Now that the LeMons 24 hour race is over

[tdskip]

Yes, I know this is off topic but a couple of you asked for an update on how it went. We finished. Car survived all 24 hours and so did we. More or less.

I'm sleep deprived, my ears are still ringing, my neck is killing me and I'm broke. What follows will possibly make you feel all of those things, although it shouldn't leave you broke, but still read at your own peril.

This is us - the Mazdagarita.

One might ask what goes into a Mazdagarita. Simple - take a clapped out RX7, add a working blender on the trunk, equip with large sombrero, fill with delusional drivers, shake over 24 hours.

Here is the team;

Rich, who built the car, is in the hat. To <span style="font-weight: bold">way</span> understate what he managed to do, Rich built a class competitive endurance car that ran for 24 hours straight from a pile of used Mazda parts. Nothing broke, and the car actually got faster as the event went forward. Just amazing.

Here is a great video of the tech inspection which provides a good overview of the cars and some of the themes. We're at 1:08 in case anyone is still reading this.

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I can post some notes on actually running the race if you guys are interested.

 

[poolboy]

Too much !!
Rich as in Cheseroo ? And which is you, Tom. The other guys ? Or do they wish to remain anonymous ?

 

[71MKIV]

of course I want to hear about it.

What fun. The LeMons series is what brought racing's mojo back. Real people, low buck real racing. I couldn't car less about NASCAR ( oh lookee, another left hand corner, and, no, wait? another left hand corner!) and F1 has too much money and gizmos

 

[DNK]

Tom, I'm jealous, just like last year

 

[tdskip]

Too much !!
Rich as in Cheseroo ? And which is you, Tom. The other guys ? Or do they wish to remain anonymous ?

Hi Ken - yes, Rich as in Cheseroo. He put a huge amount of blood, sweat and skills into building that darn car.

 

[tdskip]

Tom, I'm jealous, just like last year

Hi Don - these guys are from your neck of the woods.

Come on down!

 

[tdskip]

of course I want to hear about it.

Real people, low buck real racing.

I sent a couple emails to some friends during the event, so here are some random updates. This one was from 9 PM

<span style="font-style: italic">Hi guys, a couple random thoughts now that we're actually really into the event;

-it pays to remember that new tires are really greasy on the first lap. Don't ask who wasn't smart enough to remember that.

- the NV desert at night is dark. And cold. And really dark.

- re above, too many lights on the car aren't enough.

- a 24 hour non-stop endurance race sounds great until you realize your next shift is 1 AM

- bad 3rd gear syncros do not heal themselves

- re above, if you are speed shifting and grinding 3rd gear you have forgotten that you are in a 24 hour race and are an idiot.

- re the above, that was me doing that.

- it is hard to sleep when you get off the track, but speed eating two burgers and looking at the moon lit snow covered mountains helps.

- at first you just hope that everyone ets a driving shift. Then you hope everyone gets a second. Then you want hope see the sun come up on a running car.

- it pays to remember that when the temperature goes from 85 to 55 degree and you go a driver changes the tires will be really greasy. Don't ask who wasn't smart enough to remember that</span>

 

[TR4nut]

Way cool Tom - last year a couple of guys in my club got with another Texas TR club and entered Lemons in a TR6 . I think they finished, but not without a lot of interesting stories to tell.

 

[tdskip]

And another;

<span style="font-style: italic">Hi guys. The 1 AM session was fun, got the hang of it so when the 4 AM slot came up I was pretty comfortable with it. Turns out driving the same route for several hours in 3 minute intervals helps even a chowder head like me start to remember it. This is a really challenging track with lots of elevation changes, no lighting and a several blind turns. Most of the run off is fine but the last turn before the main straight has solid concrete walls which are a bit scary.

I actually just finished a 4 - 7 AM stint, everyone else was wiped out and I figured I should let them sleep for a bit. I checked in after 1:45 of track time and Mike told me to keep going until sunrise. That was cool with me since I was having fun and I started to get into a rhythm with the car. Keep her running, don't hit anyone or get hit, don't lunch the brakes or gearbox. i took it as my job to hand the guys as healthy of a car and position as possible. No problem - I can do that.

And then the moon light went away. And the wind started blowing dust and marbles onto the track. Then it started to drizzle. At first I thought I drove through a bunch of bees when the winshield splatted. Then I hit another bunch. Then another and having lived up there in NV I realized that that had never happened at night before and that is when I first smelled the rain. Odd that I smelled it before I was able to see it. The track wasn't too bad until the downpour started and for some reason everyone else really slowed down and I started lapping people.

Then the sleet came, which made the track and our semi-bald tires interesting. Rain poured into the car anytime I went under 45 through the s turns so I just went faster. Like 46.01 mph. The biggest mechanical problem I had was that our Macarena air horn had shorted out.

Turns out the RX7 is about an ideal car for those conditions and soon I was picking up places by lapping people. My days driving in the snow came back and I managed to drift and slide a bit. And when I say a bit I mean constantly. Funny enough it actually helped my lap times relative to the rest of the field. My lap times were only off about 10 seconds from the dry and that was despite not using 3rd gear until the back straight where I could do a really slow up-shift at a low RPM and keeping the RPMs under 6K on the main straight. On further thought it was probably the prospect of getting tangled up with a constantly oversteering sombrero wearing RX7 that had people backing off so i could get by.

Anyway we went from 43th overall to 33rd now, and Rich has next turn in the car so I'm thinking we may crack the top 30. Funny how quickly you start wandering over the leader board and checking your ranking when the whole goal going in was to simply last through the first driving shift.
</span>

 

[cheseroo]

Yes, I'm the Rich who keeps receiving smoke blown up my backside by Tom. All in all a stupidly amazing experience to do a 24 hour race. After handing the car to Tom at 1am, I stayed up an hour to wake up the next driver and then crashed hard asleep next to an active racetrack. Props to Tom for driving that long nite stint. Next time we should rethink the thought that staying up gambling until after midnight the night before a 24 hour race is a good idea. Also, focusing on figuring out what type of underwear the female mannequin bolted to the top of a 944 is wearing while going through a series of L - R turns might be a good indicator that it might be time to hand the car over to someone else.

A pretty shot of the sombrero following the "My little pony" mustang

 

[tdskip]

FYI - Rich doesn't take complements well. Ha!

 

[71MKIV]

lemmee amend my post.

"lower buck, real racing"

 

[tdskip]

Yes Steve - just because it is cheap it doesn't mean it is inexpensive!

 

[AngliaGT]

Tom,

Sounds like you're having fun with different cars.
When do you find time to work?

- Doug

 

[DNK]

I like to drive at night. But first glint of sunrise I'm falling asleep

 

[tdskip]

The adrenaline will keep you up Don, takes a while to shake it off. I never did fall asleep until I was on the plan flying home.

Here is a night video, under caution so quite a bit slower than race speeds, from the Killer Bee ( a very well sorted and very well driven MGB);

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[cheseroo]

Too much !!
Rich as in Cheseroo ? And which is you, Tom. The other guys ? Or do they wish to remain anonymous ?

Tom is in the baseball cap, I'm kneeling in the flopppy hat. The other 2 are non-LBC types. The guy 4th in line is a used car salesman (for negotiating with penalty judges) and 2nd in line is a programmer (who has money and a motorhome, you'd invite him too)

Our passenger felt a bit ill.

 

[tdskip]

Yeh, I know I spelled it wrong Rich. Kinda surprised you just caught that now. Ha!

 

[frankenstang57]

Chump Car 2012!

 

[cheseroo]

Chump Car 2012!

We've thought about running Chump Car but have heard some alarming comments about that series - i.e. the organizer announcing at driver's meeting "Anything that happens in front of the front wheels and behind the rear wheels is incidental contact" I'm not a fan of racing where it's okay to bang people out of the way. Deep down though I find it hard to believe that they are running a demolition derby/NASCAR race.