The new SuckerPunchMobile! "Frankie"!

Today was a fun and exciting day - we went and checked out a car we found on craigslist... A 1989 Camaro RS with a 305 and Automatic. It looks... "experienced", but when Matt did a more technical inspection he discovered that it's in great shape! Well, all except for the brakes... Which were also quite... experienced.

Needless to say, we now officially have another car for Team SuckerPunch. We're looking at getting it prepped for Lemon's 2010 - 2009 will be the escort's ("Scort") second run.

Once we payed for the Camaro, we -carefully- drove it back to Matt's Pa's place - he was nice enough to let us fix it up there prior to getting it into the Milwaukee area. We plan on fixing up the brakes and whatever other basic repairs prior to taking it to Gordon's #1 Service - the home of Team SuckerPunch.

After arriving at Matt's Pa's place, we started taking it apart a bit more and seeing what was really there... And it was even better than what we initially thought it was! Matt has asked me not to give away all of the innards, but as he said to me "when the original owner ordered the car, he must have checked EVERY option".

It wasn't all easy though... Obviously the brakes are important, so we wanted to take a look at them. I poped off the covers on the nuts, and unfortunately there were wheel locks on the car. So a search ensued... And even included dissassembling some internal paneling looking for the key.

Officially determined the key was nowhere to be found, we attempted to use a few tools... And no, they didn't work... So we went to an auto parts store, where they looked at us and said "we don't sell anything like that". So we went next door to a tire shop - they said "We'll take them off if you drive it here". Only one issues with that of course - um, we want to fix the brakes before driving it more... Finally, thanks to Menards(!?) we had the proper tool and were able to remove the locking lug nuts...

So now it's just waiting for us to return with supplies - brakes, brake lines, and so on... We're hoping to be able to drive it back to Gordon's by Sunday...

Team SuckerPunch 1989 Camaro - Frankie!

Team SuckerPunch: Round 2 - Frankie! from Niles Stonne on Vimeo

New URL!

We're going all out on this... You can now point your browser to:

http://teamsuckerpunch.com

That URL will map to this blog for now... And in the future... We'll see.

Meet The Drivers...

Ok here's the three drivers that I expect to post occasionally:

- Matt - He's the guy that started Team SuckerPunch. He's put a tremendous amount of time and effort into our team car and organizing the team in general.

- Me - I go by Niles Stonne on-line, although in person many people call me Lance. I've designated myself as official tech geek of the team - Video/Audio/Web, you name it.

- Scotty - He races Spec Miata and also lent us use of his trailer to get the car to the 24 Hours of Lemons. Great Guy!

Where we're at now...

During the race we had a radiator problem and overheated our engine to failure, so now we need to figure out a plan for next year...

Since the team purchased two cars, we're planning on taking the engine out of the spare car, getting it rebuilt and then installing it in the Team SuckerPunch race car. I'm hoping to get this process done this winter, so that we can get the car out for some fun prior to Lemons next year. I've been suggesting autocross events, and we've also thought about the Midwest Enduro Series. Right now we're still in need of a good way to transport the car - one of the team members has a trailer, but he uses it quite often for Spec Miata racing.

I'm the largest geek of the group, so I set up the radios and video camera for the team. We had some issues with the video camera powering down mid-race, so we only have about an hour of video. My additinal goal for the winter is to look into the video camera and get it working for maximum-length movies. Additionally, since it records in high-def I'd like to find a better place to host the videos.

Blogging Begins

From Team SuckerPunch 24 Hours of Lemons Detroit-Ish 2008

This is a blog for Team SuckerPunch - a 24 Hours of Lemon team based out of Milwaukee, WI.

We participated in the 24 Hours of Lemons Detroit-Ish 2008 race... Here's some Videos and Pictures.