Final Gear Racing 2011 - 24 Hours Of LeMons

[EyeMWing]

There's a reason I'm two-fisting it in that picture up there - I'm not an alcoholic, I promise.

See, I decided to give PB a manly beer - I had a variety of good and not-so-good shit leftover from a party, including some awesometastic homebrews. So I handed him one of those. He decided it was absolutely horrible, and I wasn't about to let it go to waste, despite the fact that I already had a badass manbeer in hand. Now, as it turns out, about halfway through the bottle I noticed that the beer he'd had did in fact taste kind of off. Through the power of drunken recall*, I could now remember a conversation with the guy who brewed it: "Yeah, half that batch went wrong, and the other half was good. If it tastes funny, just dump it and grab another"

I finished it anyway.


Quiky, on the other hand, said "I'll drink anything" - so I gave him the worst thing I had cold. A Dos Equis, I think.

*Drunken recall is a phenomenon whereby any conversation you have while drunk can only be remembered while drunk.

[Punisher Bass]

Yes, I will be getting to the alcoholism, moonshine, and the worst beer ever in part 2. While the bottle of fermented swamp water I was given that night was horrible, it couldn't hold a candle to what we tried drinking the next night.

[mephistoscafe]

PB, do you write for a living?

[That American Girl]

Great write up! I wish I could have gotten the time off to go help you guys then....

[Punisher Bass]

PB, do you write for a living?

No, in fact I have no training in the subject at all outside of what I was taught in grade school.

[mephistoscafe]

You could have fooled me.

[That American Girl]

No, in fact I have no training in the subject at all outside of what I was taught in grade school.

Translation:

You didn't spend several years and thousands of dollars to have someone teach you how to over think and over do it. :p

Non-professionals seem to write better in my opinion.

[Punisher Bass]

Dude, you should turn these updates into a book. They're that interesting to read.

You could have fooled me.

Translation:

You didn't spend several years and thousands of dollars to have someone teach you how to over think and over do it. :p

Non-professionals seem to write better in my opinion.

You guys and girls flatter me, you really do. As for a book, I think that's a bit of a stretch.

[ZeDestructor]

You guys and girls flatter me, you really do. As for a book, I think that's a bit of a stretch.

Well, a collection of individual reports counts as a book. We should see about publishing now...

[jsausley]

Most of your best writers are self-taught through years of reading other work (and "other work" can be anything, really).

Looking forward to the next bit.

[EyeMWing]

Well, a collection of individual reports counts as a book. We should see about publishing now...

FinalGear Racing: How Hard Could it Be?

[Punisher Bass]

The Long Road To LeMons III – Knock On Wood

Day 4 – Thursday, May 19th.

We all woke up around 6:30 because we had to get the GTP back to the muffler shop before 8:00 so it could get a wheel alignment. Justin and I made the trip while Tony stayed behind. We got to the shop right at 7:45 and were hoping to be out of there within an hour since we planned to leave for the track at noon. Things didn't work out like that though, it was over an hour before the shop was even able to take a look at the car. And once it was on the rack, it was another two and a half hours before it was done.

Since it wasn't practical to head back to the lakehouse and our hands were tied till the car was ready, we spent all that time sitting in the Final Gear Tow Monster listening to the radio while trying to catch up on sleep and not bake to death from the sun. At some point Justin said there was a reflective screen in the back seat, which I then rigged up across the passenger side windows and things became much more tolerable in the cabin.

Around 11:15 we had the GTP back on the trailer and were making our way back to home base.

We completely loaded up the FGMCC with the normal compliment of tools and food, but there were a few new upgrades that had been made to it since last year. Over the winter, more of the roof was insulated to help keep out the heat, the floor was sealed and had tile put over it so it was safer to sit on, new carpeting replaced the nasty old carpet scraps, a mini fridge was installed so we didn't have to depend solely on coolers, and an 8,000btu air conditioner was added.



With that done, Tony and I packed up our cars and the Final Gear Caravan was ready to roll out. Once we were out of the neighborhood I put on “I Can't Drive 55” and cranked up the volume, little did I know Mr. Murphy was listening and ready to make his first move.



A few miles into the drive, the emergency flashers on the trailer came on and it pulled over to the shoulder. Justin and I had done a fair bit of driving in the truck (both with and without the trailer) in the last several days and not once did it give us any trouble, but lo and behold the fuel pump had decided now would be a good time to start acting up again. Because the truck would go into limp mode if you so much as breathed too hard, the rest of the drive to the track would be a very slow and very long one.

From then on our average speed was around 45mph, but at times Justin could get it up to 55 or even 60 if he was lucky. Because of this we didn't arrive at the track till about 4:45, but we were around 10th in line, which meant we'd have no problem claiming an ideal spot.

Tina and her son Zack got to the Super 8 (the same place we stayed at last year) around 9:00 that morning, and they had beaten us to the track as well. As we were on our way up to the check-in window, they came down to greet us.

We were told they would open the gates and let people in starting at 5:00, but for unknown reasons they kept everyone waiting till 5:30, at which point they told us to go back to our cars and wait some more. Slowly the conga line shuffled its way through the gate, but only after signing a form and getting your purple bracelet proving you're allowed to be there.





We picked out a nice corner lot with an electrical hookup, and after playing musical chairs with the trailer and our cars, we had the entire area sectioned off just for us. Was it a greedy thing to do? Possibly. Did we really care about it? No. With our territory marked, we started unloading the trailer and setting up the canopy.



We've had this canopy for a couple years now, but every time it needs to be setup, we look like a monkey fucking a football. I don't know what it is, we follow the instructions and have even marked each piece so they can be found and put together easier, but it still takes us way longer than it should. Once it was up, we placed the GTP under it and unloaded the rest of the gear.

Another upgrade that was made to the FGMCC was the grill. Last summer we picked up one very similar to this.



It was very small, put out very little heat, and at best you could cook two hamburgers on it at the same time. Strapping a couple Bic lighters together would have been more effective. So it was replaced with this beauty.



This one is more or less an actual stove that happens to be portable. It puts out lots of heat and came with various cast iron cooking surfaces that can be swapped around as needed.

While I was cooking dinner, some familiar faces pulled in next to us and started setting up their own camp. It was Iron LeMon Racing, the same team who won overall at CMP last year, and who we helped out by welding their exhaust system back together after it fell off.

After dinner, Tina and her son went back to the Super 8 while Justin and John drove an hour out to Lancaster to hit the only Walmart in the area. This left Tony and myself to our own devices. Since we had nothing to do but drink and bullshit, we did just that. Then I accidentally crushed his foot when one of the legs of Ultra Cot came crashing down while I was setting it up inside the trailer. Why was I setting up my cot in the trailer? Because we were going to be camping there the whole weekend.



At the Nelon Ledges race back in 2009, I made the mistake of camping at the track as well. It was cold, it was wet, it was horrible and I was in no hurry to do it again. Granted, we were in a much better location with much better weather (late spring vs late fall), and Justin had taken great strides to make the inside of the FGMCC as comfortable as possible, but I was still getting “Nam” flashbacks.

After several apologizes to Tony, we went back outside to continue drinking. Looking back, I think what happened next was his way of getting revenge on me. He had brought with him a rather large yet totally random collection of beers he stole from a recent party, and he pulled out one and handed it to me.

As soon as I took one swig, my brain believed that I that just drank cat piss filtered through an unwashed jock strap, and I instantly spit it out. It was by far and away the worst beer I've ever had in my entire life, all I could say to Tony after I recovered from the initial trauma was “That hurt my soul”.

I gave the bottle back to him with my trembling hand and watched as he somehow managed to take 3 or 4 sips of it before agreeing it was totally undrinkable. He just calmly walked over to the trash can, dropped the entire thing in, and walked back to his stash to dig out something else. I went to the supply of Mikes Hard Lemonade we had in the fridge, but it was all for naught, all I could taste for the next half hour was that damn beer festering in my mouth.



With my MP3 player and an old set of computer speakers Tony had in his car, we had some music to listen to while we drank. During this time we heard someone across from us shout one of the most unique insults I've ever heard.

“I will beat you like a rented slave”

It was so out of left field, we both felt compelled to walk over and find out just who had said it. This wound up being a HUGE mistake.

It was two guys from another E30 team who were very drunk, loud, and obnoxious. We stood around talking for a few minutes and then made our way back to the trailer, but they decided to follow us to check out the GTP.

The first thing Drunk #1 did was jump onto the rear bumper and start bouncing up and down while laughing like a jackass. Drunk #2 followed his lead despite me saying “Oh come on, don't do that”. Looking back, I should have just scared them off right then, but I knew it could have gotten ugly in a hurry considering how plastered they were. So I just made sure to keep a very close eye on both of them from then on out.

When they finally got off the car, I could see even in the dark that the paint was damaged and would need to be fixed before we put any vinyls on. They walked around the GTP a bit, but Tony and I both prevented them from getting very close to anything.

Justin and his dad got back while Tweedledum and Tweedledumer were still there, and I could tell by the look on his face he was already in a bad mood. The truck was acting up even worse than before and he didn't need these morons causing him more stress and aggravation. I ducked my head into the trailer to give him the 5 second version of what happened and to let him know I was doing my best to shoo them away without causing a scene.

Then Drunk #1 grabbed a flashlight we had sitting around and said he wanted to poke around under the hood. We all said “NO”. Then he picked up a spare fire extinguisher we had laying around and said he was going to christen the car like they do with ocean liners. “Yeah, that's not going to happen”. He finally realized that he had three guys staring daggers at him and took the hint that it was time to go. They both stumbled away into the night and were never seen again.

Not exactly the best way to end what was already a very stressful day.

Tony slept in his car while Justin and John had air mattresses and I had Ultra Cot. I plugged my MP3 player into one ear and eventually went to sleep.

Day 5 – Friday, May 20th.

I'm not sure what time I woke up, but I'm guessing it was long after everyone else, a mostly empty package of small cinnamon rolls on the fridge told me I had also missed breakfast. I grabbed my shower bag and a change of clothes and limped my way down to the shower facility to get cleaned up.

When I got back, Justin and Tina were working on applying the vinyls to the hood of the GTP while Tony was doing his best to fix the bumper damage from the night before. When I hit it with a single coat of paint, I could already see it crinkling and I knew it would need a lot more work before any vinyl could be placed on it. So I broke out my heat gun, grabbed a razor blade, took the last bit of sandpaper Tony begged off Road Warrior Racing and got to it.





In about 20 minutes I had the bad paint off and the surface smoothed down, all I could do was start spraying and cross my fingers. Between hitting the bumper with more paint every few minutes, I went about applying the BBQ and other small logos to the car. I also cleaned up the taillights before covering them with a fresh layer of packing tape.

By now the bumper was as good as it was going to get, so we started covering it in vinyls and hoped for the best.



As we were finishing, another team was walking by and couldn't help but stop when they noticed our theme. They were BTB Motorsports and they had a second gen Nissan Sentra that they did up with the same theme as us, only with bacon instead of sausage. We were only able to talk for a few minutes before our number was called for tech, but it was decided that we had to get both cars together for some pictures.

We got in line for tech and got through the first stage without any problems and quickly moved to the second stage under the pavilion. This is where the techs really look your car over to make sure everything meets the safety requirements and see if any cheaty bits stand out. The tech said everything looked good to go, but he couldn't sign off on it until Jay looked the car over as well.







“Oh I remember this car, it's the one with the supercharger.” God damnit.



After looking the car over a bit, he told the tech to give us a smiley face and then signed off on our inspection sheet. Before we left I asked the tech exactly what the smiley face meant and if he personally felt like we had a cheater car. He said the face is something they have to do to let the judges know later on to take a close look at the car, but he did not believe that we were cheating.



Justin and I had a discussion about just painting over it before BS inspection, but we opted not to.

As we left the pavilion we saw that BTB was a few spots back in line and we thought about waiting for them to finish and get the E30 vs E30 pictures there. But we decided to go back to base camp and get the nose back on the GTP before we took any glamor shots.

While Justin drove the car back, I stayed behind so I could walk the pits and see who was there.

When I found BTB's camp, I saw that Team Fubar were right next to them with their GTP. None of the team members were around to talk to, and I didn't want to appear to be snooping, but I saw they had upgraded to same F Body brakes we have.



Next I came across The Tunachuckers with their Ford LTD and NSF with their 6.9 Mercedes. DC Doug (from Police Brutality) was also there and recognized me. After we shook hands he called Speedycop over to introduce us. Oddly enough, one of the first things Jeff (Speedycop) mentioned was that he had bought our old Crown Victoria LeMons racer from you know who. I already knew about it happening, but I didn't intend to bring it up right then.

They both said they knew there was some controversy and animosity between both sides, but they didn't know the whole story and were hoping I would fill them in. I gave them the short version of what happened and what caused the split and just left it at “So they don't like us and we don't like them”.





When I got back to the trailer, there was actually some good news waiting for me. While I was gone, John had a discussion with Iron LeMon Racing about how our tow rig was acting up and they offered to tow the FGMCC to and from the LeMons parade which was taking place later that night about 20 miles away.

Once the nose was on and we rescued the jack from under the car, we were ready to take the GTP over BTB Motorsports and get some pictures. By this time my knees were hurting enough to where I would take any shortcut I could get, so I decided to drive the Buick down to their camp and have the GTP follow. Both sides took a lot of pictures and we talked for a bit, but before we left we saw that Fubar had returned, so we stuck around to talk to them.







They told us about what they did to their car and we did the same. Their new engine came out of a 95 Buick Rivera after they spun three rod bearings at their last race, and Mike (their capt) told me they did the brake upgrade based on a prior recommendation of mine. He also said he mistakenly installed the calipers upside down on the first try and I told him we did the exact same thing last year.



After showing off their new engine, they fired it up and gave it some revs, so we offered to do the same with our GTP. I think it's rather obvious who won that contest. We wished them luck and then headed back to our own area where we had to get the car loaded up for the impending parade. After the GTP was in and secured, Iron LeMon Racing brought their spare tow rig over.

It was an old Toyota Tundra which wasn't exactly rated for the task at hand. But that wasn't the only problem, some part of its electrical system was fried which meant the FGMCC was getting no power. With no power there are no running lights and no brakes. So with that being a bust, we thanked them again for trying to help and let out a sigh. Since we had already asked Phil about getting a BS inspection at the track and were denied, our only option now was to use the Tow Monster and hope for the best...

[mephistoscafe]

Great writeup so far PB.

[Redliner]

Great writeup so far PB.

I agree.
I just love reading your reports., even knowing this one will end badly.
But between you and me: it appears that there is too much emphasis on the joking, parade, silly rules etc instead of actual racing. Is it true or is it just me?

[That American Girl]

The Long Road To LeMons III – Knock On Wood

We completely loaded up the FGMCC with the normal compliment of tools and food, but there were a few new upgrades that had been made to it since last year. Over the winter, more of the roof was insulated to help keep out the heat, the floor was sealed and had tile put over it so it was safer to sit on, new carpeting replaced the nasty old carpet scraps, a mini fridge was installed so we didn't have to depend solely on coolers, and an 8,000btu air conditioner was added.

The AC was awesome! Even though we never really kept the door shut, it was a relief to step inside before the heat killed you. And made changing into the hottest race suit ever more bearable.

Because of this we didn't arrive at the track till about 4:45, but we were around 10th in line, which meant we'd have no problem claiming an ideal spot.

Tina and her son Zack got to the Super 8 (the same place we stayed at last year) around 9:00 that morning, and they had beaten us to the track as well. As we were on our way up to the check-in window, they came down to greet us.

I was afraid I would miss you guys, but the I saw Q's dad waving at me, so I relaxed a bit.

We were told they would open the gates and let people in starting at 5:00, but for unknown reasons they kept everyone waiting till 5:30, at which point they told us to go back to our cars and wait some more. Slowly the conga line shuffled its way through the gate, but only after signing a form and getting your purple bracelet proving you're allowed to be there.

Yeah, I wondering if they had any idea what they were doing. Then they called a list of 6 (I think) teams that were allowed to go through first for some reason...everyone had to scramble yet again. We stood there for so long, Zack asked me "Did we come here on the wrong day? Man, all these guys are gonna be mad if we have to come back and do this again tomorrow."

We picked out a nice corner lot with an electrical hookup, and after playing musical chairs with the trailer and our cars, we had the entire area sectioned off just for us. Was it a greedy thing to do? Possibly. Did we really care about it? No. With our territory marked, we started unloading the trailer and setting up the canopy.

Musical cars is an understatement. But we nailed the sweet spot.

We've had this canopy for a couple years now, but every time it needs to be setup, we look like a monkey fucking a football. I don't know what it is, we follow the instructions and have even marked each piece so they can be found and put together easier, but it still takes us way longer than it should. Once it was up, we placed the GTP under it and unloaded the rest of the gear.

Yeah, putting it (sort of) together, and then reading the instructions wasn't the best idea...but it all worked out. And didn't help that I'm too short to really reach the top.

Another upgrade that was made to the FGMCC was the grill.

And I never did get those steaks I promised.....

After dinner, Tina and her son went back to the Super 8 while Justin and John drove an hour out to Lancaster to hit the only Walmart in the area. This left Tony and myself to our own devices.

Nuff said.

With my MP3 player and an old set of computer speakers Tony had in his car, we had some music to listen to while we drank. During this time we heard someone across from us shout one of the most unique insults I've ever heard.

“I will beat you like a rented slave”

It was so out of left field, we both felt compelled to walk over and find out just who had said it. This wound up being a HUGE mistake.

Yeah, I missed out on all the 'fun'. Thankfully...

The first thing Drunk #1 did was jump onto the rear bumper and start bouncing up and down while laughing like a jackass. Drunk #2 followed his lead despite me saying “Oh come on, don't do that”. Looking back, I should have just scared them off right then, but I knew it could have gotten ugly in a hurry considering how plastered they were. So I just made sure to keep a very close eye on both of them from then on out.

You need to keep a big stick nearby. I usually do.

When they finally got off the car, I could see even in the dark that the paint was damaged and would need to be fixed before we put any vinyls on. They walked around the GTP a bit, but Tony and I both prevented them from getting very close to anything.

Yeah, I remember the zip ties on everything. Shame you have to do that... Honestly.

Then Drunk #1 grabbed a flashlight we had sitting around and said he wanted to poke around under the hood. We all said “NO”. Then he picked up a spare fire extinguisher we had laying around and said he was going to christen the car like they do with ocean liners. “Yeah, that's not going to happen”. He finally realized that he had three guys staring daggers at him and took the hint that it was time to go. They both stumbled away into the night and were never seen again.

To me, that deserves a beat down.

I admit that as a woman, I can get away with sooooo much crap that guys can't. I mean...I'm just a little defenseless girlie all by my lonesome. I'm allowed to do bad things to guys. Terrible, I know...I know..

When I got back, Justin and Tina were working on applying the vinyls to the hood of the GTP while Tony was doing his best to fix the bumper damage from the night before.

The vinyls looked awesome, but were such a pain in the ass to put on!

As we were finishing, another team was walking by and couldn't help but stop when they noticed our theme. They were BTB Motorsports and they had a second gen Nissan Sentra that they did up with the same theme as us, only with bacon instead of sausage. We were only able to talk for a few minutes before our number was called for tech, but it was decided that we had to get both cars together for some pictures.

I thought that was awesome.

We got in line for tech and got through the first stage without any problems and quickly moved to the second stage under the pavilion. This is where the techs really look your car over to make sure everything meets the safety requirements and see if any cheaty bits stand out. The tech said everything looked good to go, but he couldn't sign off on it until Jay looked the car over as well.




“Oh I remember this car, it's the one with the supercharger.” God damnit.

Inspected wasn't the word I would have used. I think the guy doing the inspection was new or something, because he didn't look at any of the important things like the cage, seat belts or anything on the 'list' that I could see.

After looking the car over a bit, he told the tech to give us a smiley face and then signed off on our inspection sheet. Before we left I asked the tech exactly what the smiley face meant and if he personally felt like we had a cheater car. He said the face is something they have to do to let the judges know later on to take a close look at the car, but he did not believe that we were cheating.

If he didn't believe we were cheating then why put the damn thing on the car??

Justin and I had a discussion about just painting over it before BS inspection, but we opted not to.

True, but we did put PB's chair in front of it while whats his face did the BS inspection. Not sure that helped though.

When I found BTB's camp, I saw that Team Fubar were right next to them with their GTP. None of the team members were around to talk to, and I didn't want to appear to be snooping, but I saw they had upgraded to same F Body brakes we have.

They were really nice. Answered a lot of my questions, and then later...um..'lent' us a thermostat.

Next I came across The Tunachuckers with their Ford LTD and NSF with their 6.9 Mercedes.

I cannot believe they actually raced those! And the LTD actually finished the race! In one piece from what I hear.

Once the nose was on and we rescued the jack from under the car, we were ready to take the GTP over BTB Motorsports and get some pictures. By this time my knees were hurting enough to where I would take any shortcut I could get, so I decided to drive the Buick down to their camp and have the GTP follow. Both sides took a lot of pictures and we talked for a bit, but before we left we saw that Fubar had returned, so we stuck around to talk to them.

The jack issue was hilarious, I admit. And I totally understand about your knees hurting. At the end of the first day, my bad knee and foot were killing me. And I hadn't done anything. Thats why I headed back to the hotel so early.

After the GTP was in and secured, Iron LeMon Racing brought their spare tow rig over.

It was an old Toyota Tundra which wasn't exactly rated for the task at hand. But that wasn't the only problem, some part of its electrical system was fried which meant the FGMCC was getting no power. With no power there are no running lights and no brakes. So with that being a bust, we thanked them again for trying to help and let out a sigh. Since we had already asked Phil about getting a BS inspection at the track and were denied, our only option now was to use the Tow Monster and hope for the best...

They were great to offer the ride, even if it didn't work out.




And....waiting for the next part of "The Long Road to LeMons"

[Punisher Bass]

I agree.
I just love reading your reports., even knowing this one will end badly.
But between you and me: it appears that there is too much emphasis on the joking, parade, silly rules etc instead of actual racing. Is it true or is it just me?

Well yes and no. LeMons has never taken itself too seriously (like you'd find in a SPEC series), but over the last few years it's lost sight of what really made it fun to begin with. The best analogy I can come up with is a band that gathered a huge following with their first album, and now they're on their 4th and the music just doesn't have the same passion to it. I could say a lot more about the subject, but I'd rather not at this moment. Right now, I don't know if we'll ever go to LeMons again (like the Chicago race later this year) or try out Chump Car and never look back, we'll see what happens over the next few months. If we do go to Chump, I think I'll name that journal something like "Chasing The Chump Change".

Also, I know I said I would get to the moonshine in part 2, and I still intend to cover it. I expected this whole journal to end up around 10 pages or so, but as I was writing part 2 it alone came in at 9, so I decided to cut it up into parts 2 and 3. I have a rough draft of 3 already written, but right now it reads more like a never ending series of "DC Doug said ______, to which I replied ______". So it needs some serious rewriting to make it understandable and hopefully entertaining. Once it's been posted, I'll be taking a break before I really dig into the paint and theme special, my creativity reserves are just about drained right now.

[EyeMWing]

But between you and me: it appears that there is too much emphasis on the joking, parade, silly rules etc instead of actual racing. Is it true or is it just me?

Once cars are on track, it's Serious Business (unless you screw up and get penalized). It's just getting to that point that's crazy.

[ashspet]

Write faster

[GRtak]

The whip is for the NSFW section.

[Redliner]

Well yes and no. LeMons has never taken itself too seriously (like you'd find in a SPEC series), but over the last few years it's lost sight of what really made it fun to begin with. The best analogy I can come up with is a band that gathered a huge following with their first album, and now they're on their 4th and the music just doesn't have the same passion to it. I could say a lot more about the subject, but I'd rather not at this moment. Right now, I don't know if we'll ever go to LeMons again (like the Chicago race later this year) or try out Chump Car and never look back, we'll see what happens over the next few months. If we do go to Chump, I think I'll name that journal something like "Chasing The Chump Change".

Also, I know I said I would get to the moonshine in part 2, and I still intend to cover it. I expected this whole journal to end up around 10 pages or so, but as I was writing part 2 it alone came in at 9, so I decided to cut it up into parts 2 and 3. I have a rough draft of 3 already written, but right now it reads more like a never ending series of "DC Doug said ______, to which I replied ______". So it needs some serious rewriting to make it understandable and hopefully entertaining. Once it's been posted, I'll be taking a break before I really dig into the paint and theme special, my creativity reserves are just about drained right now.

Great analogy there.
Take your time with writing. We all want to read it but we know it takes time and effort.

Once cars are on track, it's Serious Business (unless you screw up and get penalized). It's just getting to that point that's crazy.

That´s my point! I am all for a race series with a friendly mood, etc but being strict about safety, but a parade is where I draw the line. I don´t see a point besides "Hey look! We´re driving silly-themed cars!"