanks again, d00ds!!!

Glad we could help! Y'all were some hungry tired lookin' guys.

For those of you with morbid curiosity, we finally got videos of our carbeque posted online - http://www.youtube.com/user/TractionInc

New Video up.. its from the cursed stang , the 1st video has the ET # 30 BMW at 2:55 in and the Taj ( another FL team )at 6:00 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00i-fMM2_pA

The 2nd link is their fastest lap time of 59.7 Most cars were 1:04 to 1:07. You can see why they were cursed. Besides being a bit over budget, They had headers a cam, Bieltein sports and an aluim driveshaft. Look at the driving.. He doesnt hold his line. Goes in too hot on the inside and has to cut across the track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnFiMaY2Dj8

Yes ther were agressive drivers out there. Its part of racing, right? But when a car can walk away from the competition,, HMMM.

my 2 cents.

Look at the driving.. He doesnt hold his line.

Ummm; you do know that's Leh Keen driving, right? May have also had something to do with the crushy crushy.

Yea a bit agressive.. Are there usually 90 plus cars in a GT ( or whatever he drives) race on 1.3? mile track?

I guess its more he was driving hard and at his level that is fine if the other drivers are near that level. Not the case at the Lemons races.

Yea the Crushy crushy made it a level playing field again.

how funny is it that pro drivers, used to racing in/against teams with million-dollar budgets, will take time out to race a field of $500 crap can's.

nderwater wrote: how funny is it that pro drivers, used to racing in/against teams with million-dollar budgets, will take time out to race a field of $500 crap can's.

Racing is racing. It doesn't matter what you drive.

I don't know if you noticed but they were also wearing the actual race suits worn by the "Talladega Nights" drivers.

We gave them the curse not for what they were doing on the track, but because they kept hitting the siren up until 2:00am on Saturday - waking everyone camping up.

nderwater wrote: For those of you with morbid curiosity, we finally got videos of our carbeque posted online - http://www.youtube.com/user/TractionInc

Thank you for posting that. Glad your driver was okay!!! He got out of the car so fast, I didn't see him! I went from "Oh god, oh god, oh god" to "Whoa cool. Fire!"

RobL wrote: I don't know if you noticed but they were also wearing the actual race suits worn by the "Talladega Nights" drivers.

Crap, how did I miss that?! Freakin awesome.

"Here's the deal - I'm the best there is. Plain and simple. I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence."

We came, we fought the SAAB, and the SAAB won...but we ended up running until about 2:30 before we used up all our tow ins (no clutch, again - any stop on track was a stall) - we got good at push starts We were rotating batteries to keep it on track also (alt died). It also had wicked vapor lock issues. It was quick though - consistent 1:05 laps with only 3rd gear.

What course does LeMons run at CMP?