How many cars will finish the Chumpcar at Infineon?? (Page 1 of 3)

I was there from race start 'til finish.

One team was drinking beers before the first hour had passed...
Out after about 4 laps.

There was a SBC powered car that had NO FAN. Removed the fan from water pump.
Small electric fan not turned on...

Overheated, smoking like mad and developed rod knock.

Yes, I'd say 11 sounds about right...

Zzzzzzzzzzz

KT

I hope you guys got yours all sorted out.
The 20 minute axle change was impressive.
Any trouble finding that O2 sensor last night?

KT

Chumps turn out seems kind of unfortunate. 

Not to mention the number of guys on here who spectated instead of racing.

I posted comments I have heard from other Lemons car owners in the Texas area about the Chump race in Dallas on the Chump Forum.  None of them are jumping at the Dallas Chump Race at Texas Motor Speedway.  It's 2 weeks apart from the Dallas Lemons at Eagles Canyon. 

TMS is a True 24 hour race at a NASCAR track and the people I know with cars are interested but no one is jumping at it.  No one I know wants to run their car.

I posted the comments I had heard on the Chump Forum in a post about their Claiming and I got a pretty disrespectful response.  It was really a summary of factual statements/opinions of fellow car owners. 

If they want us to spend our money and risk our cars in your series, be a little nicer!

The guys I know asking the most about TMS are Arrive and Drive guys with little vested interest in the cars.

Chump's huge anti-cheating, we catch you and we're gonna suffer type attitude does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.  When there perception/measure of cheating and rules is "We know a $500 car when we see one."

Why subject myself to that crap with such a well defined yet subjectively applied Claiming rule. 

Their response.  Your car can get Cursed in Lemons and you get nothing and Lemons claim only pays $500.

The probability of getting Cursed now is pretty small.  You really have to earn it now.

Only one car has ever been Claimed in Lemons and from my understanding the team wanted the car to be claimed.

While Chump was "Born from Lemons," (quote from John Condren's deleted introduction of Chump on the Lemons Yahoo Board) the attitude is we are cheating assholes.

The Chump gist seems to be Bribing the Crooked officials has made a mockery of Crap Can racing.  Yet there first race resulted in guys yelling cheater at a hard top Miata and some other cars.

I don't know how many cars Lemons accepted to Infinion.  I think it's around 80 from about 150 applications.  I'd expect to see Infinion to become a 100+ field after a few races.

I hope the Chump event went well.

It just seems that Chump decided to enter the pool with a Cannonball but forgot to check if there was water in the pool.

IMO, it seems like the CC organizers want to have their cake ("we have a strict $500 limit") and eat it, too ("we don't care about your documentation; we know a $500 car when we see one").

if they're going to be sticklers about the spending limit, they need to also be more formal in the assessment process, which includes giving credence to people's docs.

Lemons is less formal in every way, so who cares if they don't believe your docs?  99% of the time, it's not like the penalty is anything to really worry about.  the $500 limit is loosely and arbitrarily enforced, and the judging process is similarly loose and arbitrary.

Chump seems like they're trying to enforce a strict, formal limit through an arbitrary process, which is not going to make anyone happy.

how do you make "a mockery" of this sort of racing?  isn't mockery the whole point?

is that like sullying the reputation of TMZ?

We're full steam ahead to go to VIR in the Mazdareti, but unfortunately won't be at Rockingham.  I'm sure it will be great fun and we can't wait.

Sure, Chump is about the racing.  But consider that... 

The vast majority of the cost of racing is not the car.  It's in other things.  If what you care about is the racing, then his entrant competition isn't with Lemons, it's with the Spec Miata, IT_, Spec RX7, etc. classes.  Sure, I have a car that is legal for both series - but when my "entertainment" dollar is going to be spent (and racing is just a form of entertainment at it's most basic), then I'm going to do the event that is most entertaining to me - which is Lemons until proven otherwise. 

With that said, I'm going to be at the VIR Chumpcar event.  It's a track that I've always wanted to drive on.

Buzz,

The mockery to of Crap Can racing opinion is from their huge anti-cheating and leveling the playing field attitude.  They act like Lemons is full of all out cheaters who brake the rules and Bribe their way out of it.

I don't see it that way at all but there is a lot of cheating.  It just depends on how you look at cheating.  I know a car that needed a Rack & Pinion and tie rod ends.  They replaced them and no one cared.  However, it was definitely over budget.  I asked Jay about a rack and he said it was not considered safety.  Guess what, the Judges said nothing.  So technically, they were cheating.

I've heard of some guys running a Quaife.  I'd love on of those too.  I am trying my ass off to come up with a cheap LSD.  So far I am still running on a welded diff. 

I had a conversation with Condren himself and talked about clutches.  We've been through 2.  I've received a lot of pressure to run something like an ACT clutch.  No one would know unless I told them.  It's only like a $350 clutch in a $500 car.  To me that just above and beyond the point of what we are doing.  Condren's response, it doesn't make you faster.

It doesn't make the car faster but it is more likely to last longer, which would make the car more reliable and keep us on track more.  Therefore being a huge advantage in an Enduro.  I would figure a racer would understand that.

I run a house brand OE replacement clutch.  Granted I run the turbo version now but it's still just a house brand lifetime warranty clutch.  One advantage, I get free replacements.

In Lemons technically theme stuff counts toward the $500 too but it gets over looked.  I am pretty sure it's a freebie in Chump.

So just exactly where do you get into cheating?  I thought it was once you crested $500 of non-safety stuff. 

Sawinatthewheel,

Thanks for your post.  Lemons is pretty strict on the contact.  I think it gets to be more of an issue when you are racing a huge field like the 100+ car races we are seeing.  The fact that John lets guys get away with some rubbing goes against their whole racing room rule in my opinion. 

Lemons started out more like a derby and has come a long way since.  Lemons enforces car control.  The enforcement comes down to the perception of the corner workers.  So getting away with something in a race or not is more dependent on the corner workers than the rules and sanctioning body.

Chump tries very hard to level the playing field.  Then the Volvo at Portland was basically set up by a Volvo race shop.  They had a machine shop so they machined their head.  I don't care but having a machine shop is a huge advantage.  So much for the level playing field.  If I had free run of a machine shop, my motor would be even more bad ass!

I do get a lot of help from my friend/team mate through his shop but aside from being more spacious and having nicer stuff, he's got a brake lathe, cutting torch and tire machine, I can do the same stuff in my garage.  Having an old spare part laying around comes in handy sometimes too.

I think Chump looks interesting and fun.  I just don't know how they will value my Crap Can and I don't really care to start a race with negative laps.  It started out as a $500 car with very few performance mods since but it's still not the car is was in October 2008. 

My car pretty much has a check list of many "cheater" parts.  I've got $120 in my suspension and got a lot for my money.  My car does run fast laps.  It also breaks and we get penalties.  Then there's that whole hopeless Z thing.  It has more power than an ITS 240Z. 

I do not care for what I feel like are contradictory rules in Chump.  How can they preach about race room and let guys get away with a little rubbing?  In a 25 car field there is really no reason to be bumping into each other.

They use the NASA Fueling rules except they have a 5 minute minimum and I think they tossed the 10 gallon fueling limit.  Technically, you can only change two tires in a NASA Enduro at a time if I recall correctly. 

How do I know?  I crewed from some friends and fellow Lemons races at the Spring NASA Enduro at TWS 2009. 

We finished first in our class, Spec Miata.  However, their were timing errors with a bunch of cars, including ours, due to water over the timing loop.  We have never had our lap times posted and they said we did not win.  The second place car had similar timing errors and one of their arguments was we could not fuel as fast as they could.  Our average laps times were still faster than theirs and we had the same number of pit stops.  We had an off and lost a few laps while they spun a few times.  We got screwed.

NASA failed to follow their own rules regarding lap timers too so the results became subjective.  They are supposed to black flag cars if their lap timer wasn't working.  Problem was about a 1/3 of the field had issues.  They did not tell us anything until it was over.

Sanctioning bodies break their own rules at their discretion.  Chump did not enforce racing room.  Lemons does give guys pass throughs for penalties.  There are even some GASP $500+ cars.  Do you really car how much a team spends on a Fiat Brava?

Aside from all this, I am tossing around ideas to race at the TMS race but I think I may have ruffled a few to many feathers in the Chump pool.  I feel like I have made fact based points and guys start arguing about it.

I do not hate Chump but I do not appreciate hippocracy or dishonestly. 

Sawinatthewheel, thanks again for your post.

Chump car insists on gravity fed 5 gal jugs at refueling, and the rules at least state that a driver cannot exceed 2 hours on track. That negates the advantage of a large tank...

Troy, I believe the 5 minute rule was in place before Chump knew how many entrants there would be.  If there were 75 entrants, many would have had to pit in BFE.  As it was, the 5 minute rule wasn't enforced on Sunday.