The Long Road To LeMons Part II: Chapter 1
It's time for a new entry in The Long Road To LeMons, this time covering our exploits at CMP. For those of you new to this series you'll need to know just who's who on the team.
Quiky ? Justin
VooDoo ? Chris
EyeMWing ? Tony
Clegko ? Austin
McLightning ? Karie
Day 1: Thursday September 23rd.
In the days leading up to my departure I had this strong feeling that something was going to go wrong, I didn't know what was going to happen, but I just couldn't shake it. I figured it was just nervousness from driving cross country to a place I've never been before and tried to ignore it, if only I had listened.
I woke up at 5:00AM after going to bed around midnight, my goal was to get more than the four hours of sleep I had for the last LeMons race, but because of the feeling of impending doom I was only able to get two hours. I had gotten a shower the night before and packed everything into the Buick, so all I had to do was get dressed and I would be ready to roll. These weren't the only changes I decided to make for this race, I was now armed with an MP3 player holding my Henry Rollins collection, and I was making an attempt to be slightly healthier by eating granola bars on the drive instead of Snickers with my NOS drinks.
Like before I gassed up the car and started on my way to South Carolina. The drive was rather uneventful, but once again Sheila lost her connection to the GPS gods once I crossed into Kentucky, I really have no idea why this happens. There was some ?mountain? driving on this trip, but this time I was ready, and having the Batman Begins soundtrack playing made it much more exciting.
After about 11 hours on the road I was 25 miles from the Super 8 motel where half of the team was staying, the rest would be camping at the track, and I figured the feeling of dread was indeed me just being paranoid. I was stopped at a red light and when it turned green I stepped on the gas, but the car would not move. If I revved it above 1,500rpm the transmission wouldn't put the power down, up to this point the Buick had given me NO signs that anything was wrong and I didn't know what the hell was going on. I limped it into an empty subdivision and called Justin, who was at the track setting up our pit area, to say I was having serious car trouble.
I let the car cool down for about 15 minutes and decided to try making it to the Super 8 again, and I made it another couple of miles before the transmission started slipping again just like before. At least I had made it across the boarder into South Carolina if just barely. I limped it into the first parking lot I saw and called Justin again to report that I was officially stranded. I was having trouble finishing a sentence let alone a thought I was so upset.
Unbelievably, Justin told me that Chris was just a few miles away from my location and would send him to my rescue. I can't imagine what he first thought when he pulled in a few minutes later. I was on the phone with Tom (my mechanic back home) and he told me I could easily be looking at a new transmission after describing my problem, this made me want to throw up and left me on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. I must have looked like someone who just escaped from a mental institution, I'm sure I sounded like one at the time. I apologized for my current appearance and spent the next 20 minutes making calls to Justin, Tom, my mom, and my insurance company trying to figure out what the next best course of action should be.
Eventually it was decided to just leave the car there overnight and deal with it in the morning. I loaded my most important stuff into Chris' rented Mitsubishi Gallant and we made our way to the hotel. Justin was still an hour away, so we decided to drive back to the Buick and pick up the rest of my stuff. By the time we returned to the Super 8, Justin and his parents were already there and checked in. After introductions were made, the three of us went down the road to Hardee's for some dinner and to talk business. I spent most of the meal completely lost in my own thoughts only throwing out an occasional sentence here and there.
Once back at the motel, Justin and I were splitting the cost of a room, but after the day I had he offered to use the spare bed in his parents room next door so I could decompress. They say a friend will help you move, a good friend will help you move a body, Justin is a good friend.
Eventually I was able to get to sleep but I wouldn't be getting any good rest for the next week or so.
Day 2: Friday September 24th.
Justin was knocking on the door at 7:30AM, the plan was that we would be taking the rented Chevy 2500HD tow rig back up north to where the Buick spent the night slumbering. It started up and drove without any problems to the AAMCO a few miles away where I would meet Tim. Tim assumed I had a pickup truck in need of help and was taken aback when I told him I was driving a Buick. By the same time next week I wanted to beat Tim with a tire iron, but I'll get to that later.
We then headed back to the motel to pickup Justin's parents and Chris before going to the local walmart for food and plenty of ice. We arrived at the track around 10:00AM and Chris and I signed in to get our bracelets.
Our new donated strut tower braces were installed that morning, these were not the only upgrades we had planned, but they were the only ones that worked out. Several weeks before we ordered a set of GMPP sway bars, but it took that long for them to be shipped out, they didn't arrive at Justin's house till after everyone was long gone.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_Strut_Brace_1.JPG
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_Strut_Brace_2.JPG
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_Strut_Brace_3.JPG
We found out tech inspection would be done a new way since there were just over 100 cars in this race. The new method was to take a ticket and wait for your number to be called, this would prevent a huge line of cars snaking through the pit waiting for tech, they would call cars in groups of 3 or 4 at a time. I think it worked it rather well, if only because we were 9th in line.
https://pic.armedcats.net/m/mc/mclightning95/2010/09/29/P1040079.JPG
It obviously didn't take long for our number to be called. We made it through the first station without issue but ran into some problems at the second station. These guys took issue with a couple items on the car, some of them we felt were bullshit. This would make it only the second time we've failed tech. What they wanted us to do was add more padding to the cage, relabel the kill switch, a chain supporting the U bend in the exhaust, and they wanted the release latch on the fire extinguisher taped down.
https://pic.armedcats.net/m/mc/mclightning95/2010/09/29/P1040090.JPG
The last one is what really pissed us off since it made zero sense, the whole point is that you can get to the fire extinguisher quickly if there is a fire, so why the hell would you want something that will just slow the process down?
During the inspection I noticed one of the techs drew a little smiley face on the door number, I figured it was just his own sign of approval of the car. Little did I know this marking carries a totally different meaning in LeMons.
Since we had no chain for the exhaust, we first tried cutting up an old PC case to form into a sort of strap, but it became apparent that it simply would not work. So Tony went looking for some chain to beg, borrow, or steal. Police Brutality wound up being the ones to help us out. Justin went about redoing the kill switch with some white paint, clear packing tape, and a sharpie.
https://pic.armedcats.net/m/mc/mclightning95/2010/09/29/P1040100.JPG
John put his welding skills to use by welding the chain and some bolts under the car to support the exhaust. The next day he also helped the lead car repair their exhaust after it had fallen apart and in return we acquired their custom fueling technology that allows them to pour 5 gallons in about 15 seconds.
https://pic.armedcats.net/m/mc/mclightning95/2010/09/29/P1040096.JPG
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_Kill_Switch.JPG
So with the changes made we went back to the tech center and finally passed. Soon as the tech sheet was signed we ripped off the extra cage padding since all it did was obscure driver vision, and the tape holding the fire extinguisher latch down. We then got in the long line for Bullshit inspection.
After waiting no more than a few minutes, Jay Lamm walked by and said ?Let me save you guys some time, this is just a Grand Prix?. He grabbed our tech sheet and was about to mark us zero laps when I said something incredibly STUPID. I said ?It's a GTP?, my excuse is that I was not in the right state of mind since I was preoccupied with what was going on with my Buick, I also only had about 4 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. So with that bit of new information, Jay wanted to take a much closer look at the car since it wasn't the regular GP he thought it was. He looked the car up and down and jumped on the front and rear bumpers to see if we had installed stiffer springs and shocks while asking us about the history of the car.
We told him how much we got it for, that it was a katrina car, that we hadn't done anything to it since Summit Point (lie), and that it still had the same tires and pads from Summit Point on it.
Satisfied with our story that the car was legit, he was once again about to give us zero laps until he spotted the smiley face on the door. ?Well, tech's only give these to cheaters... pop the hood?. So we did and he began looking the engine bay over top to bottom, but somehow he never noticed the bright red strut brace looking back at him. He made us sweat for a few more minutes because Justin had forgotten to get us a residual value for the car. But in the end Jay was convinced we were being legit and signed off on our tech sheet with zero laps. With that we were able to go ahead and get our yellow packet which allowed us to get our transponder and driver bracelets.
With that in hand we decided to stay in the BS line anyway so Murilee (aka Phil) could finally get a good look at the car he's been wanting to see for months. Back in the summer he said he wouldn't have given us laps if he was at Summit Point, so we felt confident that we would be ok, but as insurance we were ready to yank out our yellow packet.
When we pulled up, Murilee instantly knew who we were. I heard him turn to his fellow judges and say ?Oh THIS is the supercharged one, I've been waiting for this! These are the guys who are taking the bumper cam too?. While he stepped away to get the bumper cam and the bracket it mounts to, the other judge began eyeballing the GTP. When he returned we talked over where would be the best place to mount the camera, and then it was time for our second BS inspection of the day to start.
?So mean old Jonny (his brother) gave you laps last time eh??. He then turned to the other judge and said ?I've been waiting forever for someone to run one of these things?.
He jumped up and down on the bumpers to test the suspension, asked us for the back story on the car, we told him the same things we told Jay. We hadn't done anything to the car since Summit Point (lie) and that it still had the same pads and tires from then as well. Then he told us to pop the hood so he could hear it run, we were happy to oblige him. After some revs he laughed and gave a thumbs up so we shut it off, then Chris from Track Geeks showed up with a video camera and said ?I didn't get it?.
The rest of the inspection was caught on video which you can see right here.
I think if any other team had tried screwing with a judge like that, they would have gotten their asses kicked. So while it was a risky thing to do, I think the payoff was worth it, before we left he also said he wanted one of our supercharger LeMons shirts for his collection.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/06/16/100_3497.JPG
So with two BS inspections passed, we headed back to the trailer to finish prepping the car for the next day. That included moving the HTZ's in the front to the back and putting a fresh set in their place.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_HTZ_Tires_1.JPG
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_HTZ_Tires_2.JPG
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_HTZ_Tires_3.JPG
We also had to tackle the video setup. Originally we were going to run four cameras in addition to the Phil's bumper cam, but three of them turned up being DOA. The only working one left was the bullet cam which we mounted to the roll cage.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_Bullet_Cam_1.JPG
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/GTP_Bullet_Cam_2.JPG
Tony and I took turns adjusting the bumper cam bracket Phil gave us with a combination of channel locks, a hole in the GTP's subframe, and pure brute strength. That turned out to be a waste since Justin pulled out some fancy bracket of his own that could be adjusted with screws.
With the GTP now squared away, I decided to walk the pits to see some of the other teams and watch some of the BS inspections. First I found Team Fubar and their own GTP, turns out the techs did not like how their cage was welded and they were scrambling to make repairs, I don't think they made it onto the track till 2:00PM on Saturday. At the BS center I saw two things that made me to a double take.
One was the 60's Chevy C10 pickup with an LS2 under the hood, gigantic tires, and a Sanford & Son themed paint job. The other was how one member of the team was dressed. Some old fat white guy wearing blackface, holding a watermellon, and doing a Red Foxx impression. It was at that moment I realized I really was in the south.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/LeMons_South_Fall2010-058.jpg
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Then there was an old Lincoln from the same team that was sporting a 600hp LS1 and huge tires called Enterprise. The C10 was given 50 laps and the Enterprise was given 10,000 laps down from the 20,000 they were going to get. After that I walked back to our pit area to report what I had seen.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/LeMons_South_Fall2010-083.jpg
A little while later one of the two Judgemobile's drove by, one of them an old old beat up Volvo and the other an old Chevy Caprice wagon that had been lifted several feet.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/LeMons_South_Fall2010-005.jpg
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/LeMons_South_Fall2010-072.jpg
You see how it's smoking like crazy? It didn't blow the engine, whoever built it had rigged something up to drip ATF on the exhaust manifolds to create that smoke, I'm sure everyone who breathed that stuff in lost 20 years of their lifespan. This thing created so much smoke that at one point the fire crew went charging through the pits thinking a car was burning up.
The Volvo would occasionally cruise around the pits with Murilee at the wheel holding a toy AK-47 and his junkyard ghettoblaster strapped to the roof pumping out random songs. On his last tour of the day after all the BS inspections were done, Justin decided to get some of it on video. Not 10 seconds after he stopped recording, the front drivers side wheel on the Volvo fell off. Looking back I think it was a sign of things to come.
https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/10/LeMons_South_Fall2010-071.jpg
All through the day I saw and heard people walk by and say things like ?Oh wow, that's Final Gear!? or ?This is the one with a blown 3.8 under the hood?. We also had various people stop by to ask questions about the car and some of them wanted to take pictures of it.
Eventually there was nothing more we could do to the car so we packed a few things away and headed back to the hotel, leaving Tony, Austin, and Karie at the track to hold down the fort. In the morning the fun would begin again.
me some 60s pick-ups. That looks a lot like the turquoise GMC my grandpa had, too. 
