Anybody plan to run Lemon 24 Hr at RFR?
 

I read that in the car&driver magazine and now it will come to RFR. May 23-24 2009. Should be fun to camp out and see them.

Anybody plan to run this race? I would love to be a co pilot. Here is what post on RFR site.

>"Each LeMons race is for cars purchased, fixed up, and track-prepped for a total of $500 dollars or >less. But before reaching the grid, you'll have to survive trials like the Personal-Injury-Lawyer
>Anti-Slalom, the Marxist-Valet Parking Challenge, and the Wide Open Throttle Rodthrowapalooza. >Twelve hours into the race, the car voted People’s Choice is called in and awarded a cash prize; >simultaneously, the car voted People’s Curse is called in and summarily destroyed. At the end of 24 >hours, a gala awards ceremony plies the survivors with trophies, plaques, and four-figure purses in >canvas bags full of nickels. What's not to like?

I actually bought a car to run in this month's LeMons at Thunder Hill, but life got in the way.

I think life might lose out to a Reno LeMons...

I want in too

If you gotta go...

Bay area drivers don't travel to RFR for SCCA Club races, do they really think people will haul up here to run their beat-down cars on a beat-down track? Good luck.

As I hear it the entry list for LeMons races is pretty ridiculous, and there's very little cost on the organizer's part relative to real races. I'm sure the race will happen and make money.

Well that's good. Hopefully it will be a good source of revenue for RFR.

With the death at Altamont's Lemons this year, it's very likely that RFR is the nearest track to the Bay that's actually willing to host it.

I hadn't heard about Altamont getting cancelled. Why did they do that?

I was just assuming that they wouldn't host the event again after someone got killed. I know if I owned the track, and someone got killed in a race full of intentionally cheap cars, I wouldn't want the liability of holding the event again.

Didn't the driver die because of a medical issue, not a crash?

Yeah, that's what they found. He had a heart attack (I think) and lost control of his car. The death wasn't due to the crash.

Regardless, its probably could have been a big reality check for the race track.

Oh, I misread your post as "the death of Altamont" as in of the race. Yeah, everybody is fairly certain the heart attack caused the crash, not the other way around. The guy drove straight in to a barrier and wasn't going very fast.

Also, the Thunder Hill race is this weekend or next.

Next, it kicks off after Christmas, lol.

yes that L might still be able to make it...

And wheeee! Tested at RFR today.

Too bad I only got half a lap before a fuse blew and killed power to the motor. Then on my second session, I got to the horseshoe on lap 1 and the fuel pump went out.

I would have liked to get some more seat-time, but at least we found the issues before Saturday.

It actually looks pretty good for a Lemons car. Glad you found the gremlins. Good luck.

Pictures make it look better. You can't see the 2 pounds of zip-tie ends, loose bolts, and metal shards loose to roll around the floor pan. :lol:

Awesome!

Oh... that's the centered steering wheel position. :lol:

I'm tempted to get Fred to put a stripe of yellow electrical tape at the top because when I'm turning, I have no reference to how yanked over the wheel is except for the road feedback. If I spin out, I'm going to be all crossed up.

:lol: Is it not splined? You really should stick tape on there, if nothing else.

Yeah take it off, set it more straight and retighten the steering wheel nut. maybe actually adjust your tie rod ends too ? :P i have some toe plates you can borrow if you want to try and fix that up a lil bit (and or just to set your toe)

We just hadn't set the wheel in those pictures. Today we recentered it, but intentionally upside-down which in theory should have helped our arm position... but I thought it sucked like that the track today, so we'll probably put it the way it's supposed to go.

A little in-car video from yesterday:

Sweet. Car looks like it is doing well. Missing a little torque. ;)

The car is gutless... even when compared to the other gutless cars out there. But we more than make up for it with the super light weight and wide tires, plus the advantage of being one of the few teams that really knows the line. So as long as you can get to the correct line, you can pass virtually everyone in the corners, and especially under braking.

We ended up taking 22nd place over-all, and 6th in class! Not bad for over 100 cars out there on our first whack at Lemons! :cool:

That's awesome, Congratulations guys.

Awesome, man, that's a great finish :)
Loved the video, too.

Great job Scott and the whole team. So how much time did you end up behind the wheel?

Any idea how many actually finished?

Not that you deserved it, but I like the penalty of writing on the roof 100 times. Any other interesting penalties?

The team really did a fantastic job. I'm most amazed at how sorted the car was... it was a breeze to drive, had no weird quirks, got great mileage, great tire wear, didn't complain when you flogged it, was extremely reliable, and just took our punishment all day long. I think our biggest problems were a sensor connector that came loose that made the car run rough off-throttle (we plugged it back in), an overheated distributor that caused the car to cut out in the top of 5th gear in the esses (we drove around it), and an adapter cable I made for running everyone's headsets w/ the radio that got flaky and caused the comms to drop intermittently (we switched to the pit board).

My first stint was a little under an hour, then on my second I was going to push to the finish (which would have been almost 2 hours) but the black flag brought me in at about 90 minutes. Then I drove another hour on Sunday. So, I got about 3.5 hours total over the weekend.

There were a lot of cars out there during the last 30 minutes as people dragged themselves out of the pits in hammered cars to take the checkered. I didn't count, but I would guess there were like 70 or 80 cars running on the last lap, though many of them were many many laps down. In fact, I think Michel counted late on day one and saw as few as 30 some-odd cars out on track.

We had four penalties over the weekend: Fred got pushed off track by so 80's themed Mustang and had to serve time in the penalty box for two-wheels-off. I got dinged for two-wheels-off, (though it was a bad call... watch the video I posted on You Tube and see if you can see me drop two wheels) and the team had to solve a long math word problem with lots of unit conversions in sharpie on the hood (does anyone know the conversion between calories and joules off hand? Yeah, neither did we. Thanks for the internet access via your phone Tyson!). Then on Fred's second stint, he passed under yellow and was forced to parade around the pits for a lap following the VW bus of shame with all the other folks that passed under yellow. And finally, I passed under yellow (I still don't know where or when, but the flagging was tough in a few spots, so I probably did it... passing under yellow had to be the most common infraction) and that was the writing on the roof penalty.

Awesome!! good job!

was every hand wave for a black flag? there was a wave at like 2:00 and then one a few minutes after your annotation i that maybe looked like a brake indicator?

Are your results with lap times posted? i saw you passing by a lot of other cars , as you were just chugging along on a good line. hehe Nice Work!

Most the hand waves were for yellows to warn drivers behind we're slowing down.

AWESOME EFFORT! Congratulations to the team!

News story about the event: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/st...7711114&page=1

Was this black Miata out there with you guys Scott?
http://jalopnik.com/5282091/peoples-...lemons-justice

:lol: Nope, they weren't at the RFR event, though a miata did win our race too.

I put up the complete race highlight reel on YouTube: