Well the snow is flying...so no work is getting to be done on the Camaro. But we have some updates. Niles scored a set of used eibach springs for the Camaro and I have a new job...things are looking up for team sucker punch I thinks.

More pics!

OK its my turn, finally got my camera back and uploaded my pictures.
Picasa Web Albums - RACERKEY - Nelson Ledges 2009
Its mostly of the cars that were at the race, but it still gives you a great look into how Lemons works. The other teams brought some great cars, I was amazed at how fast some of them were...and how slow others were. Just goes to show you can't judge a book by its cover. We were given a residual value of $350 on the car. Thats higher then we had hoped, but considering how well the car ran, I can't blame them. I think most of the money will be spend on suspension parts in an effort to make the car corner better, I'm also sold on the idea of doing more to help the trans (deep sump pan, shift kit, etc...). Beyond that the car will get fresh brakes, tires, and new gauges..none of which count towards the value of the car. I'll check the health of the engine but since the thing was running so good I'm thinking that we are going to just use it again next year. Don't knock the 305, the car was very fast on the long straight at Nelson, I busted 110 MPH in the car a few times!

Pictures!

Hi everyone! Big thanks to everyone that posted pictures to the albums. If you look on the right side we now have two fairly full albums of pictures!

24 Hours of Lemons Lamest Day Album 1

and

24 Hours of Lemons Lamest Day Album 2

Thanks!

24 Hours of Lemons at Nelson Ledges... ALL OF THEM!

Nelson Ledges is a fun road course - it has some similar features to Road America - a carousel leading into a kink, as well as some good straights to get some speed going. Exciting the carousel and going to/through the kink we were getting up to around 100 MPH - quite the "exciting" experience in a $500 car! Nelson Ledges has some interesting differences though - is significantly flatter than Road America - there are no significant hills to speak of, and several of the corners are fairly steeply banked, allowing for some high speeds around corners. On the 2.1 mile course our record lap was 1:32.5 - so an average of almost 80 MPH. They've got an excellent track map here: http://www.nelsonledges.com/TFMap.aspx

Our car was painted to look like Van Halen's guitar - and it looked GREAT. We don't have any pictures up yet, but if you'd like to take a look I've found a few on-line:

http://www.bradgoldring.com/temp_host/lemons2009/content/IMG_5897_large.html
http://www.bradgoldring.com/temp_host/lemons2009/content/_MG_5325_large.html
http://www.bradgoldring.com/temp_host/lemons2009/content/IMG_5254_large.html

If you look carefully, you can see some "VAN HALEN" words stenciled onto it - that was from one of the black flag experiences. We had a total of 4 - three for driving, 1 for mechanical. I'm happy to say that I wasn't driving for any of the driving infractions, and the mechanical one was thrown as I exited the pits because we were dripping some fuel. Cleaned that up and we were on our way.

Our first black flag happened around 1 hour into the race - there was a local yellow and our driver missed it and passed someone. We got pulled into the penalty shed and elected to "spin the wheel"...

http://www.bradgoldring.com/temp_host/lemons2009/content/IMG_5643_large.html

We got "Faces of Math" - a wonderfully backwards/convoluted math problem that we were required to solve on the hood of our car. Showing all of our work. While we were working on it I asked if they would like a new stencil or two... Of course they said yes, so one of our pit crew freehanded the Van Halen stencil.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2009/10/VanHalenStencil-800px.jpg

20 minutes later, problem still unsolved, they said we could get back on the track with a required driver change. This got us to my first hour on the track. It was a BLAST. Lots of wonderful opportunities to learn good (and bad) passing technique, as well as situational awareness. Some of the vehicles out there were nicknamed "Moving Chicanes" - a Russian Lada and a full size van were the two most obvious, although there were others.


After the hour, we changed drivers to Tony, who ran for a full 2 hours without incident. Then to Kate, who, after 15 minutes out got into a minor accident that was the other driver's fault - but a black flag nonetheless. Her "punishment" was to have a leg duct-taped to the leg of one of our other team members and then have the two of them do a three-legged race to get food for all of the penalty judges. While they were getting food we got significantly "Van Halened". This caused another mandatory driver change, getting us back to our first driver.

He was out for around 30 minutes when the appeal of the wilderness called to him and he ended up 4 wheels off on turn 1. Another black flag for us (and a wrecker to pull us away from the tire wall). This got the judges talking about how we were driving "Just like Camaro drivers" and they gave us a 20 minute penalty. I think they let us off a little easy due to how good-naturedly we were dealing with the penalties, as well as how we gave them the Van Halen stencil.

So, 2 hours and 45 minutes later, I'm back in the car - this time for a 2 hour stint. It was a beautiful time to drive - starting before sundown and driving into night. The changes were subtle, but noticeable. If given the chance, I highly recommend the experience of racing during the day/night transition. Night driving is very interesting, as distances are more difficult to determine, and it was hard to tell where cars were. Thankfully, we managed to make it through the night with no significant incidents. One of the drivers ended up driving almost their entire 2 hour stint under yellows due to the foolishness of other drivers, but we made it through. She mentioned that driving during the night to day transition was also incredible.

I lucked out and managed to get the last driving slot - from 10:30 am to noon (checkered flag). It got VERY interesting, as many of the cars that were "out" limped back onto the track in order to be driving around at the end if the race. I saw at least one car out there with a flat tire! By that time the field had decreased from 122 (8 never made it on) to around 50 cars or so. Drivers got MUCH more aggressive and some interesting events occurred. The most interesting for me was ending up going around the carousel 3-wide twice. I'd say the track was no wider than at Road America, and possibly a bit narrower. That was definitely the most harrowing experience of the whole event!

Happily, we managed to make it through to the end - I never touched any other vehicle, and never ended up off of the track. It was awesome and I highly recommend thinking about starting your own team!

After a long delay...

And, after a long delay, I'm finally back at posting... Sorry about the looooong delay.

I've finally gotten some video editing software, so here goes, the first intro video:

Getting close!

Well Frank is well on his way to becoming a real race car. We purchased a roll cage from autopower, the team had it installed in the car in less then an afternoon. We also bolted in our race seats and our harness. So now we can drive the car in and out of the shop without having to sit on the floor (painful bolt heads). The engine got a full tune up, and purrs like a kitten full of cream. The trans got an aftermarket trans cooler. The diff got fresh fluid. The brakes were not only made new, but made better. The car now has twin piston (SSBC) calipers, braided hoses, DOT 4 fluid and fresh drums, rotors, springs, etc, etc, etc... The pedal is as hard as I have ever felt in a road car. We are quiuckly running out of things to do. Next up is more saftey gear, and finally...paint!! Wait till you see what we have in store for our Camaro.