24 Hours of LeMons at CMP

[Varkwso]

Be careful accepting invitations to join "race" teams - sometimes it can be more than an idle threat. When Keith of OLOA fame asked if I would join his 24 Hours of LeMons team I assumed it would end up like most of my unfulfilled racing dreams. Boy was I mistaken.

Then Keith, Dale and Wayne bought a car. They located a running 1986 Saab 9000 Turbo for $300 and then submitted the application (including the vodka, sugar and lemon bribe). Once "Team Saab Story" was accepted I was given the opportunty to send money to the Keith supplemental 401K plan. Most of which I am sure went to Jay Lamm.

Then I would get intermittent emails about "do you have...?", "what is your waist size?", or the roll cage is going in "soon". I personally liked the email about wrecking the car in his neighborhood while towing it. In the end the Florida contingent put the car together and hauled it to CMP. My contribution was to get the trailer over to CMP with tools and provisi ons.

Little did I know Keith did not trust Jake and me to really bring the jack, tools or tires. He managed to cover almost every square inch of the floorspace in a 28 foot trailer with "stuff" loaded into a Saab and Armada. Luckily, the 220 generator is still new in its box and the MIG welder was never used. But then again neither was most of the stuff we brought. Good news was we had every tool we needed.

Going through tech was a lot of fun. We almost did not make it to tech when Keith blew 3 fuses, including one on the ignition circuit, just before we went to tech. Fuses were located and repairs made. Even though as an electrician Keith needs supervison we designated him as our spokesmodel and the rest of us shut our mouths at tech. The judging was tough but we made it without any penalty. That must have been when we were classed as NPF (No Prayer of Finishing).

I took the 4th stint in the car on Saturday. By then the 32 yea r old brake fluid had been cooked. But with vigorous pumping you could get a little brake pressure. But when I made contact with a car that turned into me (its my story and I am not going to change it) I received the only 30 minute penalty on the team (quite a shock huh?). It did help cool it down. Other then exhaust repairs we has no real serious issues though the turbo was leaking oil past the seals quite nicely and the left front tire was corded.

I was back in the car for the last hour on Saturday and by then the brakes only worked about every 8th lap. By tossing the car and using the transmission I was able to keep us at 28th on Saturday despite our (my) penalty. Rotating the tires and bleeding the brakes was all that was required to keep the Saab happy on Saturday night.

Sunday started out great with brakes, transmission and a clutch - things most people take for granted. Since I got in the car before Keith toasted the brakes I even had those for my first stint. Within a lap or two the transmission would only go into third gear. Even so I posted the fastest lap time on the team at 1:13.x. As we rotated the driver roster we kept climbing in standings to make it as high as 16th by 2:36 on Sunday. After the quiet hour the car had no clutch and was stuck in thi rd - luckily it would start in gear with a push off from the team. We were all worried we would come to stop on track and stall for the last 4 hours.

Keith had the last stint to take us to checker and was forced to pit when the brake system had massive leak down failure. When we poured fluid into the master cylinder it ran straight onto both front rotors and wheels - not a good sign - so we were forced to retire with 15 minutes left on the clock. With no brakes, no clutch and no transmission we felt it was unsafe to go around the track.

We finished 21st overall and 1st in class so we are overjoyed with the experience. As in any endeavour there are lessons learned. You can not do too much planning. upfront logistics or preventative maintenance. It would also be nice if you picked a car that had parts avialable in a southeastern junkyard or auto parts store. The team performed outstanding with 4 drivers and one crew chief. I think 2 crew chiefs would take the load off th e drivers. Keeping Keith away from the electrical system is important.

Pics and reviews are starting to roll in from the CMP race .

Channel 10 News Feature (click the video link, page right, for the TV footage)
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8738925

Overall Jalopnik Coverage (the Pork Brains installment is frickin' genius)
http://jalopnik.com/search/lemons/bydate/?timerange=all

Judge Phil's Jalopnik Top 66 Guide
http://jalopnik.com/399480/the-top-66-lemons-of-the-24-hours-of-lemons-south

Raleigh News-Observer (front-page story)
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1154759.html

S ome of the participant pix tricking in:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dieseladdict/sets/72157606392762663/detail/
http://picasaweb.google.com/r15chp/24HoursOfLemonsLemonsSouth2008
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29071791@N02/

links to photos, etc - nice one of us in a turn...no Supras made the event but Toyotas were well represented.

[carl johansson]

we just got done running the Houston 24 hours of lemons!
We ran the Johansson brothers racing 86 supra (car # 09). car ran great - but we ended up with the sarah Palin penalty, and one of our guys hit (tapped) one of the clueless hundreds of spectators wandering around all over the place, motorhomes and trailers parked all skewampus all over the place! - kids on bikes, clueless wanderers etc - you couldn't get through the paddock to get fuel - or to your pits! anyway - we ended up with 2 hours of penalties - and finished 88 laps down! laps were 1:20 - 1:30 so we could have been top 5. Instead we ended up 18th.

Oh yah - we also got a pig welded to our roof, as a result of helping a young woman who stopped dead in the middle of a corner - because "she didn't know which way to go". we gently pushed her to the side of the track - thinking she had a mechanical, anyway - she took off onto the other course - got penalized 1.5 hours for being 1/2 mile away from the track - and she came in and cried and blamed us for shoving her off course! Geeze - we do a good deed - and get screwed for it!

We can't decide if we want to transport the vehicle back to California for the Dec lemons race at Willows - or just find and build another one so we have 1 staged in Cal. 1 in Kansas, and a 3rd one in Detroit. it's cheaper than shipping the cars around!

Carl Johansson

[FLATLINE]

Sounds like fun me there are 4 of us going to try and make the CMP race this spring with a old sentra that was used as a dirt track car. 500.00 with the role cage in it. This thing has a dent in every sq inch of it. Its UGLY! I hope we get excepted. later mp

[mike33]

It's time for LeMons again, and I'll be out in the Duff Beer car, probably blowing it up again, along with a bunch of other $500 cars,