Just When I Thought I Was Out...
Los Angeles - 05 Aug 2011
The following has been adapted from our aborted Sears Pointless entry earlier this year. With extreme lethargy.
If you keep banging your head against the wall, eventually something good will happen. This is the long-held belief that keeps The Sharks returning to LeMons. We also take comfort in the following truths: No other LeMons car is faster. And slower. At the same time. No other team has achieved such mastery. Of procrastination. Just like a debt crisis debate, what should take five hours, takes us 5 weeks of deliberation. Followed by 5 hours of actual work (some of it actually hard). Once we’re finally off to the races it’s with half of the required tools, a car that hasn't been run in 5 months, and 4 to 5 grumpy greasy misanthropes who forgot to get food or bring warm clothes or something else equally obvious.
Don't know if that's a concept or a confession. Regardless, we have several agendas for this race. The junkyard is suffering from a glut of rusting ghetto-chargers. The team members all have soft supple palms and freshly manicured nails. They have completely forgotten the dizzying sensation of prolonged exposure to atomized motor oil. And recent satellite passes over Sears Point indicate a very dry oil-less track.
Finally, in continuing our tradition of extreme procrastination, we hope to complete the theme that we started two races ago!
Washington DC - 27 Mar 2011
There is a LeMons race at Infineon this weekend and the Sharks are NOT there. I am on the wrong side of the country. Antonia is MIA. We've lost Mike to snowboarding. And Clay is spending too much time worrying about the unions in Wisconsin. Even worse, we were supposed to show up with a diff for the Dos Equus team who kindly loaned us their spare at Buttonwillow. Oops! Will have to grovel for forgiveness at Thunderhill this summer. In the meantime, here are some overdue pictures:
Los Angeles - 22 Sep 2010
24 Hours of LeMons Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza. Buttonwillow Raceway Park, Buttonwillow, California. December 4th and 5th, 2010. Enough said.
Sears Point, CA - 11 Mar 2010
Our 6th race. The legendary Sears Point. We started our race week by breaking our transmission at Willow Springs during an abbreviated practice session. A crash course in transmission repair ensued. With a replacement transmission installed, 4 wary would-be racers made their way to Sonoma, CA some 7 hours later than planned arriving at the gates for a few quick winks before the gates opened at 6.30am. With the paddock set up, the Shark was on the track by 10am. All seemed well. That lasted until the all too familiar rooster tail of blue smoke appeared out of turn 9a indicating yet another blown turbo. Within two hours, we were in the local yards scouring for turbo Chrysler Dodge donor cars. A suitable candidate turbo was unceremoniously cut from a dead LeBaron and plopped onto the Shark’s hood shortly after the practice session completed for the day.
The car back on its feet, we started the race in good form holding to within 3 laps of the leaders for most of the day. The Shark was easily one of the fastest cars on the track. Both Antonia and Ian put in clean sessions leaving Mike and Clay to keep us in contention for the lead. However, the serenity of the plush green hills surrounding the track was too compelling for either to avoid going off piste on 3 different occasions setting us back another 10 laps from the race leaders. We finished the day in 18th place out of 151 cars and 13 laps from the race leaders.
Undaunted by our 13 lap deficit, we set out Sunday to make up for it. Mike earned us our 4th black flag for grazing amongst the sheep yet again. Not the best start, but all was not lost yet. Antonia ran a clean session but once again, the demons of turbo hell descended upon our newly plucked junkyard turbo. The car came into the pits with the telltale trail of blue smoke enveloping the paddock. With no time to hunt for yet another donor car, we hastily attempted to rebuild the current turbo despite its heavily damaged turbine wheel.
Much do we have to learn about the dark science of turbos to understand that chewed up turbine wheels tend to create massive instability when spooled up to 50,000RPM in racing conditions on a demanding track. As such, the rebuilt turbo lasted all of 3 laps before once again puking its guts out, splitting the turbine shaft and eating up its newly implanted bearings. Once again, the Shark exited the track in a fog of blue smoke. Our hopes of a top ten finish dashed again, we set the car up to run naturally aspirated for the remainder of the race.
Despite the lackluster finish, we had an amazing time at Infineon. The track and facility are truly amazing as are the majority of competitors we raced with. Before our next race, we will pay homage to the dark lord of turbos and pick up books with titles similar to: “How to Make Your Junkyard Turbo Work for Less Than One Cocktail at Soho House” and “The Art of Ghettocharging”.
Thunderhill, CA - 04 Dec 2009
What a difference a year makes. Last year's Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza at Thunderhill was a plague of full track yellows, heavy traffic and nasty chicanes. This year with the full track, no chicanes and awesome flagging, the 24 Hours of LeMons has really transformed into real racing, abeit still in jalopies. For the Sharks, our fifth race was another small step forward.
We arrived at 7am to find 40 other teams more organized than us already waiting for the gates to open - yet another sign that LeMons racing is now pretty serious business for many. As soon as we found a good paddock spot, the skies opened up pouring freezing rain on us as we set up camp for the weekend. With everything soaking wet including us, we retreated into the RV hoping the weather would clear. By midday, we were out testing on the drying track.
Racing started Saturday with Josh out first and after only 20 minutes, the car had stalled on turn 3 not wanting to come back to life. Once towed in, we found a vacuum leak resulting from my poorly positioned air flow meter. Fixed and put back out, we lost about 30 minutes to the repair placing us inauspiciously in 110th place out of 160 cars in the first set of results. But things improved after that. The rest of Saturday ran smoothly. The air flow meter was acting up causing the engine to buck but it was controllable and we could still get through traffic at a good clip.
Sunday, smooth and fast driver changes allowed us to continue gaining positions. After a complete driver rotation, each running through a full tank of fuel, I went back out to close out the race. The brakes were shot but the car was otherwise running in top form allowing me to pass most of the field. With only 20 minutes left in the race, we had climbed 89 positions to 21st place. And then smoke started to pour into the cabin. At first, I thought another car had blown up next to me, but after about 3 minutes, I realized it was our car. Shortly thereafter, we lost boost and I was being informed over the radio of the 30 foot long cloud of smoke blinding everyone behind me. I made for the track exit, light headed from all the fumes.
We finished 28th overall having lost 7 places in the last 15 minutes. And with only one black flag to our name due mostly to the lenient and overworked corner workers who handed out some 550+ flags to the field of 160 cars. All in all a good result. But, no longer satisfied with good, we have bigger goals for 2010. Stay tuned...
