Upcoming Chump Race (Page 1 of 3)

I'm interested to see how this goes as well.

Portland is a bit far for me, but I plan to check out the Infineon race.

Rain-X + speed = wiper

bring a hair dryer and an inverter and you are good to go...

Oh, duct tape and zip ties too of course

We had the same hair dryer idea at NL after having a really bad fogging problem during the (very damp) Friday night practice session.

However, you need a BIG inverter for the hair dryer to work.  The 400 Watt inverter we already had in our Audi at NL would not even handle the hair dryer (that we bought on race day morning) on the lowest setting.

We ended up using a no fog compound on the windshield and directed our dryer air duct fresh air supply directly onto the windshield.  Didn't have problems but Sat night was nowhere near as cold and wet as the previous night.

looks like the judges let a bunch of  (if not cheaters) overspent cars into the race w/o penalty.  Quite a few racers were not pleased.

John Condren (sp?) raced in and supported Lemons during the early Altamont years, and is now running his own series.  Apparently there's some sort of gentleman's agreement not to run in each other's territory, but I don't think there's any official connection.

They're similar because it is in ChumpCar's interest to have a similar ruleset (so that Lemons veterans provide a customer base).

The main difference between the series (as far as I can tell) is that ChumpCar is a more serious version of Lemons: they don't take bribes during BS inspection, it's ok to show up and say you're there to win the race, the penalties are a bit less haphazard, the claiming rule looks like it might get enforced, and there's no people's curse or similar things.  ChumpCar appears to be more about "how fast can you go for $500", whereas Lemons is more "what's the crappiest car you can make run an endurance race?".  Reading the rulebook, the differences between the two series really stand out as "things John thought were wrong with Lemons", and they generally fall into the category of making the series more about racing and (IMO) less about outright ridiculousness.

heh. I'd be inclined to try that flavor of koolaid except I'm reminded of a certain conversation i had with a friend once; it goes something like this:

((Keep in mind I'm not about to bring any sort of religious debate anywhere near this forum and this opinion of mine is mine alone. please don't debate or trash/argue the religious angle the conversation originally came from))

friend: "Lutherans, particularly Martin Luther, blah blah blah*insert differences between Lutherans & Catholics here*blah blah"

me: "So they're like Catholics, only they're assholes?"

friend: "*Laughs* Yeah, that sounds about right!"

Replace ChumpCar with Lutheran and Catholic with Lemons, and I think that conversation may work out the same way.

Heard about the same thing from Jay as well as Nick.

Basically there are no allowances for converables to be run in Chumpcar.  There was at least one Miata with a hardtop that got no laps.  Seeing that Miata hardtops cost more than $800 used, there was some concerns about the values of the cars.

I can't speak on ChumpCar--as mentioned, there's no affiliation--and I definitely can't say that Lemons ISN'T about "outright ridiculousness," but I also don't think it's fair to say that Lemons teams can't take the racing seriously. Here are three random points on that subject:

-We have transponders. If we didn't care about who won, we wouldn't keep score! (Plus, those things are a PITA to rent/deal with, and we wouldn't if we didn't think they were important.)

-Generally speaking, 1/2 of a Lemons field is made up of "serious" racers, and the other half not. We do our best to appeal equally to both groups.

-Pratt and Miller, the guys behind the ultra-successful Corvette Racing program, have run Lemons three times. You can't find many more serious racers than P&M.

Ultimately, I'm not sure you can divide racing into "serious" and "ridiculous." However, I think you can divide racing into "getting it" and "not getting it." Cars are fun--that's why we love them. People who "don't get it" are those who take the fun away from cars. With Lemons, we tried to create something that emphasized and encouraged the pure essence of car fun--all of the different elements of a Lemons weekend serve to remind people of why we're into cars in the first place. Being "serious" doesn't conflict with "fun"--in fact, one of the nice things about a Lemons race is you can tailor it to your own sensibilities. If having live telemetry and choreographed pit stops is fun for you, we won't stop you from doing it. If dressing up as a chicken floats your boat, you can do that, too.

We've made a conscious effort not to limit the ways in which different teams can enjoy themselves--as long as you're contributing to the success of that plan, you're more than welcome at Lemons.

You heard wrong.  There were people upset at it, we acknowledged their point of view when they brought it up to us.  We could have and perhaps should have been more strict.  This was the first time for judging for 100% of the judges, and it was a learning experience.  With time will come maturity and consistency.  There is a thread I personally posted on the ChumpCar forum addressing this subject in detail if you want to know more.

The weekend was a blast for 99% of participants.