FinalGear Racing 2010/24 Hours Of LeMons

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I've always hated Jalopnik, and their parent company's fascination with view numbers explains the complete crap that came out of that site in terms of sensationalization and bending the truth to its breaking limit. I hope he finds a good gig instead of those so called journalist hacks.
 
I haven't always hated Jalopnik - I actually liked it a fair bit - but wow has it gone to shit at a breakneck speed. I remember when their questions of the day actually had the answers posted, it actually made the questions interesting and there was a point to them. That was under a month ago. It doesn't happen at all anymore it seems, why even bother with them? The whole site seems to be just getting sloppier and poorly run.

Thank god some corners of the internet will always be awesome.
 
Alright. So here's the same hideous, unreadable graph from hell I gave you guys for Summit Point, now with more drivers and even more illegibility!
https://pic.armedcats.net/e/ey/eyemwing/2010/10/01/CMPLaps.png

Disregarding full course yellows, black flags, and pit stops, our team average laptime works out to be 1:19. We lost 5 hours, 48 minutes in the pits (including mechanical, black flags, and regular fuel/driver changes).

Using this information, I engaged in some pointless speculation to illustrate just how much reliability and consistency matters, and how little laptimes actually mean.
If we hadn't had our mechanical failures, we'd have finished as well as 22nd overall and 9th in class.
If we hadn't had our mechanical failures and improved our refueling time (we have plans on how to do so that we gathered from another team using a similar setup) we'd have finished as high as 13th overall and 3rd in class.
If the GTP ran on nothing but hopes and dreams and never needed to stop for any reason, we could have finished 4th overall and won class.
Only beyond that point would we have actually needed to be any faster around the track.


Team-type folks, PM me an email address if you want the Excel workbook.
 
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I've always hated Jalopnik, and their parent company's fascination with view numbers explains the complete crap that came out of that site in terms of sensationalization and bending the truth to its breaking limit. I hope he finds a good gig instead of those so called journalist hacks.

I was actually working on an article to submit for the new blogger thingie....:blush:
 
I was actually working on an article to submit for the new blogger thingie....:blush:

NEVER EVER do that. "Blogs" or "reader contributions" on commercial-run "journalistic" websites equal the owners replacing paid journalists with people delivering content in their free time for nothing or a free t-shirt.

It's not even about quality, but not unlike the crowdsourcing trend in graphic design it means people deliver for free what other people make their living off (and should!).
 
I thought about entering the writing contest, too, only to realize that I'm SWAMPED with work and they'd only be able to get a handful of posts out of me before I die of "why on earth did I take this many classes?!" exhaustion.

At the very least, it'd be more interesting than Ms. Motor's posts. Which isn't saying much. I miss the kookier Jalopnik with posts about rustbuckets and obscure machinery. :(

Gawker overlords : Jalopnik : : Malaysian overlords : Lotus. As in, something's getting made, but it's becoming all too generic and missing the point.


ETA: The more and more I think about it, the more irritated I get with the idea of them replacing their most interesting writer with a damn contest that (now that I look at it a little more) is going to turn into a massive popularity contest. I guess whoever posts an easily-shareable photo of a lolmazda will win by default? This is what's killing the automotive blogs, for Bunny's sake. Clicks over content.
 
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I thought about entering the writing contest, too, only to realize that I'm SWAMPED with work and they'd only be able to get a handful of posts out of me before I die of "why on earth did I take this many classes?!" exhaustion.

At the very least, it'd be more interesting than Ms. Motor's posts. Which isn't saying much. I miss the kookier Jalopnik with posts about rustbuckets and obscure machinery. :(

Gawker overlords : Jalopnik : : Malaysian overlords : Lotus. As in, something's getting made, but it's becoming all too generic and missing the point.


ETA: The more and more I think about it, the more irritated I get with the idea of them replacing their most interesting writer with a damn contest that (now that I look at it a little more) is going to turn into a massive popularity contest. I guess whoever posts an easily-shareable photo of a lolmazda will win by default? This is what's killing the automotive blogs, for Bunny's sake. Clicks over content.
Let's start our own automotive blog, with blackjack and hookers!

In fact, screw the blog!

I had to.
 
At the very least, it'd be more interesting than Ms. Motor's posts. Which isn't saying much. I miss the kookier Jalopnik with posts about rustbuckets and obscure machinery. :(

Gawker overlords : Jalopnik : : Malaysian overlords : Lotus. As in, something's getting made, but it's becoming all too generic and missing the point.

I used to enjoy Jalopnik as well, but it just seems to be going off in all directions now and is not nearly as entertaining. Plus no LeMons coverage, that was a big dissapointment (yes, Murilee is gone but I would think someone could do it, certainly not as well, but still do something).
 
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NEVER EVER do that. "Blogs" or "reader contributions" on commercial-run "journalistic" websites equal the owners replacing paid journalists with people delivering content in their free time for nothing or a free t-shirt.

Yeah, I've heard that from quite a few friends in the last 2 days. I write one every so often for My Car Blog, but I never really have time to do a proper one.

I'm not going to send it to them. :)
 
Using this information, I engaged in some pointless speculation to illustrate just how much reliability and consistency matters, and how little laptimes actually mean.
If we hadn't had our mechanical failures, we'd have finished as well as 22nd overall and 9th in class.
If we hadn't had our mechanical failures and improved our refueling time (we have plans on how to do so that we gathered from another team using a similar setup) we'd have finished as high as 13th overall and 3rd in class.
If the GTP ran on nothing but hopes and dreams and never needed to stop for any reason, we could have finished 4th overall and won class.
Only beyond that point would we have actually needed to be any faster around the track.
I have thought reliability and consistency are the keys to success in this kind of race, not just sporadic speedy laptimes, and this analysis seems to agree with that. Since the car itself is so fast, if you get the reliabilty and consistency issues addressed (sounds like you are), the car can be a contender on that basis and then its unique advantage in pure speed will put it over the top. Pretty cool, actually.
 
FINALLY!!! 8 fucking days after I started this misadventure, I finally have the Buick back. I'm far too tired to start the 12 hour trip now, plus I have the room till 11, so I'll get some dinner and good night of sleep before departing in the morning. I could do a backflip right now, I can't wait to get home.
 
Just a little tip for anyone who's traveling, if you run out of clean clothes and your only option is to wash them in the sink, don't use the microwave in the hotel room to get them the rest of the way dry and then take a phone call. Bad things can happen.

https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2010/10/01/PBburnedsocks.JPG

I'm laughing at myself right now, and I have two dozen pairs just like them so no big loss.
 
I see nothing wrong with drying clothes in the microwave. Those socks are still PERFECTLY serviceable.
 
But for some odd reason they smell like burnt marshmellows now.
 
I wonder how well we would have done if we hadn't of had a tire fall off. That thing was FAST.
 
FINALLY!!! 8 fucking days after I started this misadventure, I finally have the Buick back. I'm far too tired to start the 12 hour trip now, plus I have the room till 11, so I'll get some dinner and good night of sleep before departing in the morning. I could do a backflip right now, I can't wait to get home.

What was the damage? And the most important thing, how does the Buick feel now?
 
I got home about 3 hours ago and man am I glad the nightmare is over. There's a chance I'll get to some LeMons coverage tonight, but it's a slim one, I should feel back to normal in a couple days and can get to writing then.
 
Dude, rest. You deserve it after an ordeal topped with a road trip.
 
i second that thought
 
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