Topic: Loudon, the True Test of a 2nd Lemons race

It is 3am on a Wednesday night, I have just finished a 9am to 2am work day in my bar. The Adrenaline surge I had from this weekend is taking a toll on me. I can't sleep because I'm still wound up... I'm still going strong from the day. My wife does not understand it, but she accepts it. Before the race weekend, I posted up on Facebook an old Matty Marshall quote that was modified by me to tell the tale of a Lemons racer... 

"In one weeks time everything that has been built up along with over a month of deconstruction will come to an end for my 2016. Although there is a great time tied to the rest of the year, it is only this moment in time where it stands still. The time I strap up, bolt down, get on with the program and race as hard as I can manage...

'Why the travel, the losses and the missed work, those growing up; the missed school. Hours of practising virtually and real. The complaining, bickering, ego driven arguments. To the wives, girlfriends, those that support us we thank you. We thank you because the lure or the living of the Race Car Driving Life is just too potent, and the products of the road and the travel are memories forever! Dealing with the trips to strange lands with stranger people. At the Races it feels like, for once, you actually get to live as loud as you want. The sacrifices, the bullshit is all worth it. Because if you work hard enough, a weekend will roll around and you'll be in the pit, screaming, with your hand in, one among an elite group of drivers; driving as hard as one can: competing for the Endurance Title. And Suddenly, all those clichés you ever heard make sense, and you are defined. You say to yourself and it means everything. I am a Race Car Driver, and this moment right here, is my Life!'

For all those that have led the way, those that have carved the path of ultimate speed and ultimate sacrifice. May you carve the roads of Heaven. #ForzaRacecarDriver"

Fast forward that week, it was Thursday night. I had just gotten off shift. I was waiting for Andrey to give me the heads up when he would be arriving at my place so Joanne and I would have dinner ready for the 3 of us. I offered up my house in Southwest Connecticut to be the starting point for a 4am hell drive to Loudon for the practice session. Things seem to be going good until I got the call... the call every Lemons racer knows is coming. Mr. Murphy decided to show his ugly head. "The car is not getting on the trailer, there is an issue with it. All my tools are driving past you now. I need a big hammer, something to chisel with and an extra set of hands" the moment the phone rung, I was already grabbing my keys and getting to the car because I knew I had to drive to Jersey right away.

Right before I jumped on 95, I got the second call that saved the day. The car was on the trailer and it was en route to my place. This was the sign of how this weekend would play out. Fast forward 4am, Andrey and myself get into the car, neither of us very confident in usage of a trailer and had to back it out of my driveway. Got that done then we were on the road. We had many good conversations about everything you can image, but everything always led back to Lemons. It is like a disease that you just want more of, but know it bites back. During our conversation Thompson was brought up a lot by me. Only because Thompson was all I knew of Lemons and I was astonished by it.

This is a community that never being exposed to in the car lifestyle really blew my mind. I grew up driving in the ricer time of the early to late 90's modifying Hondas. I started getting serious in my early 20's racing go karts well into my mid to late 30s now. The perspective and view through different racing cultures is different in every form of the motorsports. At Thompson I truly found what I call home. I met Great people that did better then any greater good out there. I sweat if needed anyone would have given me the shirt off their back just to race.

"So Andrey, I bet after 28th at Thompson we can hit the top 25." Well he was more realistic then I and we will leave that there.

We arrive at Loudon, do our duties and finally get the car out onto a slick wet track. From what I viewed the track is a far better experience then you can ever see on a video. I had a few race line problems and after almost spinning I had to kiss a Gnome's ass in the hot pits. A definite penalty I deserved. The rest of the team shows up eventually, getting laps done and then the day was over.

Dan had been putting together a headshot thing that I had no idea about. He setup a little system on our rear turn to show racers behind us who was in our car. Apparently after 5 or 6 beers I thought it would be great to write on them. Hope everyone read them.

Raceday comes we are getting the car ready getting Andrey strapped in. Race starts then the adrenaline hits. We are live. I'm the second stint driver so I wait it out. The time finally comes we get into the hot pit. Car dives in we change drivers after refuel then I'm off... but am i? The first few laps were filled with yellow flags, which in turn was good for me. Got me adjusted to the traffic which I find is always the hardest thing to do. Then we were off. A good few laps then yellows, rinse and repeat. Then it happened, after turn 2 being in a yellow we pass the incident. Looking down the back straight there are no yellow flags showing. The car behind me sets off then I'm gone with him. (We later unintentionally met that night). Going up the hill we hit yellows again. We both get black flagged, but I saw it waving at me for 4 laps not realizing it was at me until u slowed at that station and pointed my finger at myself to the flagging station. Man the pissed off point of death I got. The God's of Black flags rained down upon me. I tucked my tail between my legs and rode into the penalty box. The Judge was kind to me and gave me a stern talking too. I knew I screwed up, but I didn't know why. As explained I passed under yellow. I did not defend myself, it was a useless endeavour which I knew. I apologized, gave a brief explanation, said not again and got sent on my way. That is when the switch flipped. No more pussy footing around the course. I knew the lines I needed I knew I needed to make up time. On with the program.

Finally getting out of the car my days stint was over. Joanne showed up after leaving for a bit and we nestled in for some great racing an emergency stand by. Finally the day ended for us on a good note of getting the car in safe. In the process we destroyed the front brakes and had a weird wobble in the rear. We had blow out our wheel bearing in the rear right. This begins what I like to call the 'Ballet of Lemons'. This is a fun situation where you face the great problem that you can't comprehend. Not the problem itself, but the problem of being ready for many problems however not this one...

There were 6 Miatas there including our own. We went out seeking every team looking for a rear right wheel bearing, being as humble as possible. Every team welcomed us with open arms except one. But they are Chumpcar guys and probably will never figure out what a good time is even if they were in Thailand with a spare hundred dollars us... regardless, I don't know who or how we got our new bearing on loan, my wife making a mad dash to parts stores not even being able to tell the difference of a wheel bearing and a steering wheel along with grabbing us new Brake pads...

To the Miata team that loaned us that rear right setup, we are in debt to you because you saved our race on Sunday an allowed our team to experience something great. I truly appreciate it.

7am Sunday, I just arrived at the garage. No one else in sight so I start checking over the car. Making sure our fluids are full, checking and rechecking torque on our wheels. Everyone slowly starts showing up one by one. We finally roll Andrey out and with our garage we lined up/cut in line right before "Sorry For Party" guys. Yeah it was a dastardly deed, but we knew you would fly by us. I guess we can rename you to "Sorry for Cutting; Party us in our rear".

The race continues and again I'm second stunting it. During the hand off of the car Andrey gives me specific words stating that the new front brakes are not working that we'll and to be careful. When a Lemons racer hears this what is the only thing to do? Race the living crap out of the car and brake later then you would ever think of. The brakes actually were acting better for me then the previous day. I think my brake point at turn 1 was just past the 1 sign and getting on it with a slight left hand bias on the steering wheel rotated the car exactly where I wanted it. Now to fully disclose Sunday, this is a stock 1.6 liter 91 green Miata with the red top. We did not have the power or grunt to keep up with you cheaters. Thus is where my fun began...

Considering we will never have the outright fastest lap, we could however pull our car closer to that mark. BT the end of Saturday Dan's fastest lap was a 1'32.686 I believe. He is a talented driver and also 70 lbs lighter then me. It makes a big difference when you have no power nor no Scott to tell you "I'm giving her all I got Captain". Sautday night both of us joked around and I challenged him to put ballast in the car. Well he never did, but that is okay.

The day was going great, I was having a blast chasing down cars at Thompson I never thought I would have a chance to keep up with here I was passing them, including the well disrespected  (respected) BMW cars. I got into a heated battle with 3PM's Toyota. I don't recall how it started but I starting pushing him hard. He had the speed on the straights to pull away, but by turn 2 I was right back on his rear end. I kept letting him know I was there and would nog be going anywhere. It turned out to be the highlight of my race weekend. Phenomenal race craft was shown. A good down and dirty fight. I believe the over take occurred with a maneuver in traffic that was a coin toss. Great racing there 3PM!

It was great, everything was fine until the run in with the now infamous Red Bull BMW. If your reading this RB BMW, you might want to change your car theme. Coming back onto the Nascar track after the downhill your driver left the outside open for me to slot into, which of course I'll take that oppurtunity to slot in. I had gotten up the side of you car where your driver would see my windshield next to him. I peaked out the right of my car looking to see if there was room on his other side which there was space. He decided that the fact a little stock engined Miata could not displace his lovely E46 and tried shutting the door of a car that would have caused him to spin out had I not reacted and left the racing surface for the grass. You caused me time doing that and costed our team position that I worked very hard to get to on my stint. That is racing and if happens, what does not happen is the ability to see the mistake and build upon your racecraft. There was none shown there and I don't believe your driver even knew it happended. If he so did, then you need to tell him to stop playing video game racing online and crashing people out to win due to a lack of talent.

Well, I guess I should say I ended up being the person to run out of talent. I gave 2 MR2's the best view of a Miata going into the tire wall of turn 3 just exiting the nascar track. I had slowly been overheating my tires at this point. The grip felt right in its prime, but apparently that was nog the case. At the right hander I hit my normal braking point which was just a bit further then the MR2 I was side by side with. I had the inside line an advantage until the rear end decided to give out. A little correction then let off the gas slight resulted in the front end giving up... oh Crap, that tire wall is looking too close for comfort. Then came the hit. Bang right into the wall, it bend the driver side mirror in and caused some damage to the rear left quarter panel. I thought I had just binned the car and ruined the race weekend along with having to change the diapers on the MR2 pilots. It was messy, but the car got up, got out and made it to the penalty box before it was reported. I had unbundled the seat belts and the Judge asked me if I had them on. I told him it was just taken off for a driver change once I got in. He let us go and then we performed the driver change along with car check out. Off we sent Mike into the unknown. Good Luck buddy was all that was said. We pulled him into the hot pit to refuel and see if the car checked out. We were fine and off we went.

Next driver change and off he went to anchor the team. Then we saw it, we were in 21st place. How did this happen, with 30 minutes left. We did some calculations and basically we needed a miracle to happen. The Neon gets pulled into penalty which was in 16th place during his time he dropped as low as 18th, not a big help to us. Then the last possible thing needed was what we saw. The little Miata that could pulled right into the penalty box. We lost all hope. There we were in and out of penalty with at least 0 loss of place. We threw in the towel at that point. We to Victory Lane and watched the race end. Apple added the driver's coming in and returned to packing up. We looked up to the board again, saw it right there with our own eyes. We hit the 20th position... holy party time !!!

More happened afterwards, but that is for another time. It is now 4:23am. I'm finally calmed down from the work day and I want to dream about something good.... or just wake up Joanne. Who knows, I'll tell you this though, you will not know ;-)

a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila.

Re: Loudon, the True Test of a 2nd Lemons race

Welcome to the insanity. You write up explains the whole "Lemons thing" very well.

20th your second race. Cheaters!

Turtle (formerly known ans Fritz)

Dahlinboysracing W/Frankenphil  '11 Crown Royal Vic SPWV 73 '12 Tom Sellecka Toyota NJMP 75 SPWV 43 NHMS 65, '13  Toylaren Monticello 120, Daytona 102, SPWV  83 HF! NJMP 41 NHMS 48th '14 Fireball  Integra NJMP 24th NJMP 18th NHMS 90th '15 NJMP 54th Daytona 33RD SPWV 4th Thompson  79th CMP 13th '16 NJMP 43 Thompson 21 CMP 32nd NHMS 24 '17 FB Integra NJMP 68 Cledus Snow Eldorado IGS 118, NCM 24

Re: Loudon, the True Test of a 2nd Lemons race

dahlinboysracing wrote:

Welcome to the insanity. You write up explains the whole "Lemons thing" very well.

20th your second race. Cheaters!

Turtle (formerly known ans Fritz)

Shhh... don't let anyone know about the LS7 we stuffed inside a stock looking 1.6 liter Miata engine ;-)

a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila.

Re: Loudon, the True Test of a 2nd Lemons race

Somebody wrote:

To the Miata team that loaned us that rear right setup, we are in debt to you because you saved our race on Sunday an allowed our team to experience something great. I truly appreciate it.

That would be DNF blue/yellow Miata. Just shipped the spindle today with a rusEfi ECU kit as a thank you smile

Re: Loudon, the True Test of a 2nd Lemons race

russian wrote:
Somebody wrote:

To the Miata team that loaned us that rear right setup, we are in debt to you because you saved our race on Sunday an allowed our team to experience something great. I truly appreciate it.

That would be DNF blue/yellow Miata. Just shipped the spindle today with a rusEfi ECU kit as a thank you smile

Thanks Andrey,
We are going to be wiring it up in the next couple of weeks and we will let you know when we plan to go on the dyno.

I'm glad that we could help.  Next race we will have bushings in for the control arm.

Sparky

DNF Racing 1992 Mazda Miata
"Cheat to win"

Re: Loudon, the True Test of a 2nd Lemons race

CTSparky wrote:

we will let you know when we plan to go on the dyno.

Poke me in advance and I will be there.

Re: Loudon, the True Test of a 2nd Lemons race

russian wrote:
CTSparky wrote:

we will let you know when we plan to go on the dyno.

Poke me in advance and I will be there.

We don't have a date set up yet and I'll send the info to you again when we get closer but we will be testing at EFILogics at 8 Sympaug Park Road in Bethel CT.

The same place Olaf tested the twin turbo Crown vic taxi cab.

DNF Racing 1992 Mazda Miata
"Cheat to win"