RTR Lemon: Red Acura Integra - Printable Version +- Riesentöter Forums (https://rtr-pca.org/forum) +-- Forum: Club Activities (https://rtr-pca.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24) +--- Forum: Club Racing (https://rtr-pca.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=37) +--- Thread: RTR Lemon: Red Acura Integra (/showthread.php?tid=2291)

- betegh9 - 06-22-2010 Back from the Lemon race at Shennandoah, and just recuperated from heat exhaustion and sleep deprivation. Friday practice seemed to go well with all 6 drivers taking turns at driving the car and memorizing the course, only to find out that we were loosing coolant somewhere. With no visual clues, we determined that this car having 232k miles on it, the head gasket went, Needless to say, we did not go there just to pack and go home, so I ran to Martinsburg Napa for parts while the others started wrenching to remove the top end of the motor. By 3 am we had the car back together and seemed to run (idle) quite nicely. tired, we went to sleep only to wake at 6 am back to the track. After preparations, the race went off at 9 am sharp. Cris Karras had the first stint, but after he returned, we found a sizeable oil leak from the ends of the cams. 2 hours later, with timing belt re-set, we were 60 laps down from the leaders and in 68th place out of 86 teams. Afterwards, the car ran as well as expected, and by the end of the race, Sunday, we ended up in 28th place. Unfortunate concequences, but at least we finished, had fun driving, and learned to play the game for the next time. Everyone of the team enjoyed the experience and we are making plans for the next race to compete in......... with a few changes. - Darren - 06-23-2010 Since it was a Lemons race of course we needed a theme for the car.  We themed it after the Flying Spaghetti Monster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster Here are a few pics from the event. Here's a team photo: On the left: Jeff Kiersh, Darren Mingis, Julie McCray and Jacob Mingis (who doesn't like to pose for pictures for some reason) On the right: Nick Betegh, Chris Karras, Justin Bedard, Gene McMurray and Ledan Chen Here's the car, what a beauty! Here's our Cougar friends going through tech -- which in Lemons lingo is called the "BS Inspection" -- their car was by far the ugliest one at the event. Notice the bottle of Hennesy on the back of the car, a bribe for the BS inspectors.  I wonder if that's how the Cougar got through RTR tech....When we went through tech they initially penalized us 4 laps for being over on our $500 car budget.  Team Member Justin asked "What about bribes?" "Well what do you have?" Turns out Justin brought along a 4-pack of Kentucky Bourbon Stout, which is an ultra-rare specialty beer.  One of the judges was duly impressed "YOU CAN'T GET THIS STUFF" and so he knocked 2 laps off our penalty.  Then he said "You know what, I love your theme, especially in this bible thumping part of the country.  I'll knock off another lap".  So we started the race with a 1-lap penalty. - Darren - 06-23-2010 Friday was an open track day and it was clear from the start that we had a comparatively very fast car!  About mid-day we started having overheating issues.  Coolant was getting forced out of the cooling system and it was pretty clear we had a bad head gasket.  Nick and Jeff were able to locate a replacement about an hour away but then after they were on their way back, the guys paddocked next to us were from Cometic and they GAVE us a full head gasket kit!  We just had to run their stickers. We started on the repairs but confident in our abilities to fix the problem we decided to take a track walk.  In particular I wanted to show the team just how much crown is on the Shenandoah Circuit.  Many turns you just take tight and stay on the beneficial camber rather than taking a traditional line.  This is especially important because in racing you're making most of your passes on the inside line. No track walk is complete without booze...though by the Johnson turn we realized we needed bigger cups. Here we're checking out the carousel.  Jeff Kiersh is noticeably confused Once the track walk was complete we had to finish working on the car.  In retrospect maybe we shouldn't have started drinking so early.... At about 2 am the car was back together and we turned in for a few hours sleep. - Darren - 06-23-2010 The race started at 9 am on Saturday and was a 14.5 hour race over 2 days.  Saturday the race was 10 hours and we were ready with our driving order, driver change procedures, refueling procedures, etc....Many logistics to figure out for an enduro race, especially when your car is a total piece of crap! Chris Karras took the first stint.  The car was way down on power but it didn't matter much in that first stint which seemed mostly made up of yellow flag laps. I jump in the car next and do about 6 laps and I tell the guys on the radio "I'm coming in to figure out what's wrong, the car sucks."  Justin hops in and does a few laps while I think about what's wrong with the car.  After 15 minutes or so I decide that the timing belt must be off a tooth, so we tell Justin to come back in (we had race radios for this event) and we start to tear into the motor again. Besides the timing belt problem, we also had a massive oil leak -- the camshaft oil seals had popped out.  We pull the timing belt, cam sprockets, re-time the timing belt and put everything back together.  This took about 1.5 hours that we were sitting still in the pits which hurt our performance in a big way. We rejoined the race in 69th out of 86 cars but we start to pick up positions very fast.  By the end of that next stint we were up to 61st place and passing cars like Louis Hamilton in the Green group. By the end of the first day we were up to about 40th place and the car was holding up great.  In honor of the Flying Spaghetti Monster we served up some pasta and meatballs and were drinking Racer5 IPA from a keg.  Eventually we realized that we weren't going through the beer fast enough, so we loaded up the keg and drove around the paddock yelling out "FREE BEER HERE" and giving out as many cups as we could. You wouldn't believe how many teams were pulling motors, transmissions, welding, it was totally unreal! I remember at least 5 cars that had their motors out. Luckily Sunday's race didn't start until noon -- good thing I think we mostly sobered up by that point.  We found early Sunday morning that both axles had CV problems and so we stopped at AutoZone to pick up a pair -- you gotta love Hondas! Not only did they have the parts but they were like $45 each! Around the point we were fixing the car the Lemons guys were doing the "Peoples' Curse" which is where everyone votes on a race car they want destroyed and then it's dealt with in spectacular fashion.  None of the teams earned the curse this event, not enough votes, but not to disappoint the fans they destroyed a car anyway.  They had everyone go to the gun range at Summit Point and then they took a truck mounted machine gun to it.  I think a cannon would have been more dramatic, but what can you do? For the start on Sunday we were targeting the "Elmo's Revenge" team.  They had a few lap lead on us but we were confident we could catch them.  I think it was just fun to say we were going after Elmo. Notice Elmo with his gun turned sideways "gansta" style.  I'm not exactly sure what they are doing to Ernie.... Eventually we caught Elmo and by the end of the race we were able to get up to 28th place.  Not bad for a first-time effort.  Going into this race we thought it was a one-time thing and now the whole team is siked about another shot.  We learned a lot and realize that we were beaten in the pits and not on the track -- in fact I turned the 4th fastest lap of the race in our car so the car definitely had the speed! The winning car was the Sgt Shultz Mercedes S-Class.  Rumor has it they were doing 4 hour stints! We're already planning for the next race Sept 25th at Carolina Motorsports Park and I think with a little more preparation we have a chance to make a run for it! Our friends Craig in the Cougar and Scott who has the red BMW e30 that was at Lightning with us 2 weeks ago both did very well in the race.  I'll let them give their own updates! - Darren - 06-23-2010 Some pics of cars we liked: Viking ship Frog+Duck=??? 1953 Wartburg -- this was given out as a prize last year and these crazy guys made it into a racecar! It won the organizers choice award, which is for the car that most represents what Lemons is all about.  They look like Porsche wheels!! No comment - Darren - 06-24-2010 We even got a write up on the homepage of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: http://www.venganza.org/ - Black_S2000 - 06-29-2010 Nice write-up! Congrats guys! - glh - 07-06-2010 Great write-up Darren!  The free beer and last minute fuel was extremely appreciated. Tiger's Wood PGA Racing had a truly amazing weekend with a win for LEAST HORRIBLE YANK TANK! Friday we put some old tires on and squealed around the track for more than four hours of practice.  Fortunately, at the end of the day third gear scattered and we were forced into changing out the tranny with no time for testing the backup.  I say fortunately only because we had the opportunity to change it before the race began. Saturday morning was highly anticipated as 86 cars on Shenandoah was sure to be compared to a pinball machine.  Our dirt track, Mustang driving ace, Matt started the race because no one else was willing to get in the car.  We're not real sure which position we started in, but at one hour in Matt had P15 and was continuing to move.  By the end of Matt's 2 hour stint he had managed P5 on the lead lap and it would be up to the rest of us to live up to his standard. We had considered pit stops as an important part of the race, but we didn't realize we might be competitive.  Stops took an average of about 10 minutes each.  We had 6 driver changes Saturday and 3 Sunday.  As Darren stated above a four stint day would gain significant advantage.  It was much to hot and we weren't prepared for anything longer that two hours of torture.  Not to mention the fact that very few cars were bouncing off one another. Saturday ended in P4 or 5, I can't really remember, but we were 7 laps down.  For us, this was a tremendous accomplishment and we celebrated by dropping our backup tranny to figure out why it felt like the drive shaft might fly out at any moment.  Thank goodness for extra parts.  The expert crew, read not me, replaced the drive shaft and swapped tranny parts from Friday's mess and Saturday's beat down to get the Cougar back in top shape.  On jack stands of course.  Another untested morning around the corner. Did I mention thanks for the free beer! Sunday noon came a bit to quick and we were fortunate to be one of the few cars lined up on the starting grid.  Matt took the first stint again and proceeded to pass all of the front running cars and make up an entire lap.  The Cougar continued to shake, rattle and roll without complaining one iota.  We had avoided black flags and realized that quick pit stops were essential to staying in the top 5.  Based on car problems, the Flying Spaghetti Monster team had an empty space beside them, so we weaseled our way down front.  And begged for gas.  The pumps had stopped again. Our 7 minute stops combined with other teams black flags and car problems  helped us move into P3, 11 laps down for the finish.  Sgt Shultz Mercedes S-Class was in our class, so first in class was bestowed upon us when they took the win. Thanks again to RTR for all the support! Tiger's Wood PGA Racing Craig Jerry Graham Matt Chuckie