Final Gear Racing 2011 - 24 Hours Of LeMons

Just weld on some big heatsink fins. How hard can it be and what could possibly go wrong?
 
There were apparently some real nasty crashes at the LeMons race over the weekend. The two worst I've seen so far has been this Saturn (no idea what kind, but probably an SC1/2) that rear ended a Camaro. The story I've heard is that the Camaro was stopped in the middle of the track because their kill switch wiring ran near the front of the car and was damaged in an impact, the Saturn driver thought the Chevy was moving and didn't realize his mistake till it was too late. There's no clear reason why there is a wheel sitting in the windshield, they said it didn't come off in the impact so my only guess is that someone threw it in there in anger.

IMAG0321.jpg


And then there is this crash that I think is the worst I've ever seen in LeMons, keep your eyes on the background.


By my count it flips/rolls over 6 times before stopping. Again, I don't know the whole setup to what caused it, but I am glad to report that the driver walked away with just a few bruises from the harness. This is another great example of why no one should screw around when it comes to safety gear, you never know when something like this could happen. And here is the only picture I've seen of the aftermath.

IMG_3835-550x412.jpg


And I thought our old BMW was bad after we were done with it.

https://pic.armedcats.net/q/qu/quiky/2008/07/12/IMG_0238.JPG
 
And then there is this crash that I think is the worst I've ever seen in LeMons, keep your eyes on the background.


By my count it flips/rolls over 6 times before stopping. Again, I don't know the whole setup to what caused it, but I am glad to report that the driver walked away with just a few bruises from the harness.


How long ago did that happen??
 
Air-cooled 3800!


*laughs*

You know...it would work!

Once. Once at least. Orr...maybe most of a lap. But what a lap it would be!






But...any news on a replacement engine? Or what would it take in all to even attempt to fix that one. Or is that not even possible? My brain isn't working very well this time of night.....
 
The crash was just this past Saturday. We're on the hunt for a new engine/parts car, but we haven't turned up anything worthwhile yet.

Fixing the blown engine is not in any way possible. The block has a hole in it along with several cracks, nothing can be done to fix it. The crank is trashed beyond the point that a machine shop could save it by regrinding it, and doing so would require us to have the connecting rods resized as well, this would be expensive even if it was possible. At best we can save a few of the remaining rods and pistons to have as emergency backups for down the road. All we can really reuse is the heads and supercharger.
 
The crash was just this past Saturday.

Has he stopped screaming yet? :p And yeah, classic case of why you don't cheap out of safety stuff....



We're on the hunt for a new engine/parts car, but we haven't turned up anything worthwhile yet. .

I've been looking through some of the ads here. If I see anything that looks good, I'll send you the info. :)
 
I'm not sure how many times I've said this before, but I feel the need to say it again. Thank you to everyone who's helped support us no matter what, you've been there for us through the ups and downs, and the generosity you've shown us time and time again is simply amazing and the entire LeMons team can't thank you enough for it.

Just as an example of what I'm talking about, later the very same day we blew the engine at CMP, I had several people contact me asking if they could help out by making a donation. At the time I had to turn them down for a couple reasons. First, we had quietly stopped taking donations around the time this thread went live earlier this year. Second, we were not totally sure what the fate of the GTP was going to be, we didn't know the full extent of the damage and if it wound up being too severe, well...

https://pic.armedcats.net/p/pu/punisherbass/2011/08/19/GTP_Engine_Block.jpg

Thankfully (besides the trashed engine) things weren't as bad as we feared, there is damage to the wiring harness and power steering system along with several other bits, but it could have been a whole lot worse.

Which means I'm happy to say that the GTP isn't going anywhere anytime soon and it will be returning to the track next year. There are ideas we have floating around for other cars, but those will have to wait for another time. Right now our only priority is getting the GTP back into fighting shape so it can go back out there and start kicking ass again.

We've said recently that we're trying to locate an entire donor car so we'd have a nice stash of spare parts, but so far we haven't had much luck in finding a suitable candidate. Hopefully we'll find the perfect parts car, but if we can't then there is a backup plan. Plan B is to get a used engine from a junkyard and just keep a lookout for a car we can cannibalize later on.

No matter where the ?new? engine comes from, rest assured that it will not just be dropped into the GTP as is, we've seen Team Fubar do exactly that several times and have it backfire on them. We're in no rush to make the same mistake.

And that brings me back to my original topic, the Final Gear community and your support. If you've enjoyed reading about our exploits over the last several years and you'd like to help us out and have the means, then you can do so using the link below. Everything will go towards helping to cover the costs of a new engine/donor car and repairing any damage done by the fire.

EDIT, LINK REMOVED: PayPal is giving us issues right now.

Once again, we're incredibly grateful for your continued support and thank you so much. You're the reason we keep doing this and without you there would be no Final Gear Racing.
 
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The 2012 LeMons schedule was finally posted today, so here's a copy of it. As always, it's way too soon to know which tracks we want to go to and when, but at least now we have an idea. The track selection is mostly old ones with a few getting dropped and new ones taking their place, they've also done a lot of shuffling with the dates, for example Chicago is now being run in July instead of October. There's also a few TBA's in there along with what has to be a typo with them running Boston and Columbus on the same weekend. We'll probably have a better idea of what our own schedule will look like closer to the end of the year, but don't hold me to that, we still have a sick car to nurse back to health. Hopefully this will be the year where we finally make our return to the Midwest instead of racing exclusively on the East Coast.

And finally, since the year is drawing to a close, that means this thread will eventually be locked so a new 2012 one can be started. So to keep updated on things, subscribe/bookmark/follow or whatever you kids do these days to the FGR twitter account. http://twitter.com/#!/FinalGearRacing

11-12 February 2012 Enter by December 10, 2011
Yee-Haw, It's LeMons Texas (College Station TX)
Texas World Speedway, College Station TX

18-19 February 2012 Enter by December 17, 2011
All Weathers/No Whiners GP (Portland OR)
Portland International Raceway, Portland OR

3-4 March 2012 Enter by December 24, 2011
Southern Discomfort (Charlotte NC)
Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw SC

24-25 March 2012 Enter by January 14
Sears Pointless (San Francisco CA)
Infineon Raceway, Sonoma CA

14-15 April 2012 Enter by February 4
The Real Hoopties of New Jersey (Atlantic City NJ)
New Jersey Motorsports Park, Millville NJ

21-22 April 2012 Enter by February 11
Campaign to Prevent Gingervitis (Detroit MI)
GingerMan Raceway, South Haven MI

5-6 May 2012 Enter by February 25
Loudon Annoying (Boston MA)
New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon NH

26-27 May 2012 Enter by March 17
North Dallas Hooptie (Dallas TX)
Eagles Canyon Raceway, Decatur TX

2-3 June 2012 Enter by March 24
The B.F.E. GP (Denver CO)
High Plains Raceway, Deer Trail CO

9-10 June 2012 Enter by March 31
Showroom-Schlock Shootout (Chicago IL)
Autobahn Country Club, Joliet IL

16-17 June 2012 Enter by April 7
Capitol Offense (Washington D.C.)
Summit Point Raceway, Summit Point WV

30 June-1 July 2012 Enter by April 21
Arse-Sweat-Apalooza (Los Angeles CA)
Buttonwillow Raceway Park, Buttonwillow CA

JULY 2012
South Race TBA

21-22 July 2012 Enter by May 12
Pacific Northworst GP (Olympia WA)
The Ridge Motorsports Park, Shelton WA

15-16 September 2012 Enter by July 7
Vodden The Hell Are We Doing? (San Francisco CA)
Thunderhill Raceway Park, Willows CA

22-23 September Enter by July 14
LeMons South Fall (Charlotte NC)
Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw SC

29-30 September 2012 Enter by July 21
Gator-O-Rama (Houston TX)
MSR Houston, Angleton TX

27-28 October 2012 Enter by August 18
Halloween Hooptiefest (Boston MA)
New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon NH

27-28 October 2012 Enter by August 18
American Irony (Columbus OH)
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington OH

8-9 December 2012 Enter by September 29
Arse-Freeze-Apalooza (Los Angeles CA)
Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, Desert Center CA

30-31 December 2012
New Year's Eve Season Ender-TBA
 
Mid-Ohio is new, yes. And long-awaited. It's up there with VIR on the want list.
 
I just wanted to say that we've had to stop taking donations again for the time being, we're having a few issues with PayPal at the moment, and hopefully everything will be resolved soon.
 
I just wanted to say that we've had to stop taking donations again for the time being, we're having a few issues with PayPal at the moment, and hopefully everything will be resolved soon.

Does the PayPal issues also mess up orders for hoodies and shirts?

Meaning: Is it better to order tons of shirts, hoodies and stuff for gifts, so they can show the money as coming in from an actual sale.

Or is just a simple donation made out to the crew an even better bet?
 
OH snap. two in Charlotte? thats 3 hours away.

Damn i wish i wasnt legally blind and could drive. would sooo like to participate.
 
OH snap. two in Charlotte? thats 3 hours away.

Damn i wish i wasnt legally blind and could drive. would sooo like to participate.

LeMons started holding events at CMP way back in 2008, and they've run two races there per year since 2009. We've raced there 4 times actually, twice with our old P71 Crown Vic and twice with the GTP.
 
The new LeMons rules for 2012 went up yesterday, and the reaction I had can best be described as :mad:. They didn't make many changes this year, but one of them is going to have a major effect on us, so I'll go through them one by one.

One-Piece Racing Seats: They're mandatory now--no more OE junk allowed.

This one here is the biggie. It means our awesome Sparco R100 will no longer be legal because it reclines, they want actual competition seats with FIA certification now, cheap ass plastic seats from Summit Racing will not cut it. This has pissed off a great deal of the LeMons community because it adds another $400+ on to the cost of a car, so you can see why this would be a little upsetting to racers. And no, I don't know what we're going to do about it right now...

Penalty Freebie: Your first black flag penalty won't be marked down--it's a freebie. Any subsequent screwups are counted as normal.

This is a good move, it means they're easing up on penalties a bit, it also doesn't really impact us since we've always raced clean for the most part.

Driver Must Be Able to Kill Car: All drivers must be able to reach a working kill switch while strapped in the seat.

This was a wise choice to make, it also doesn't effect us because our kill switch has always been mounted right next to the mirror where anyone can get to it.

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

Class Prizes Go Democratic: Instead of $1500 for the overall winner, the winners of Class A, B, and C will get $500 each. Index of Effluency will earn $501 + a free entry to the team's next race.

I was pissed about this when I initially read it last night, but now I'm not totally sure how I feel about it. I guess it's better that more teams will get a chance to win some money, but making the prize only $500 when the cost of doing this has increased so damn much since the series started just doesn't seem right. If it was $750 or even $1000, then I'd be all in favor of it, but not $500. I don't know, we'll see what happens over the next year if other people love it or hate it.

LeMons Prototype Class: A new class, Prototype, has been added for hella-ass overbuilt weirdness like mid-engined Wartburgs. Prototypes don't get a class-win award.

I think this is a good and bad change. On one hand it will help equalize cars like the Model T GT (which is basically a tube frame purpose built race car) that I take a bit of issue with. On the other it will handicap the crazy stuff like the MetSHO which is a car I love. The Model T GT has given some dominant performances out in California races while the MetSHO is lucky to hold together for an entire day in the Midwest. I think at most a half dozen cars will actually race in this class next year with no more than 2 showing up at the same race.

If you for some reason would like to see the full set of rule 2012 rule changes, you can view them here http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/usercontent/lemons/2012Rules Strike-ThruV2.1.pdf.

That's all I have for now, the GTP is just waiting patiently and the PayPal situation still isn't resolved, hopefully both of those will be corrected in the near future.
 
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I was not happy to see the line about Organizer's Choice being a cash prize getting struck through. Those of us who get LeMons and love the atmosphere already know what makes it tick, but what about the n00bs? Taking a prize away from the car everybody just likes the most just seems like another excuse to half-arse the theme or pick a less interesting build/car to work with. At first, I thought that X Class getting no prize might be okay because kooky builds tend to be well-received at LeMons and they compete with the likes of giant purple bunnies for OC, but if the OC prize is gone...eeeek. Prototypes need their own cash prize.
 
Interesting- the Pacific Northworst GP got moved closer to Seattle this year. The first edition was in north central Oregon last summer and although the participants loved the challenging track (from what I read), it's location in the middle of nowhere probably contributed to the low turnout. Glad to see they're trying it again.

It seemed to me there are two groups that are currently involved in Lemons- the people who want to actually race "inexpensively" and those who want to go nuts with themes. Either approach is ok in my mind, but I do wonder about combining both on the same racetrack at the same time. So which one is Lemons going to want to attract going forward? The prize money change seems to indicate they're now aiming more at the "race on the relatively cheap" crowd which I thought was the market Chump Car was going for.

I was pleased to see a minivan win the IOE recently, although it stole one of my theme ideas.
 
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