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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!
![[Image: action.jpg]](http://www.mingis.com/Lemons/action.jpg)
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.
![[Image: free%20beer.jpg]](http://www.mingis.com/Lemons/free%20beer.jpg)
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!
![[Image: axles.JPG]](http://www.mingis.com/Lemons/axles.JPG)
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?
![[Image: machine%20gun.jpg]](http://www.mingis.com/Lemons/machine%20gun.jpg)
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.
![[Image: elmo3.JPG]](http://www.mingis.com/Lemons/elmo3.JPG)
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!
![[Image: chasing%20elmo.jpg]](http://www.mingis.com/Lemons/chasing%20elmo.jpg)
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!
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!