To chump or not to chump

Curmudgeon wrote: ... it's so easy to hide cheaty parts in the motor.

I sold a set of wheels to a guy last week. Turns out, he was going to use them on his "racecar". I asked, and he told me he does LeMons. We talked for a little while, and he told me everyone cheats. They have $5000 in their motor; they let it sit outside for a month, to get good 'n' grungy looking.

steronz wrote: Locally it's BMWs as far as the eye can see, but the 2014 pricing means that you either start out with penalty laps or you run a bone stock 4-banger, or both. A cheaper car means we have some room to add reliability.

Neither here nor there, but for next year's rules, our 1986 BMW 325e (yeah, an ETA) with stock suspension (except cut springs) and a few other small mods is legal for no penalty laps. We have about $20 left in the budget, IIRC, lol.

The car has completed two Chump and one Lemons race (total 46 hours) with zero mechanical problems. It doesn't blow anyone away on the track but it chugs along while the fast cars go off the track or blow up. We finished 15th and 11th at the Pittsburgh double-7s (out of 30-35 cars) and around 20th at LeMons Summit Point (out of about 120 cars).

In Chump this year we basically get worked by the e36s, the "i" e30s, and of course the Biohazard MR2. Most of those cars will be MAJOR penalty laps next year and many won't be coming back from what I've heard.

There was a Prelude out at Pittsburgh with us. It was slightly quicker than us but I recall that it was up in the paddock getting repaired a number of times.

So there's a bunch of useless information for you. Not sure exactly what point I was going to make, I've totally forgotten now.

mazdeuce wrote: It really depends on whether you want to try and win. If you do, they you're going to need to look outside the box a little bit as they seem to have made it difficult to go fast in the "popular" cars. Are there any oddball cars on the 2014 rule sheet that you're familiar with?

One that I'd look into: 4th Gen Maxima. There was one at Pittsburgh, and it was bone-stock. 2nd day they ran the whole race with a burned-out clutch and they were still putting up faster laps than we were in an e30. I'm pretty sure that in stock form they get no penalty laps next year. Plus the biggest handling mod you can do to one is free (bend the rear beam axle for camber). 190hp, supremely stout engine, and they handle better than most people think. Plus once you gut them they're actually pretty light cars (they're heavy due to a lot of luxury features). If I wasn't already with a team and was going to start my own, that's the direction I'd go.

RealMiniDriver wrote: We talked for a little while, and he told me everyone cheats. They have $5000 in their motor; they let it sit outside for a month, to get good 'n' grungy looking.

"everyone cheats" is what cheaters say. Our car is 100% legit for both this year's rules and next year's rules for Chump and Lemons. Try to suggest some little thing that is even borderline out of budget and the owner/lead driver will actually get pissed off at you. Not because it would get caught, but because they actually are honest and principled.

I would venture to say that many of the top cars are cheaty (some more than others), but can't say that for a fact either. But many teams actually take pride in running a legitimate car and trying to win within the rules. .

btw, what is the name of this guy you sold the wheels to, again?

In reply to irish44j:

Uh... Pete.

I don't consider a $5000 built engine "left outside so it looks crappy" to be creative cheating. It's just straight cheating, knowing that most people in crapcan racing won't post the bond needed for a rules challenge since there's no money in it anyhow.

EDIT: damn, I just got ninja edited, ya bastard! whur'd that post go??

irish44j wrote: I don't consider a $5000 built engine "left outside so it looks crappy" to be creative cheating. It's just straight cheating, knowing that most people in crapcan racing won't post the bond needed for a rules challenge since there's no money in it anyhow. EDIT: damn, I just got ninja edited, ya bastard! whur'd that post go??

Me? I was drunk and that came off E36 M3ty. We've, honest to berkeleying god, done NOTHING on the MX-3 engine but general maintenance. Rock_berkeleying_stock. Honestly, I've seen 1, MAAAYBE 2 cars out there that were just walking on everyone. One (A mustang...where the guys actually put up a youtube video where they bragged about how many thousands they had in there motor) that got CRUUUUUUSHED. And a very suspicious RX-7 that was on the chopping block until Jay convinced everyone they weren't cheating.

Chump on the other hand? There are some ridiculously berkeleying fast cars out there that are downright not in the spirit of the event IMHO...but the driving ability seems to be far and above what you find at LeMons.

Sorry for the E36 M3ty post, and the accompanying ninja-edit. Roughest of weeks. They should take my phone away after 3 drinks.

The Chump model allows for some very fast cars, depending more upon your starting platform. Almost more than Lemons.

I'm reasonably sure i could slap together a 200whp 2300lb car that would hold together and be perfectly legal under Chump rules.

We are legitimately legal in both chump and lemons. We must change our springs for lemons.

We have won and or podiumed in both series. It is possible to build a non cheaty car for both.

poopshovel wrote:

irish44j wrote: I don't consider a $5000 built engine "left outside so it looks crappy" to be creative cheating. It's just straight cheating, knowing that most people in crapcan racing won't post the bond needed for a rules challenge since there's no money in it anyhow. EDIT: damn, I just got ninja edited, ya bastard! whur'd that post go??

Me? I was drunk and that came off E36 M3ty. We've, honest to berkeleying god, done NOTHING on the MX-3 engine but general maintenance. Rock_berkeleying_stock. Honestly, I've seen 1, MAAAYBE 2 cars out there that were just walking on everyone. One (A mustang...where the guys actually put up a youtube video where they bragged about how many thousands they had in there motor) that got CRUUUUUUSHED. And a very suspicious RX-7 that was on the chopping block until Jay convinced everyone they weren't cheating. Chump on the other hand? There are some ridiculously berkeleying fast cars out there that are downright not in the spirit of the event IMHO...but the driving ability seems to be far and above what you find at LeMons. Sorry for the E36 M3ty post, and the accompanying ninja-edit. Roughest of weeks. They should take my phone away after 3 drinks.

ah ok, lol.....it read like the post was saying that doing all engine internals/full built and then leaving it outside to look dingy was "creative cheating" and therefore ok. I've made my share of "too many drinks posts" on other forums and they never end well!

irish44j wrote: There was a Prelude out at Pittsburgh with us. It was slightly quicker than us but I recall that it was up in the paddock getting repaired a number of times.

That was us!

For what it's worth, we've tentatively decided to get an E36 325i for next year and take whatever penalty laps we get. As long as we keep bringing rookie drivers and doing driver changes whenever we feel like it as opposed to keeping people out there as long as possible, we're not going to win, so we figure that the BMW will be

a) RWD (as a lifelong FWD guy I objected, but I'm conceding to democracy),

b) not the slowest car out there,

c) have some torque (!), and

d) reasonably reliable.

Good enough for us. Again, I wasn't really looking for car suggestions in this thread (I know, GRM is so used to "what car" threads) but rather whether ChumpCar was worth sticking to versus more conventional sprint racing. In any case, I appreciate the lively discussion.

There are some cases where I've never understand cheating, and crapcan racing (either series) is one of them. You're cheating yourself out of the experience, the majority of the run is getting a ginat flaming turd to last that long and the feeling of gloat if you actually manage to beat some other car with at least some legimate "racing" pedigree. Running a built motor would be like a pro baseball player beating a nunch of 7 year olds at whiffle ball, you won but why and for what? all you accomplished is showing the world what an arse you are.

For the record i've done some creative things that while not outright cheating were not in the most creative spirit of various event series. Such as when holding a points lead in a rallycross series that could only be lost if i finished 2nd and the driver behing me finished 1st, having a national champion stage driver and rally school instructor co-enter an event with me under the vail that they'd win and seal the championship for me. After the fact it cheapened the season for me.

There is cheating and trying to get away with it then there is cheating and taking the penalty laps.

We have been running a 79 RX-7 with a Ford 302 and generally getting 10-15 penalty laps. The new rules will certainly hurt us a bit more. We are planning on putting in a 4.8 LS that was purchased for $150 complete from fan to tq converter including full wiring and computer. We will likely receive more laps for it.

My goal when I run is to get maximum seat time in something I enjoy driving. We start with laps, we have no radio. We run out of fuel every 1.5 hours and generally just come in when we feel like it. I don't worry about winning and enjoy not worrying about how quickly we pit or what lap times my teamates are running.

I don't try to hold up or block faster drivers. I basically just want to have fun in a fast car. Penalty laps be damned.

poopshovel wrote: ....not that we've won any races or anything.

That berkeleying fast as E36 M3 piece of E36 M3 berkeleying car lapped everything in sight.

And I love it. Everyone on that team drove like a hero.

poopshovel wrote:

So to be clear, it sounds like you're saying that we should cheat.

Here's your answer: http://jalopnik.com/400309/what-would-smokey-do-24-hours-of-lemons-cheating-tips-from-judge-murilee

Dude that second picture down is Jamie and Rob grabbing up the nickles from IOE win #1. THAT was a fun race.

Cheat all you want, the Lemons judges (Phil at least) are pretty good at handicapping the cars. Sure engine internals are basically impossible to catch, but HP alone is not going to win the race. ChumpCar, IMO, is much easier to get things through. Our last race we went to with CC they didn't even raise the hood, just looked at the log book and asked what had changed. Next year opens the door to slipping things through, but that's another subject (and forum). At the end of the day there are very, very few teams that can win one of these races. If you think bringing a $20,000 car will bring home the trophy by itself, you'll be disappointed.

I don't think cheating is a major problem, but I do think it's nearly impossible to run both series now without cheating in LeMons. For what it's worth, we did a LeMons race, and based on our spreadsheet we probably had about $1200 in the car (excluding safety equipment) at that point, just getting it through our first race and replacing a bunch of stuff that was broken. Obviously the judges didn't sweat our car (they even put us in class B) and we blew up on lap 3 anyway, but we weren't exactly playing by the rules. Sure, we were playing by the "rules," but I still say we were cheating.

LeMons says bring a car that you spent no more than $500 on and have fun fixing it when it inevitably breaks. ChumpCar says bring a "$500 car" that you've spent hundreds or thousands of dollars fixing up so that it doesn't break. Two very different philosophies that should result in very different cars.

Yeah, my team has not run a LeMons events, but there have definitely been some suspicious cars in all the chumpcar races we've done. One red flag is the numerous times I've been like, "Man that car is fast out on the straights." and the guy I'm talking to yells, "the motor is all stock!" like a Tourette's outburst. Especially when the car in question is very obviously making more-than-stock power levels.

Lemons cares about suspension upgrades, and very little about engines. CC anymore doesn't seem to care at all about what you bring, and wants the competitors to police themselves by protesting cars. Either way I think the idea of racing a true $500 car went away years ago. Still, it is endurance racing. The loophole in Lemons is driving stints are unlimited as to how long they can be (CC is 2 hrs max) and they allow up to a 24 gallon fuel cell. The winners in Lemons will stop three (maybe twice?) times during a 10 hr Saturday race for fuel. If your car/team can't do that, in addition to only stopping for fuel, you're most likely out of contention. I don't think I've ever seen a race (not saying it hasn't happened) where the fastest lap time car won the race. It's usually something like the fastest lap is around 5 seconds faster than the winner's fastest lap time. If you're gonna cheat, you'd be much better off to buy an aluminum radiator than a performance cam. But someone will always complain about cheaters, it is racing after all.

In reply to steronz:

Both Lemons and Chump no longer believe in the $500.00 car. With both series, tires, wheels, brakes, ball joints, tie rods, even spark plugs, belts, hoses, and exhaust are not in the budget. Both series want the cars to have a chance to turn some laps.

Lemons is alot closer to the $500.00 car, but also permit things that Chump does not. For example: Lemons wants splitters and wings and door panels made out of crap you find for free. Chump assigns a value for all of those items.

It all ends up even in the end.

For Chump we declare a splitter, header, springs, lexan rear hatch, and any little thing we did with tools to modify an existing part.

With Lemons, we declare the header and change to the stock springs. Judge Phil and I have sent emails back and forth to each other documenting every part of the car that is not stock. When we show up for Judging, I hand him the emails. He hands me no penaly laps.

The Judges do not care what we (or you) payed for the car as long as it is crappy enough.

Rob R.

In reply to ross2004:

Now I am just bragging!

At the Denver race one of the years (not 2013), we had fastest lap AND won the race. WE also have an 11 gallon gas tank and must stop every 1.5 hrs.

Feel the fury of 100hp!!

You are right though, most times it is the lack of pit stops AND having fast pit stops that wins Lemons races. We run 2.5 hour stints at tracks that we can go that long on fuel. We only stopped a total of 4 times for fuel at Summit Point this year (and 1 black flag).

Rob R.

You guys run a great race in all aspects. I looked up your times after Summit and was very impressed at the consistency and pit stop times. You could also see where you dialed it up a little on Sunday. You were one of the very few cars that could pass us on the main straight (of course we did have to lift at the start/finish line to keep the engine from 'splodin). We need to find 15 mins a stint and we can cut out a pit stop. Of course when your transmission looses all but first gear somehow overnight it doesn't really matter.