07/29/2014
A little race recap for ya! Sorry in advance for the long windedness..
Well, we started out over a year ago talking about how cool it would be to race in a LeMons race. Purchased an 84' VW Rabbit off of Craigslist and got to work stripping her out. Turned out it had a LOT more rust than we had anticipated and had to spend copious amounts of time welding in sheet metal to the floorboards just to make it structurally sound. Got the roll cage installed by Ed Hast at Victory Lane down in Blue Island, IL. If you're looking to have a cage done and done right, and if Ed is available I couldn't give a higher recommendation.
Got to work on the dash, seat mounts, wiring etc. Everything took about 4-10 times longer than expected and cost at least twice as much but in the end we built what I believe to be a safe, clean race car and I would trust putting any member of my family in it. After a marathon 30 hour work session the weekend before the race the car felt pretty close to ready and we packed her on the trailer to tow down to Joliet Thursday afternoon. Back in November I had pit crewed for Albert Wentzel with the NMF Racing Jetta, what a great experience and opportunity to learn and meet people that was. On Thursday evening as we were setting up our paddock space, Albert came over and was kind enough to introduce me to Mark and Dale, the tech inspectors for the race. Couldn't be 2 nicer guys at the track and they were super helpful by taking a quick look at the car to let us know if we had any glaring deficiencies. We didn't and I slept much better Thursday night knowing this.
Friday test day...didn't go quite as planned as we were only able to turn about 11 laps. We decided to get through tech inspection and BS as soon as possible as we wanted to get those out of the way, however the seemingly small amount of things we had to finish for tech took us til near 3 in the afternoon. Sailed through tech with no issues, thanks again to Mark and Dale's sage advice and wisdom... Got to BS and Phil put us in class A. We didn't really feel that it was a class A car but hey, we're a new team and the car did "look" pretty well sorted on the surface. No use arguing, we're here to have fun anyways and knew with 2 drivers with zero track experience and an untested car we wouldn't be competitive on laps no matter which class we were in. Weirdly I think it took some pressure off of the team as any doubts that our team may have had about our competitiveness were erased for certain and all just took the attitude of let's have fun and not sweat it! We finally got out on track for testing, the car seemed fuel starved and would stutter in a straight line and often just shut down completely. It also didn't seem to be charging which was odd as we had just replaced the alternator Friday morning. The last time we were out on track, I was driving and had to be towed in. The new alternator was definitely not charging so we set about trying the four junkyard alternators we had, one of which had an ominous yellow paint marker question mark painted on it. We saved that one for last and of course it turned out to be the only one that worked. So, 5 alternator changes later we are finally getting a miserly 12.8V out of the charging system but it will have to do as we don't have any more backups. Now to sort the carb out...we borrowed some brake cleaner from another team and proceeded to spray around the intake manifold and sure enough, great big ol' leak right there. Remounted the intake with some RTV and proceeded to do some wiring and other tasks we still had yet to complete. Left the track around 1AM to get some sleep.
Saturday morning...Race day is upon us!! WoooHooo!!! Got to the track at 7:30 as we still had work to do, wiring GoPros, cool shirt, etc. Worked right up til the Driver's meeting, and then came right back to work after it til about 20 after 10 so we didn't actually get on track for the first few laps...No big deal, it's a long day, plenty of time to get out and have fun! Jim Hugger was our first driver and came in after about 30 mins or so and drove straight to the sin bin. Uh Oh, we just got our first black flag and the day just started! Turned out we didn't get a black flag, Jim thought he may have dropped a wheel off the track but if he did, no one saw it or it was minor enough that they didn't call it in. He reported to us that the car was still sputtering and lacked power, but elected to take her back out for a few more laps while we tried to figure out what to do next. We decided to change the main jets in our carb to the biggest ones we had, went from .130's to .175's and it helped a lot for the next driver Sean. BTW, the lack of "pressure" led to leisurely 30-35min pit stops and we enjoyed every minute of those as well! We strapped Sean in the car and sent him out, he did a little over an hour, zero black flags and came in and reported that the car seemed a lot better than before, now the big problem was a lack of visibility on the driver's side. We had the wink mirror, and had mounted a driver's side mirror, but that one had a shaky mounting system at best and was basically useless due to vibration. We did another leisurely pit stop during which time we added copious amounts of duct tape to the side mirror. I went out and can tell you that the duct tape did absolutely nothing and the mirror just pointed at the tarmac. It was terrifying at times knowing there was a faster car approaching and then it would just disappear briefly before reappearing right next to me, usually in a corner!! In any case, the car was running strong and I was having the time of my life!! I even passed a few cars!! WooHooo!! I came in after about 50 mins and handed the car over to Dave, our 4th and only driver that hadn't driven yet. He got about 30 mins into his stint when the motor popped off a big cloud of smoke and oil came up on the windshield. Uh OH....
We get the car back to our paddock spot and she's blazing hot and it appears we have blown the valve cover gasket. Other red flags should have alerted us to more serious problems but optimism may have clouded our judgement. Jim runs out to Autozone to buy gasket making materials and while there calls an O'Reilly's near by and finds out they have the VW OEM gasket so he zips over and grabs it and back to the track to replace it. Get that all buttoned up and she just won't fire up...Those signs from before...you know, the ones we ignored? Well, we start pulling plugs and find water in cylinders 2 and 3... bum bum bum...The water hose to the head had split lengthwise, overheated the head and blown the head gasket, we can only assume the head is warped....We have a spare head, which we know nothing about and it is also sitting on a shelf in the garage back in the city, an hour and 15 minutes away. Sean and Jim take off for the city while Dave, and I and Jim's brother Hugo start tearing down the motor to get the head off. Once we have the head off, it is very clearly warped and now useless. Jim and Sean get back with the spare head, we re install, check the timing and she fires right up!! only 6 hours 50 minutes off track!! We're back in this thing!! :)
Jim hits the track and turns 4 laps when the throttle cable snaps and he's towed back in. We have a throttle cable, but it is definitely not for this car and is 6" too long. A bit of mcgyvering with some hose clamps and we're back in business! Got back out for the last hour and a half and took the checker under our own power!! We all consider this a complete victory for a first time LeMons team with a first time untested car!! I can't tell ya how proud I am to be a member of this team where not one person got discouraged or down about anything. It was quite the opposite as I don't think it would have been possible to wipe the grin from anyone's face from their earlier driving stint and all just wanted to get the car back out and beat the odds.
All in all, our team had an amazing weekend, met some awesome people and can't wait to get back! Thanks to all who stopped and offered assistance when we were thrashing. Special thanks to Angela Sheridon for the amazing food, Half Acre Beer Company for the "bribe" materials and for the great craft beers we enjoyed in the paddock, and also to Albert, Mark and Dale for all the great advice and of course thanks to Jay Lamm and the entire LeMons organization for putting this whole circus together!We'll be back and better than ever!
Butt Sweat and Beers Racing #25 "Polezei" Rabbit!!
