dyintorace wrote: ...Why does it have to be Halloween on wheels? Can it not just be a cool-as-hell road race? While I'm excited about potentially participating, I'm not terribly excited about having to come up with a "theme". I want my theme to be "team full of cool guys looking to race on the cheap and have a good time".
Yep, that worked for my old team. And they got voted the People's Curse three times in three events. You should try it.
dyintorace wrote: I also don't exactly get the theme thing. Why does it have to be Halloween on wheels? Can it not just be a cool-as-hell road race? While I'm excited about potentially participating, I'm not terribly excited about having to come up with a "theme". I want my theme to be "team full of cool guys looking to race on the cheap and have a good time".
Stick with $200x. From what I'm reading you'll enjoy it a lot more. LeMons isn't what it used to be, more money, more prep, more teams on the track, less time on the track, and less fun IMO. I've done 5 lemons events, now I'm building a $2009 car...read into that however you want.
Bryce
Read this.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/bad-sportsmanship-or-poor-form-re-lemons/10921/page1/
If you agree with my posts there at the end of the novel, race in Lemons and have fun. If you do not, and don't see the point in the theme, go race in the $200x challenge.
Bryce, I can't see how your comment relates to themes. They have always been a basic requirement from Jay since day 1. I have to say that we were under $500 budget this year and had way more fun than those who spent extra.
PO, basically the themes are there to ensure Jay that he's bringing guys who can laugh at themselves. Any team serious enough to get pissed when a sheet metal cow gets welded to their car, or when you're required to wear a wig and paint a picture on the hood doesn't deserve his attention. He needs to know first that your cool enough to handle that sort of thing by having an extra silly theme.
He also needs to know that your not lame. There are a bunch of very good drivers who are lame. He doesn't want that, he wants fun guys. Your less fun than some team who dresses like farmers and offers free fresh cows milk from the cow they happen to have in their pits, I promise.
-Brian
My point is that themes are (supposed to be) part of the deal. If that doesn't make sense or sound like any fun, it's probably not for you.
I don't think the value OR fun is there like it used to be. Some still think it's the cat's ass, but I think it used to be a lot more fun. It's still a great value for wheel to wheel seat time, but when factoring in the amount of prep and travel, NASA/scca isn't so far off anymore.
Bryce
Theme isn't exactly the right word, however it's the one most used. In the application it says essentially "tell us why you are better than all those other lame-os who also want to race." That doesn't mean you have to spend the weekend in a feathered suit. It means you need some sort of hook that's good enough to make your team more interesting than a few of the others. Keep in mind, you only need to place in the top 90 or so to be accepted, but every application starts with "team full of cool guys looking to race on the cheap and have a good time".
Jay wants everyone to have fun and have the right attitude. He and the other powers that be are trying to figure out who that'll be based on an essay contest. An E30 with a number on the door isn't interesting in the first place, and has been done to death. An E30 painted like an ice cream truck, a famous movie car, or some interesting play on a famous race car might be enough.
I'll even give you a great theme that I probably won't use. Make the car resemble the Frankenstein car from death race 2000 and bring the judges a leather mask like Carradine wore in the movie along with a noose, lube, and Asian fetish porn. Maybe a bright red ball gag too. I guarantee Jonny and Phil will love it and probably get good use out of the bribes as well. If you use that please give me credit for it. They all know me by name. So "Brian Pollock said this'll be a good theme" will give us something to talk about in October.
In many ways Bryce is right. LeMons has changed over the last 3 years. The number of "professionals" has dramatically increased and I blame that on the SCCA and Jay's contacts in the SFRegion for being the first "real" road race sanctioning body to allow a LeMons event on their "real" world class road course at Thunderhill. That brought a sudden and significant amount of legitimacy to the event. That legitimacy caught the attention and began to attract the "big guns" in west coast road racing.
The number of professional race teams or shops that prepare cars for professional race teams, who began to "moon light" at LeMons events has increased significantly since the first Thunderhill event in 2007. The number of full on RV/Race rigs showing up to support professionally setup cars has been a turn off to many "privateers" that were attracted by the original novelty of the event and the preponderance of novice drivers and backyard grass roots wrenching.
Even though I have access to a full professional garage and fabrication shop, my car was built and currently sits under an EZ-Up on the side of my house. I'm as grass roots as it gets. Although, I do have a lift in my home garage now, that's only been for the last month. I originally welded the exhaust together with the car up on a Harbor Freight floor jack and 6 18" tall Kragen jack stands. We use a string box to align the car, we use a 4 foot demo bar and 16lb sledge hammer to "align" the suspension on our rusty 280ZX that took a major hit in the right front and was rather poorly repaired before we dropped our $350 to purchase it from the original owner who had taken a job in LA and asked his "old" neighbor to sell it for him, basically abandoning it.
Even with the number of "professional" teams out there last December, we still had a top 10 car. Unfortunately, we also had a TOP 40 TEAM! 
Our team was recently accepted for the first Buttonwillow event and we hope to do better this time, but I'm looking forward to the November THill event, that being one of my favorite tracks, second only to Laguna Seca.
Anyway, if you go into it with no expectation of winning or even finishing, have the ability to laugh at yourself and most importantly at others, you'll have fun. If you think you can win with the fastest car and you can cheat your way to victory, think again. Most if not all the past winners have been low power cars. They've simply been able to stay out of trouble and avoid penalties and been reliable enough to stay out on the track longer than everyone else. A wise man once said, "It's easier to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car fast." and I believe that is absolutely true.
Every time someone on our team wants to spend our limited budget on something to make the car go faster, I have to beat them down and force them to focus on making the car more reliable and safer.
Damn, that was long winded. My most humble apologies.
It's supposed to be silly and fun. That's the whole point and also its big draw for me. (The Curse seems to be aimed more toward those who are taking it too seriously, IMHO.)
I spent too much time taking my motorcycle racing too seriously (to the point where it was not fun any more) and now I personally am looking to have a good time, this includes my autocross and hillclimb efforts as well. If I win something along the way, all the better. And that's what I want for and from my teammates too; fun. There's way too much serious crap in the world already.
Even when the Turd seized the engine at CMP and skidded to a stop with me in it thus effectively ending our efforts, I could still say I'd had fun.
ww wrote: Anyway, if you go into it with no expectation of winning or even finishing, have the ability to laugh at yourself and most importantly at others, you'll have fun. If you think you can win with the fastest car and you can cheat your way to victory, think again. Most if not all the past winners have been low power cars. They've simply been able to stay out of trouble and avoid penalties and been reliable enough to stay out on the track longer than everyone else. A wise man once said, "It's easier to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car fast." and I believe that is absolutely true. Every time someone on our team wants to spend our limited budget on something to make the car go faster, I have to beat them down and force them to focus on making the car more reliable and safer. Damn, that was long winded. My most humble apologies.
The bold part is exactly what I'm looking for, so it sounds like Lemons for me. I also appreciate the advice regarding making the car reliable as opposed to fast.
Man, now I'm totally stoked about trying this. Somebody offered to sell me a position in an already-built car a year ago. I wish I accepted. I didn't have the extra dough at the time to spend on it. This sounds like a hoot!
Here's a good example regarding reliable vs fast. Our 2.3 mustang broke in New Orleans. Seems the radiator cap that worked fine Saturday wouldn't hold pressure Sunday and we overheated. When we broke we were in 11th position with the slowest fast lap out of the top twenty five. So on reliability and consistency alone we almost made the top ten even though all of the top 25 cars were faster.
We have one of the slowest 280ZX's I've ever owned. I'm not even going to tell you what it dyno'd at, but it was lower than the average American's IQ... It was truly one of the most painfully long dyno runs I've ever witnessed...
On the reliability side, the only problem we had with the car, and only time it was driven on or off the track was at last year's THill event, was a blown throttle body water bypass hose that we were able to repair very quickly at the track. We've now removed that little unnecessary failure point and plugged the hole in the thermostat housing...
See you all at Buttonwillow! ;)
dyintorace wrote:btp76 wrote: Careful with that E30. There is a huge backlash against them, which is ok except you have to be accepted to race. You'll need either a killer theme or a low turn out of applicants to get in. Also you're far more curse prone in an E30 or Miata than most anything else. I turned down a Miata with a hardtop and title issues for $500 to build a 79 Fairmont wagon for our second car. I figure the typically low station wagon turnout will nearly guarantee acceptance, it'll be a lot harder to get accepted when you are one of the 15 or so E30s to apply.Interesting. I didn't realize that the e30 was frowned upon. Not sure I understand why. I also don't exactly get the theme thing. Why does it have to be Halloween on wheels? Can it not just be a cool-as-hell road race? While I'm excited about potentially participating, I'm not terribly excited about having to come up with a "theme". I want my theme to be "team full of cool guys looking to race on the cheap and have a good time".
My wonderfully insightfull wife mentioned (and remember the conversation at last years challenge banquet) a Rat mobile theme, u know bat mobile without the wings....she said she'd even loan the rat terrier team mascots. :D Hairless rat in a cage riding shotgun, you know....if u can't love a rat infested e30 what can you love. :D
well at least it's not a rat infused Rx-7. 
had to fix the infested part....
Dave, I don't have the number, but you can contact LA Rollcages in Greenville SC. They do a lot of circle track cars, and will probably do a cage in the Bimmer for around $800. Not cheap, but it will be strong and costs about half of the other guys in the area.
Mike
We found a local place that build Drag racing rails. They also do cages. They did a pre bent 10 point cage for us for $330. It was made long-big so we had to cut some of the ends and notch them. It took us 2 weekends to install the cage. I would strongly reccomend going with a 10 point on any Unibody car. Since you are going to get rear ended and rear mounting points of the cage will save the back end from getting caved it. Look at the E30 that caught on fire at CMP.
Also since I spend a good amount of time at the local U pull. And we did everything ourselves. RE welding Prep. I estimate it was another 2 k to build the car. Including new brake pads and tires.
We are running the e30 again in Sept. Then building a 2002 for the 2010 season.
up that creeek without a yep....canoe
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