LeMons Carolina...who all's goin'?

so who's in? Schumacher taxi's FX16 is about to embark on its third Lemons. the audi, its second. it will be the patriotic MR2's maiden voyage.

(Schumacher Taxi...now with 100% more 4AG!)

can't wait! weather looks great as well. GRMers, stop by and say hey.

The Animal House team will be back in different livery.

Mama won't let me be that far away so close to the due date. Good luck all.

Well be there In our e30. .. We spoke with the Taxi team last year.

We will be caravaning up with the Z team from tampa.

See every one in a few days.

this will be my first lemons. my best to everyone else going - y'all play nice in the chicane!

I'll be there. Second LeMons event, but maybe I'll get to drive this time before the car grenades!

Tunachuckers will be there.

nderwater wrote: this will be my first lemons. my best to everyone else going - y'all play nice in the chicane!

I'm thinking the condiments will take care of that. hey, if the Tunachckers clip the chicane then they can make tuna salad.

We are packed up. Brining a 2nd steering rack. front struts, Fuel pump. A spare transmission and rear diff. If any thing major fails we will have a spare.

Leaving at 3.. see every one tomorrow. Look to the BMW e30 with the Siren on the roof and the Z car with the rising sun on the side.. Stop in and say Hi.

We are almost packed. Spare parts? Whazzat? We are just going to buy extra booze.

We will have an, er, 'unusual' roof decor. Hope it passes tech!

In. Pray we make it through downtown ATL without getting shot.

Like Chris Rock says, 'Stay off Martin Luther King Boulevard! The media's down there!'

One of the teams is going to try a webcast. Look for the rear bumper of a red CRX every 5 minutes or so.

poopshovel wrote: In. Pray we make it through downtown ATL without getting shot.

+1. I'm glad I'm not towing.

Loading now, be there Friday afternoon with the ex Animal House now Blind Rodent Racing Thunder Turd. Should be a blast!

Anyone know if there is cell phone coverage at CMP?

Had SunCom last year, no coverage. T Mobile bought SC so we will see this year. One of my co drivers had Verizon and had coverage.

The Terd got loaded in th po' down rain last night. Big fun, woohoo.

Spectator fee? How much?

Well, the Blind Rodent Racing Thunderbird was FAST- while it ran. Our first driver got blackflagged twice, one was sorta legit the other not so much but who ya gonna argue with? Then it started throwing belts meaning no water pump, the temp gauge pegged at least 3 times. Then ignition issues sidelined us for a good 2 hours Sat afternoon. Got it running again, then it died and a E30 hit it from behind while our driver was trying to coast off at a safe spot. The same driver got hit from behind by another car in almost exactly the same spot the next day and both black flag incidents for our first driver happened there as well (right at the end of the front straight). See a pattern?

We got the car running consistently well right after quiet time Sunday, I got in for my second stint and the thing was FLYIN'. I was thinking to myself 'maybe our bad luck is over', I passed probably 10 cars and our fast driver was scheduled to drive after me meaning we had some hope of making up at least a few of the 200 laps we were down . Then on decel on the front straight, huge cloud of blue smoke in the mirrors and then I also saw some squirting in between the shifter stick and the boot opening. Uh oh. It still runs like a raped ape, gauges are in the OK ranges, stay in it. Come out of 12, hit the gas, nothin'. (This is almost exactly where the motor gave up last year, BTW.) Start waving cars by like mad, coast through 13, it's still pulling a little bit but is rapidly losing speed then the engine dies. Time to do anything to get to a safe spot so I yank it into 1st and dump the clutch to bump start it, the rear tires start hopping. Oh my. Pop it into neutral, coast as far as I can, I couldn't coast off the course due to a LOT of race traffic on both sides so I wind up stopped just at the entrance of 14. The corner worker checks on me, then out of the corner of my eye I see a red flag. Huh? Surely not a red flag just for lil' ol' me. I can't really see behind me until the tow truck pulls me part way around 14 and that's when I see the huge cloud of fire and smoke back at 12/13. Suddenly our problems come into focus. And so our '09 experience ended.

On the bright side: lots of fun was had by all, we hung around and watched the Hongers swap a motor with a 2x6, learned what a 'Ninja hiss' is, the Spirit of the Event guys had some of the funniest costumes I've ever seen, the Taiwanese National Anthem is one of the funniest yet most aggravating punishments EVAR (we got it twice, dammit!) and yes we will be back. Can't make September but next April is real doable!

From a spectator POV, your driver should have pulled off track 100 yards before the Racing Nemo car hit it. Everyone else racing each other down the fastest straight had to dive out of the way to avoid hitting your car as it rolled to a near-stop on track..

That being said, we brought the race to a standstill ourselves. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the show.

"Woah, look at the flames shooting out of our tailpipe."

"That's not the tailpipe, the car's on fire!"

Yeah, she probably should have gone off earlier. But since I wasn't in the car I couldn't see what she was seeing in the mirrors so I won't presume to judge her. After all, the reason I didn't roll off the track when the engine puked was that I would have had to turn sharp to the right, meaning several cars coming up fast on that side could have hit me HARD and I did not want that to happen. She may have been doing the same thing. I'm just glad both drivers are OK.

So it was your car that went up at 12/13? That was a helluva fireball! Glad no one was hurt. I was glad to see the Tunachuckers finish, I could hear the thing rattling all the way at the tower.

The event exceeded my expectations in pretty much every way. More teams. More action. More drama. More penalties. More fire. And everyone walked away okay! Good times.

the chucker didn't fare to well, but the team did. here is a brief play by play.

Friday afternoon the transmission in the car is trash from sitting full of water since last race, apparently. We swap in the spare in 45 minutes. Done. One driver takes a 20 minute stint on Friday night after tech and declares victory.

Saturday morning we get two drivers good and done, and we're doing well. Just a three lap deal for a flat tire (razor in the tire) The car handles incredibly and we were much faster than we had any right to be, faster than a lot of cars.

We send out the third driver.

He comes back after three laps "NO PEDAL!"

We pour in brake fluid, "pump it!!"

::pump:: ::fire on caliper:: ::pump:: ::fire on caliper:: ::pump:: ::fire on caliper:: ::pump:: ::fire on caliper::

"STOP PUMPING!!!!"

The brakes were toast. The piston welded itself to the backing plate. The chicane kept our speeds down last year, as did having one rear wheel off the ground 40% of the time.

We swap to the spare caliper. and bleed the brakes - one hour missed.

"DON'T TOUCH THE BRAKES!"

We only have one spare set of pads. They're half worn.

The third driver goes out and it's my turn. Great, first time on track, no brakes. I followed the Merc driver for three laps because he drove like he was 87 years old on the way to bingo, swerving all over the straightaway. Then got passed him and a crown vic (#60 maybe?) passed me WAY too hot into a corner, locks up all four, and I go passed easily. He does it again at the end of the long straight, but this time pitches it sideways. I have nowhere to go, I drive in the grass, black flag for me, and driver change.

The next guy goes out and does OK. We all had contact, but fairly minimal. End of the race day with no more issues.

The spare caliper was half frozen, so we swapped pads for even wear, rotated the tires and ate and partied.

Sunday morning our driver goes out and sets some serious fast laps (1:08 ish) before getting black flagged for something. He comes in and says "it was ticking on the last lap".

We wait out the short black flag, and I suggest pushing it back to the pits to check the engine before firing it up again.

All fluids are great, hit the starter! ::click:: breaker bar can't turn it, starter can't turn it. Oil gets poured down all cylinders. PB blaster gets sprayed everywhere. Oil gets poured over the valves. Nothing.

We get the new engine in and running in about 2 hours.

"GO GO GO!"

He spins out after 10 minutes and gets black flagged and hit hard after spinning. We replace the spindle in about 30 minutes.

"GO GO GO"

New driver goes out. Engine smokes from there until the end of the race while producing about 20 hp.

It was a fun race. We need a new engine now.

-Brian

Tuna.. is the engine in your car the same as that of a 1970 Volvo p1800?

If so I may have some parts. I was given a p1800 years ago. I sold it due to rust. But the trunk was full of new pistons, a head and i think a cam. If it something you can use Ill make you a great deal.

I view the Tbird getting hit by the e30 as payback. NOT that I am starting anything. But my team was hit in the back by the rat on the Tbird car and so was our other FL team. I know its part of the game. But i guess its funny how carma works out. Plus I am sure there are good drivers out there that have been suprised by oil on the track or bad brake fade. Hence things get hit.

Out car died at the end of the 1st day. we worked on it till 11 pm. Replaced 80 % of the electronics and still it woulndt rev.. SO we gave up.. Well get the E30 back up and running for the next event. It was quick and handeled great for the 1st 7 ish hours.

B

Karma's a bitch if it's something intentional and loss of the rat head wasn't. In case no one was paying attention, the DoriftoDog's dog lost its head as well. I ran over all kinds of crap, for instance I hit someone's muffler insert laying on the track just out of 14 and it made a helluva noise on the underside of the car. I didn't take that personally, it's all part of the '$500 crap cars' game and if it happens again I won't take it personally then either. But- if we go with another rooftop decoration next race I plan to do some better engineering.

FWIW, our team is in no way peeved at the Nemo team's driver, she simply made a mistake. It could just as easily been the other way around.

The couple times I was able to watch the Chucker car it was obviously going a LOT faster than last year. Too bad about the motor.

The Schumacher Taxi Service's FX16 flip was wild looking, glad no one was hurt. Post some in car video, guys! During the morning stints, their MR2 pulled in and was spraying water big time from the engine area. I was pretty sure it was going to blow up, yet it was still running strong the next day.

We are probably going to tear ours down, see what's wrong and decide from there where to go. Who knows, maybe a completely different car...