I will start off by saying, what a weekend it was. It is already over and it seems like it was one long dream. Just.. epic!
It started with the drive up, it went well thanks to my Dad and his RV. My girlfriend and I had a wonderful drive up to the track, and I am now completely comfortable driving the RV myself so the burden of the long drives does not all fall on my Dad's shoulders.
When we arrived it was a stellar day, and the track was breath taking. The rolling green hills, the sounds and sites of race cars. I was in car nerd heaven.
We got the car off the trailer and took it over to tech. One thing I took great pride from the weekend was managing the safety tech preparation of our Spitfire. We got right through tech inspection with out even a single recommendation or question. The head tech himself looked over our car and said we did a good job. All the time and effort paid off, and our car is now good to go for the rest of this year, safety wise that is.
I really wanted to get the bribed stencil painted on our car so I brought the infamous Judge Phil and his cousin Sam a few bottles of Manzanita Brew. I also enjoy sharing and passing on the word about the great beer my friends down in Santee, CA are brewing. Our team does not need to bribe the judges, when they see us Phil said, "Ah it's these guys, give me their sheet" and he marks us Class C with zero penalty laps. This is the benefit of running a slow class C car.
Now through tech and back at our pits we met up with our other two drivers, Rich and Cem. I have too say we could not have picked up a better two arrive and drive drivers. They never made a mistake, drove the car well and were great guys to shoot the shit with. Cem is also one hell of a race driver pulling our fastest laps of the weekend 2:20.38 which in our car is impressive. Rich knows his cars so having him there to help wrench if needed (though we did not) is a great benefit, he told me we needed to richen up our top and as well as lean out the bottom end on our carb. We knew the bottom end was rich but were unsure if the top end was lean.
I had a grand old time Friday night, with our car completely ready to go. I wandered the pits drinking beers and met some great people. I also spent a good amount of time chatting it up with one of my favorite teams, the Zombee MGB guys. Lemons races are just a blast even when we aren't racing, there is always someone to talk to and drink with. There were some great themes and cars out there, one of the themes was the Blue man group. I could dig up a picture of these guys, but really if you just find a picture of the real blue man group, that is how they looked. They did that good of a job on the theme. Once again, I neglected to take pictures of any of it. I was just living in the moment I guess....
Saturday was a wet rainy mess. The track was very slick, we had no windshield wipers and I did not follow the directions on the lexan water repellent so our vision was terrible. We were doing a lot of blind driving just waiting to see brake lights or objects on our sides to know when to brake. It took a lot of concentration to keep the car on the track and out of trouble, but besides one spin, we all managed. Having spent time driving the track on Forza 4 really helped me out. At least I knew where I was supposed to be going.... I have to say even though I was freaked out in the rain it was still something to experience and had it's enjoyable moments. On my second time out with a little bit better vision I had a good time, but just look at the windshield on our car...
It rained all night Saturday, so after partying it up Friday night and a chaotic wet race track, I just went in the RV and got a long nights rest.
When I woke up Sunday morning the rain had stopped and the weather actually had sun in the forecast. I was so happy to hear this, and it turned out to be correct. It did not rain once on Sunday and the track dried up nicely. Each driver came in with a huge smile on their face and had enjoyed their time at the wheel in the nice weather. Once again Sears Point was breath taking..
At the end of the day Sunday when I went out for the final stint of the race, I had the most fun I have had behind the wheel of a car. I also managed to make a big mistake and passed under yellow flag conditions. I was so pissed at myself, as I did exactly what I tell others not to do, and pass a car with out checking the flag stand first. This also cost me about 10 mins of track time and made our team look bad. It was my first mistake out of all the races I have done so far though. So I will forgive myself eventually.
We ended the race 4th in Class C and 50th out of 171 cars over all. That is pretty damn good considering our car, half the drivers were arrive and drive, and the weather.
The real winners of the race were team Oly Express with their Barracuda that they put a 170cubic inch slant 6 motor in. I was watching their build over Facebook and I had a feeling if they did well over the weekend they would win the Index of Effluency, the highest prize of LeMons racing. It means you took the worst, coolest car out to the race and did way better in the race then you should have. They beat us in Class C with 3rd place, and 44th over all. I would have personally picked them for IOE as well, so props to the LeMons crew for picking a great team for the win.
At the end of the weekend, I was able to drive our car right on the trailer, I think it could do another weekend with out changing a thing. Which is good because our next race is a full 24 hour race back at Buttonwillow and money will be tight, but we will be there.
That about sums it up. I will later add some more pictures and some in car videos as the team gets them uploaded and I find them on the net. As for now you can see the pictures I have from the race HERE One last photo that my girlfriend took of me just before I got out of the car at the end of the race on Sunday and only this picture can really explain how I feel about this crap can racing..
The true 24 hour of LeMons @ Buttonwillow is June 30th-July 1st, here we go again....
