We did autocross testing with the local BMW club today. It was a lot fun, and the car definately got a lot of attention. Tech people where not very happy, but they reluctantly let us run after we pleaded our case and made some minor fixes.
I have been having electrical problems with the car since I got it back. It drains the battery, and so consequently it is pretty dead (won't hold a charge long). Need to figure out what the slow drain is.
During the autox, it developed a fast drain. On my first run of the second session, it started sputtering as if it was running out of fuel. We had just put 1/2 tank in so that shouldn't have been it. I was able to finish the run but as I came to a stop it died and wouldn't crank. Hooked up my jump box and it immediatly killed that. We thought it was the cracked battery clamp, so we used a vicegrip to clamp it on tight. That didn't work either but I noticed that the battery was really warm. As I was feeding more of the cable into the trunk I noticed that it cable had been cut as it was getting abraided by the passenger seat and grounding it out. The main positive cable was being grounded. Apperantly that is not good.
We tape it up, put a new terminal on, and was good to go.
Ed and I ended up doing 9 runs each. My best was a 34.2. Ed's was a 33.9. Mike took one run and did a freaking 33.7. FTD was a 30.x, but most of the faster guys were running 33's-34's on R-comps. So I was pleased with our results on old all seasons.
Edit: Got the results back. Out of the 42 BMW's, we came in 8th and 10th. On old All-Season 14" tires! Everyone ahead of us was on race tires. We dominated E Class by over 2 seconds, but we would have come in 2nd and 3rd in any other class ahead of us. We're very pleased with those results. It shows what light weight and good driving can do. Can't wait to see how the car does on sticky Hankook RS-2 tires.
Gauge cluster held on with zip ties and an old car wash mitt.
Battery terminal held securely in place with a vice-grip (no, we where not allowed to run like this. A trip to Autozone was neccessary).
Since they couldn't put a tech sticker on the upper corner of the windshield (there was no windsheild) they put the tech (wreck) sticker in the upper corner of our helmet visors. Sticker is swiss cheesed like our car.
We added an ///M badge to let everyone know our car is Fast!
Ed and I getting ready for the maiden run. Notice the functional orange racing stripe to keep the hood closed (and the spectators looks of disbelief, lol).
Video proof that the car actually works! We were very pleased with the results considering it was on old All-Season tires.
Ed went to NJMP Thunderbolt Raceway Mon and Tues with the NJ BMWCCA club to test out the car.
He missed the bulk of the first session Monday AM after getting the meatball flag going into T7 after only 4 laps. Ed parked it on the inside of turn 8 behind a flag station and steam then slowly wafted out from under the hood. After the session he got towed in and found the water pump/alt belt in shreds. After repairs and testing, he broke the radiator bleed screw (plastic!) while doing a final cooling system bleed. A rapid paddock wide search for a spare netted a partially chewed replacement which managed to thread in. Ed ended up getting to the the grid DFL (dead f-ing last) but made it out for his next session.
Ed reports the car is fantastic on the Hankook R-S2s. In the wet today, he managed to start reeling in faster cars in the twisties. By the end of today, as the tires got worn in, he started to pull up to a couple faster cars on a mostly dry track.
Went to Thunderbolt Raceway at New Jersey Motorsports Park. I was signed up as an instructor with TrackDaze and thought it would be a good idea to take the Lemons car and test it/flog it before the actual LeMons event.
The car actually surprised me. It ran pretty much flawless with the exception of some minor problems that can easily be addressed, and it was surprisingly quick. Actually I should clarify. It's pretty quick in the corners, but really slow in accellerating in the straights. I was basically only using the brakes to turn the car, not really to slow it down.
I managed to pass some fast cars in the wet, and even a couple in the dry (with big lifts). However a Miata is faster than this thing in a straight line. Seriously. I was slowly realing in a Miata and he gave me the point by going onto the main straight, but I couldn't gain an inch on the straight, in fact I actually lost some ground to him.
It was hella fun though. This is a great car. Everyone who rode in it was increadibly impressed, and most were dumbfounded when they learned it was a 318. I had 2 Vette guys in the advanced group ask me what was in this thing. They didn't like the answer that is was a $500 318is, but did find some solstice in the fact that I was an instructor running in their group.
Lap times where about 1:50 on Thunderbolt in the damp with the chicane.
Couple things I found out about the car: The speedo/odomoter works intermittantly. The guage cluster needs to be painted black as it reflects onto the windsheild. The wipers switch broke so I had to replace it. All the wiring in the back will need to be heat shrinked or somehow waterproofed as water gets everywhere. We desperately need a dead pedal foot rest. Trying to keep myself in the seat by bracing my leg against the floor was very tiresome! I was able to make a "cushion" to raise my seating position to a good level by placing a 11x18 ream of printer paper under the cushion. It worked pretty good. The seat position should recline a little more but doubtful we'll get to it. The combination of no dead pedal and seat position will make long stints very tiresome/painful. I used about 1 tank of gas per day. Unfortunatly I could not tell how many miles that works out too since the odometer does not work.
BS inspection didn't go as smoothly as I expected. Despite having only spent around $385 into the car and having a well organized binder with extensive and thorough documentation, we were penalized 70 laps. This was actually reduced from 200 because we bribed the shit out of the judges with T-shirts, BBQ Pulled Pork, Brownies, and $50! I guess I really should have expected it for bringing "Noch einer Scheif E30.". ;)
Brian started off the first stint and had a very nice clean 2 hour session. Went from 51st out of 55 to 44th.
Ed hit someone pretty quick (ran into the back) and came in w/o being black flag. They never spotted it, but he came in and admitted it so they gave him a penalty. He had to do Mime Your Crime. It was acually pretty good. Ed really gets into it. He then came in for 2 wheels off when some slow a-hole drivers pinch you and push you off track (usaully on purpose). He got Slang Dictionary. Again another good performance. Ed got us down to 34.
I got in and quickly had someone push me off as well. Since that was 3 penalties in a row we got a 30min penality. Quickly learned not to try to go 2 wide into T1 or T2. Once I got that down I got in the zone and started picking off cars left and right on the outer loop. Ended up setting 2nd fasted lap out of everyone with a 31.5. Fastest lap is set by the guys in 1st place with a 31.0. I then took what looked like a huge opening that a guy was letting me pass on the infield I was huging the grass in the inside and he on the outside, as I get a nose past, he hits me just in front of my drivers door. I quickly come in before getting flagged, and switch drivers. The hit felt bad, but luckily no damage to the BMW other than scuff marks. When I pulled into the pits, the car died. I thought the worse but hoped it was a loose vacuum hose and since I had seen one that was split, I figured it was that one. Turns out it was so we were back in shape. I got us down to 24th place.
We are basically going out and doing as long as we can go or 2 hour max. Brian and I where doing the full 2hours while Gary and Ed where somewhat shorter stints do to uncomfotable seat recline position.
By end of day we were in 20th. Not bad considering we started 4th from last and had over an hour of penalties.
Run order went like this: Brian Ed Scott Gary Brian Ed (30 mins before rain @9:30 and early shut down of track - was a good idea)
Tomorrow will be (assuming we don't get crushed): Gary Ed Scott
We are hopeful that we don't get crushed. We are fast and can pass at will, but there are MUCH bigger aholes out there. We hope that those guys stand out in there minds instead of us.
The car drives well and super reliable (knocks on wood) . W/O penalties, longer driver stints, and better organization, and more crew, its possible we may even have a chance at checker at the next event.
According to MyLaps.com we finished 16th but had the 2nd fastest lap time. We were 10 laps down from 15th, but I had a last minute penalty that prevented us from making up those 10 laps (sorry guys). We were 251 laps down from the leader. 70 of those laps where from BS, and atleast 120 where from penalties. If not for BS and penalties that would have put us in 2nd.
I'm sure we could have driven w/o penalties if we really tried, but we knew we weren't in contention so we didn't really care as much. We just went out there to drive fast and have fun. All of our penalties pretty much came within the first 10-15 minutes of our driving stint, after that we were clean (except for my last minute penalty at the end of the race).
Brian was cool headed and clean the whole time.
Ed did a few laps then came in with contact. Went out again and came in real quick when he put 2 wheels off avoiding another car.
I went out and quickly came back in when I put 2 wheels off avoiding another car.
Gary went out and spun 1st lap.
Towards the very end of the race I saw a hole between 2 cars coming off the bowl with only a car width and a few inches inbetween. I took it, but the car on the outside either did not see me or moved to block and hit me. It was slight rubbing and didn't seem that big of a deal to me, but he must have been surprised by the contact and jerked the wheel or something, as I got black flagged and was told he came close to the wall. I was dumb for making a hole where one really didn't exist with racers of very little experience. I'm sure that pass would have been ok w/ no contact had it been with experienced club racers.
The first place team, Kilbasa Kids, was pretty much text book. They drove fast, but very clean and cautious. Definately had their act together. They were a very well oiled machine.
I think properly working radios would have made a big difference for us. Brian's Push To Talk wire got streached and severed in several places while either loading or unloading the car. He soldered it back together, but it never really worked well after that, and then it failed half way through the 1st stint.
We'll try again at either the CMP race or the Nelson Ledges race.
(Scott, Brian, Ed, Gary, Mike)
Big thanks to our Crew Chief Mike for all of his help at the track and working on the car.
Fox News was there covering the 24 Hours of LeMons New England event. Their TV coverage was quite good and conveys the true spirit of the event.
The Duct Tape Motorsports 318is Red Baron car made several cameos in the video (towards the end).
The whole Duct Tape Motorsports crew signed up for the Chin Motorsports HPDE event at Watkins Glen over Labor Day. There was 14 DTMers in attendance. Since my wife Anna would be drivng the Red Reck in the Novice Group, this would give the new LeMons teammates a chance to check out and drive the car before the actual race. About 8 different people drove the car, and the car was out on track all but 3 sessions. I basically let anyone who wanted to take it out for a test drive to do so.
Both of my cars. I have no idea who is in either one of them.
Anna climbing the Esses
Flying through the Bus Stop
Videos:
Trying to keep up with a Ferrari and a Porsche in the Intermediate group
What a crazy but great weekend. We took 1st in class and 5th overall.
Friday did not go so smoothly. It was raining and the pit area was one huge mud hole. It looked like the automotive version of Woodstock. Most of the practice time was spent trying to set up a dry camp in the pits instead of out on track testing and learning the track.
Each driver did get about 30 minutes on track with instruction from Tim Smith who has over 2000 laps at Nelson Ledges. The track was so wet that even the little 4cyl in the 318 would power oversteer on throttle application. Brian ended up putting the car on the tire wall. Nothing major other than a little more bent sheet metal but the car was still very driveable. Brian did a quick front end re-alignment and says the car now drives better than before.
The race was very exciting. Each driver was doing 2.5 to 3 hour stints or until the tank was almost empty. Tim went out at about 8:45pm and shortly there after it went full course yellow with brief sessions of green. After about 2 hours of this we decided to pull Tim who was our ringer driver since he had only seen maybe 15 minutes of green track. We would need him fresh to make up time later. Mike and Than each did 3 hour sessions getting us down to 6th palce. All 4 drivers had an off at night but did not get called in. Unfortunaly once the sun came up we got black flagged to come in. Apperently their offs did not go unnoticed and we ended up with a 30 minute penalty which put us back to around 14th place. Brian did the 6:00am to 9:00am shift and got us down to 8th place. At around 9:00am Tim got in the car and was instructed to go balls out and get us a top 5 finish. And he did. He was flying around the track. It was amazing. He ended up setting the 2nd fastest lap time with a 1:22. Normally we could go 2.5 to 3 hours on a full tank of gas. He was pushing so hard that he went through a tank in only 1.5 hours! After a splash and go to refuel, he ended up getting us down to 5th place overall and 1st in class!
Driving went something like this:
12:00pm-3:00pm Brian
3:00pm-5:30pm Than
5:30pm-8:45pm Mike
8:45pm-11:45pm Tim
11:45pm-2:45am Mike
2:45am-5:45am Than
5:45am-9:00am Brian
9:00am-12:00pm Tim
HUGE THANKS go out to Dave, Tony, Colin, and Neal for crewing and helping out. They went above and beyond. We absolutely could not have done it without them!
Friday we got set up next to some friends of mine from my MR2 days. They had a NA 2nd gen MR2. We ended up making a big DTM/MR2 compound with our tents and equipment. It was very nice.
For test and tune, we were allowed to have a passenger in the car, so we made sure that everyone got a chance to see the track from the drivers seat and passenger seat. This worked well as not only did it get our drivers (none had ever been to Shennedoah) more seat time, but it allowed the passenger to give feedback to the driver. I also made sure that the same 2 people never went out together so that they could see different lines and get different feedback. In the afternoon I had each team member do some exercises. Drive the line for 5 laps, then stay on the left side of the track for 4 laps, then stay on the right side of the track for 4 laps. In LeMons, you will almost never be able to drive the perfect line as you will usually be side by side with someone, so knowing the limits of the inside and outside lines of the track would give us an advantage in passing.
During lunch we went to Tech/BS Inspection. BS Inpsection went relatively smoothly. We just showed them the email with Jay's assigned residual value and Johnny gave us 0 laps, took a cursury look at the car and told us how lame we were for bringing an E30 with a lame theme. He thought it was a 6cyl 325 and not a 4cyl 318 so he put us in Class 1 (The Good) instead of Class 2 (The Bad) which we were in for Nelson Ledges. I mentioned this to him and he just shrugged his shoulders and told us to be on our way. :)
Friday night, we went drunken go karting with the MR2 team. It was a lot of fun. The karts were real fast and it was a 1.2 mile track. They had a 180* section that had sealant on it to make it slippery.
It was 10 hours of racing on Sat and 4.5 hours on Sun. We broke the driving times into one ~2.5 hour stint for each of our 6 drivers. Jack Piho was our lead off driver since I knew he would be safe and conservative, and he also had to leave early. About a half hour into his stint he came in for a black flag but had no idea why since he hadn't done anything close to being bad. We pointed him to where the Judges where and he zooms off. Judge Johnny is walking this way and Jack speeds up to meet him. Johnny says he has no idea why Jack came in as the black flag was not for him, but that he now has a penalty for speeding in the pits (he was doing easily 20mph in a 10mph zone). So we parked the car and started getting Jack out (not an easy task). As we got the belts off and Jack's helmet and HANS off, Johhny says we can go back out.
Here is where the fun begins. Jack's new helmet is a little too tight and the pad near his ear rips off. We spend several minutes trying to figure out the correct orientation and getting the pad back in correctly. Next Jack is so tall that it is almost impossbile to get his HANS on inside the car. We spend some more time trying to get that on. All in all it cost us about 15-20 minutes and lost us 7 laps for a black flag that wasn't even ours. But that is part of the challenge of Racing LeMons.
Jack goes back out and starts doing some real fast laps to try and make up some time. At just over 2 minute lap times, we were 7 laps down from the leader and in 68 place. Jack claws back up to 44th place.
As a result of the penalty we had to change our stategy. During the test day and Jack's stint, the car seemed to be sipping gas at the Shennendoah circuit. Our plan was to see if we could do 3 drivers on Sat instead of 4 and make up some time by not doing a driver change/refuel. We opted to have Rob go out next. We wanted him to go out until there was fuel starvation. We hoped that it would be about 3 - 3.5 hours. We also wanted to make sure Rob would get the longest stint since he was our ringer driver. Also being from Atlanta, he is used to doing endurance racing in really hot temps, so having him go out mid day in 95* weather made the most sense.
Rob was flying out there, he was turning decent lap times, but most impressive was his ability to navigate/weave through traffic as if it didn't exhist. He just passed anybody any where all the time. He was out for just under 3 hours before he ran out of gas. He went from 44th to 4th place. Still 7 laps from the leader, but 1 lap from 3rd, 2 laps from 2nd. When Rob got out, he also had set FTD at the time with a 1:58.x, beating the next fastest time by 1.5 seconds. Since the car would not do the 3-3.5 hours on one tank we would have to do 4 drivers instead of 3.
Mark W went out next. We had an abismal pit stop that lost us about 2 more laps. He went out and did nice consistant clean laps. They weren't the fastest, but at no time was I ever afraid we would get a penalty. He did a great job. He maintained our position. 7 laps from the leader, 1 lap from 3rd, 2 laps from 2nd.
Evan Keller was the last driver on Sat. We had an awesome pit stop and did a driver change and full refuel in 4.5 minutes. Evan was very quick and got us into 3rd place pretty quick and was hunting down 2nd place. With about 5 laps to go he passed the 2nd place car, but we had to lap him in order to pick up 2nd place. During Evan's stint, he had an awesome battle with the MR2 team that we were paddocked with. It was really fun and exciting to watch.
That ended the first day of racing. With that done we starting talking stategy and concerns. Rob mentioned that 3rd gear kept popping out whenever you gave it throttle so you had to be very gentle on the throttle application and had to drive with one hand on the shifter in order to hold it in 3rd gear. Somehow he was able to actually set his FTD this way. Mark and Evan concurred that the tranny got worse and worse as they drove it. After discussing it for a while, Mark mentions that he brought a spare tranny with him and that I could have it for $250 if we wanted to try to swap it in. Nate Thulin, our Crew Cheif had done a tranny swap at the BMWCCA club race 2 weeks ago in 45 minutes during the lunch break. So I asked if he was up for it. He knew it was going to be a LOT harder since the club race car had all new parts and our stuff was all rusted on. You have to remove the exhaust in order to easily drop the drive shaft and get access to the tranny. This was not an option for us since it was so rusted on that if we removed it, we would not be able to get it back on and we would not be allowed to run w/o an exhaust.
The entire team (including Anthony) was working on the car at one point or another. What was estimated to take about 2-4 hours kept us up until 4:00am until we decided we were so tired we had to stop b/c we were making stupid mistakes. We decided to try to get to stopping point and get to bed and start up again at 7:30am.
I could not sleep as my mind was racing about all the possible problems and what we could do to fix them if it came up. I just laid in bed and rested as much as I could. The team and crew members headed back to the track at 7:30am while John (the other driver for Sun) and I stayed at the hotel until 9:30 to try to get as much rest as possible since we did not want over tired drivers on the track. Even though I hadn't slept I felt fairly rested and wasn't really tired, but my stomach was slightly nautious from lack of sleep, not enough food, and too much caffine, but I figured it would calm down as soon as I got in the race car.
When we got there at 10:00am, they were just putting the finishing touches on the tranny swap. Anthony offered to let us use a set of the Toyota team's rims/tires that were slightly wider but a better compound on a lighter 15" wheel. The bolt pattern was the same, but the hubsize and offset where different. Rob knew that the Spec Miata guys use the same spacers as the E30 guys for these rims, so he went over to the NASA Hyperfest event to find a set of spacers. Our concern with the spacers though was that 2 of the lug nuts on the front right tire had frozen on the stud, so they essenitially became lug bolts. With the spacers, those lug bolts would not be long enough to fully engage safely into the hub. I went back over to the NASA event to see if any of the E30 racers had any spare studs. None did, but I did find someone with longer stud bolts for use with spacers. While I was over at NASA, Rob tried using the impact gun to get the stud to seat properly and not come out so that he could remove the frozen nut. This did not work and he managed to strip the hub threads pretty badly. Enough so that the new stud bolts I found would not thread in. As we were talking about waht to do, a guy in a Ferrari F360 came over to ask us about the People Curse. We got to talking and we mentioned our problem and he told us he had a tap and die set over at his personal garage, so I followed him over there to go get it. It cleaned up the threads enough so that we could engage the lug bolts. I was still a little concerned with the spacers and the lug bolts/etc so I made them Red Loctite all of the studs/bolts on all 4 corners just to be extra safe.
At 11:55am, we dropped the car for the final time, and with 5 minutes until we had to be on track we got John Z in the car and up to grid. Our plan was that he had to stay out for atleast 1 hour 45 minutes and then come in at the first full course yellow. This would ensure that I would would only have to drive for less than 3 hours and would not run out of fuel. Coming under FCY would also ensure that we only lost minimal laps during the pit stop. John got us into 2nd place with 3rd place less than a lap behind. At about a little over the 2 hour mark there was a FCY. Unfortunately the MR2 team had just came in and was using our fire extinguisher, so we had to have John stay out for 2-3 laps so that the MR2 team could finish up and we could get ready. Just as John was about to come in, the track went green and he stayed out. A few minutes later it went FCY again and he came in. It went green real quick but the cars were still bunched up so the lap times weren't all that fast.
(The Red Baron looking to add another Snoopy kill to the side of the car)
We had a pretty decent pit stop to get me out there. After navigating some heavy traffic for the first 3 laps, I had 2-3 clean laps with minimal traffic. I knew I was flying so I radioed Nate to have him get some lap times on me. As soon as I said that, I hit traffic and was in traffic for the rest of my stint. It was a lot of fun. The new tires really made a difference. During the Test and Tune, I felt the 195 RS-2's were a little slippery and unpredictable with a heavy tendancy for oversteer for the tight technical track at Shennendoah (the tires feel great at faster tracks). The 205 Dunlop Direzza's from Anthony's Toyota team made the car push a little bit in the slower stuff, but really made the car a lot more predictable and was VERY easy to catch when it did step out.
I could pretty much pass the slower cars anywhere I wanted to as the speed differential allowed me to be able to pass with a lot in reserve in case something happened. I did a lot of passing up on the far edge of the inside curbing in order to give me that extra half width of car to be able to squeeze through. Many times I had about 1/3 tire on the curbing and 2/3 hanging over the grass/dirt. Thankfully the curbs were raised so that I did not kick up any dirt clouds when I did this.
I lapped the 3rd place guy to give us a little breathing room, and almost lapped him again by the end of my stint. He seemd to not be pushing very hard as it was always easy for me to catch up to him and pass him, but as soon as I would pass him, he would turn it up and would be all over me in the corners. The Mercedes that was winning seemed to be taking it easy because with their 5 lap lead in the morning, all they had to do was stay out there and turn laps to win. I got down to 3 laps behind them and almost got them again, but I knew there was no way we could win unless something happened to them.
When the checkered flag fell, we were 1st in Class, 2nd place overall, and I got FTD with a 1:57.3! Had we not had the 15 minute penalty we would have won by 4 laps. This seems to be a reacurring theme. We had 60 BS laps and 1 hour 20 minutes in penalties at our first event at Stafford. W/O those penalties we would have easily come in 2nd place and 1st in class at Stafford. At Nelson, we had around an hour of penalties. Without those, we would have won by about 15 laps. But that is the challenge in racing LeMons. :) Maybe next time... ;)
Thank you SO MUCH to Nate Thulin, Colin Vozeh, and Anthony Magagnoli for helping us out this weekend. Nate did an awesome job as Crew Cheif. Also thanks to Chrissy Barnes for keeping our spirits up during the arduous late night tranny swap. Thanks to the MR2 Mod Squad team for sharing our paddock compound and making our weekend a lot more fun and enjoyable. Big thanks to the Cincinatti Toyota team for loaning us the wheels/tires on Sun.
See you guys at the next one. :)
After a long winter and a lot of work done on the car I figured it would be a good idea to shake down the car before our first LeMons event this year. I instructed at the Schattenbaum Porsche Club of America HPDE event at New Jersey Motorsports Park Thunderbolt Raceway.
Had a great session in Advanced Run Group chasing (in order of appearance)
Porsche GT3 RS, Porsche Turbo, GT3, Cayman RS, 2 Carrera Cup race cars, 997 GT3, RS America, 997 Turbo, and a 997 Carrera S. This video is a must see!
Any racing event in which having your car catch on fire is not grounds for automatic disqualification is bound to be an interesting scene, the sort of thing worth watching just to see how far otherwise responsible people are willing to push the boundaries of automotive reason. That’s exactly the sort of thing the 24 Hours of LeMons race is: a flat out spectacle from start to finish. The race was barely under way before the tow trucks were sent out to carry some unfortunate bastard’s car off the track, and by noon--less than two hours into the race--a Triumph TR7 was already on fire. Luckily the driver seemed to be prepared for this sort of eventuality, as he was quickly out of the car extinguishing the blaze. Anyone who’s going to let a little car fire stop them from potentially finishing a race is not made for LeMons, and anyone who isn't prepared for a car fire while driving a British car is simply not familiar with British automotive build quality.
The concept of LeMons is relatively straightforward: run a $500 car for an enduro race that lasts about 16-24 hours, depending on the race. The 500-dollar limit is somewhat flexible, in that it doesn’t count safety components (e.g., tires, brakes, roll cage, etc), but any car that looks like it’s stretching the budget too far is going to be penalized with extra laps. Starting a race--even an enduro event--with a few dozen penalty laps is never a good way to begin, regardless of what you’ve shoe-horned under the hood.
attaching ridiculous accoutrements--like airplane bits--is always a good idea at LeMons.
Prior to this weekend I’d worked as part of the crew for one other LeMons event, out in Ohio. That was a legitimate 24-hour race, which meant catching brief bursts of sleep in shifts on an air mattress in a trailer while the car was driven straight through the night. Making $500 worth of car last for 24 hours straight is no easy task, and by hour 14 or so the field thins considerably. This past weekend’s event at New Jersey Motor Park--dubbed "The Real Hoopties of New Jersey"--was a two-day affair, with racing from 10:30 to 6 on Saturday and 9 to 4 on Sunday. The lighter schedule allows for some wrench turning in between days, which is always useful when dealing with cars that wouldn't pass inspection in Kyrgyzstan, let alone NJ.
I arrived at the track on Friday afternoon, during which time our team (‘Duct Tape Motorsports’) was supposed to be testing out the car, a gutted and prepped 1991 BMW 318is with a Red Baron theme (another element of LeMons--an appropriate theme for your automobile). Unfortunately it’s tough to do any serious driving on a ruined clutch, which was the case with our little Bimmer. Any friction material that might have once existed had long since evaporated, which lead to an afternoon and early evening’s worth of work, almost entirely performed by our Crew Chief Josh, while the rest of us stood around talking about how shitty it was to do all that work.
not the ideal car position for pre-race track testing
Fortunately the slightly-used-but-still-functioning clutch provided by one of our drivers went in fine, and the next day--Saturday--was off to a dry start, despite concerns over rain. After the 9:30am Drivers Meeting the cars were off at 10:30. Or at least those cars that were running were off; at an event where the maximum cost of a car is (or should be) $500 you get a lot of vehicles that aren’t quite ready when the green flag starts waving. At the last LeMons race I was at there was a team rebuilding their engine for the better part of twelve hours.
Why anyone would spend half a day rebuilding the engine of a car that would feel outclassed in a junkyard captures the very essence of LeMons: an appreciation of automotive tomfoolery, bundled up with some real serious racing. The point here is that simply arriving on the track is often in itself a commendable feat of mechanical and automotive wizardry. Actually crossing the finish line--at any cost--is something that, for these cars, can border on the miraculous.
There were the usual breakdowns Saturday--cars on fire, cars off course, engines self-detonating and shitting oil all over the track--as well as the usual shitty driving, accompanied by penalties meted out by Judge Phil, one of the event’s organizers. Act like an asshole on the track and you’re going to be black-flagged, which is very likely to be followed by having to act like an asshole in the pit area as a form of atonement (and entertainment for fellow teams). In the course of the race I saw: a driver get taped to the roof of his car and have to wave to people as his co-driver drove him around; a team dress up like the Village People and dance to “Macho Man” as they walked through the pit area; cars get various items--computers, metal chickens--welded to their roofs; and one particularly relevant punishment (developed by our Team Captain, Scott B.), in which drivers were sprayed with fake tan, forced to gel their hair and don tank tops, and then act out a fight in their car (the “Jersey Shore” treatment).
the "jersey shore" punishment
Of course, savvy teams know that a well-executed bribe, usually involving booze or a charitable donation, can get you out of trouble. This is a fundamental tenet of LeMons, which is the idea that cheating or trickery--of the right kind--is both appreciated and encouraged. The point, after all, is to finish the damn race and enjoy yourself while doing it, even if it means greasing a few palms along the way.
But what do you expect from a Judge who putters around the race on a motorized bar stool? If you’re not willing to enjoy the inevitable spectacle and debasement of a $500-car race then you’re in the wrong event.
judge phil with his preferred mode of transport
The Red Wreck--as our little Red-Baron-themed 318is is known--did well on Saturday in the very capable hands of our drivers, bouncing around the top three spots for most of the day. When the racing ended at 6pm we were in third place, despite some brake issues.
not what you want your rotors to look like
After a quick rotor swap we headed over to Texas Roadhouse Steakhouse, which Team Captain Scott B. was very enthusiastic about. I thought perhaps it was because of a particular fondness for steak, but after about five minutes at the table it was clear that Scott’s real interest was in the dinner rolls. He had shoved three or four of these things--each one liberally coated in cinnamon butter--into his mouth before I was even aware of their presence, and when we left the restaurant after harassing the waitresses for an hour and pretending it was everyone’s birthday he walked out with a dozen of the little calorie bombs to go.
scott, in the saddle for his texas roadhouse steakhouse "birthday" celebration
The next morning the racers were off at 9, with the top ten staged according to their placement the previous day. Oddly enough, the car in the lead was an Alfa Romeo, which is potentially the last Alfa still in working order in North America.
Consistent with LeMons, by 9:05 the wreckers were already on their way out to carry some unfortunate POS off the track, and by 9:45 there was yet another car fire. Clearly, day two--twelve or so hours in--is what separates the men from the boys in this kind of race.
Unfortunately shortly after 11 we had some issues of our own, as our driver was unable to get the car into any gear. Eventually he was able to drill the thing into second and hobble back to the pit area, where our Crew Chief could once again get to work.
The immediate problem was the clutch slave cylinder, an easy enough fix provided you have a spare slave cylinder laying around. But we didn’t happen to have a spare, and none of the other teams in our area did either. This is the point, in any “normal” race, where you throw in the towel. The absence of a part needed to make your car operate is a pretty valid reason to call it quits.
But this is no normal race; this is LeMons, dammit! You need true grit and determination, and it doesn’t hurt if you also have a spare BMW sitting around. Luckily our Crew Chief’s car happened to be a similar model e30, and so we cannibalized his slave cylinder to get things back on track.
if you're not willing to sacrifice parts of your own car then LeMons
probably isn't the right race for you
Things would have gone fine had that been the end of it, but what followed was a series of unrelated failures that rendered our car completely and totally useless for anything other than target practice with a hammer. The battery, the starter, the timing chain--all shit the bed. But not before we did all we could to finish the race, in any form possible. We tried push-starting the car; starting it hooked up to another car’s battery and a battery charger; starting it by having it towed around the pit area by a Jeep Grand Cherokee. At some point--when we still naively thought the only problem was a blown clutch--someone suggested welding the clutch together and driving the remainder of the race in fourth gear.
the red wreck, retired
But when the engine wouldn’t turn, even with serious wrenching on the crankshaft, we knew there was nothing more to do short of an engine swap (which was considered).
At that point all that was left to do was enjoy the race as spectators, and subject ourselves to some penalties just in the sake of good clean fun.
team DTM "turning the lightbulb" to indian music blaring from
judge phil's bar-stool-scooter speaker
But no. Remember, this is LeMons! You finish the race in any shape, and it would be out of tune with the great spirit of LeMons if we were going to let something like a seized engine stop us from crossing the finish line. Right next to us a team was cutting out a part of their door that wouldn't allow it to shut so they could weld the remaining bits of door to the body, thus allowing them to finish the race. That's the sort of savage determination you need at LeMons.
door won't shut because of a run-in with another car during the race? no problem...
And so--at the suggestion of our Crew Chief--we tossed our lap transponder into an unsuspecting BMW e36 that had been tricked out to look like the Deathmobile from Animal House. It was in that heap that we crossed the finish line, improving our standing from 35th to 31st despite our car sitting in the pit area the whole time, as its laps were turned by a car running in fourth gear the whole time (their own tranny had long shit the bed).
the car that (unknowingly) hobbled us to the finish line.
It was a fitting end to the weekend, a proper tribute to the spirit of LeMons. We came, we raced, we drove damn well, and when the car decided it had had enough, we cheated our way to the finish line. There are few things I can think of that are more American than that sort of combination of automobiles and trickery. And really that's what LeMons seems to be about: a genuine appreciation for automotive madness and brilliance, combined with a tongue-in-cheek approach to some very serious and potentially dangerous stuff. If things get broken, destroyed, and wrecked beyond all salvation during the course of events, so much the better.
And the winner? Yet another shitty e30, tricked out in pink with rainbows and a unicorn horn.
