Haha! I'm still grinning from ear to ear. What a great weekend, and thanks to all of you that stopped by and talked to us and gave us the supportive words.
One week ago I was looking at all these pieces of wiener and bun and thinking, "There's not a chance in hell of this working out well...." I considered scrapping the overall project, and doing some last minute downsizing. My team, however, is made up of some crazy minds and some great talent, and I knew we'd figure it out or go down in flames in spectacular fashion.
Even after arriving at the track, with most people I talked to saying, "You guys are taking that off, right?", I still had my doubts. We only used sheet metal screws to put on most of the decorations, with the assumption that once we hit tech, it'd be coming off in an instant. Easy on, easy off.
Once we got into tech, we were told "If anything comes off, 1 hour minimum stop. But go ahead, give it a shot." Holy #$@%.... START WELDING! We couldn't take off the decorations now, as Phil and Jonny had overlooked our "super-cheaty 120hp engine" and gave us 0 laps... With 500 penalty laps if we did take it off. No going back now!
50 lbs of angle iron, 1" strap metal, and about a half a roll of welding wire later, we gave it a go... And it held!
Here's where we started to realize how awesome our car was. I was walking to the grandstands, and as our first driver pulled out onto the track, the entire crowd cheered! Awesome! There's no way we're letting this thing fall off...
However, every stint brought back broken welds and collapsed wiener (even viagra aint gonna fix this one). We held her together for day one, and once the checker dropped on Saturday, we went to work. After a few hours of grinding and welding, she was ready to roll for day 2.
Day 2 went off without a hitch! A few dings to the buns as the speed increased later in the afternoon, a few trips to Jonny (to which we sang the Oscar Mayer Wiener song with great enthusiasm), a slight miss to the garage door (which turned Jay's face white for just an instant), and we took the checker!
Meanwhile, all of our support crew (friends, wives, etc.) was busy making hot dogs and taking them to everyone in the grandstands. A little boy came and asked for a "Hot dog with mustard please?" and he was so stinkin' cute that we had to give him one of our hats.
Winning Organizer's Choice was just icing on the cake for spending another awesome weekend with all you folks. We love Lemons, and can't wait to see all you guys again at Thunderhill in May!
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Unununium Medal Winners 20103X Organizer's Choice Winner 2010 -
Sears Pointless,
Goin' For Broken,
Arse Sweat-A-Palooza1X Organizer's Choice Winner 2011 - Arse Sweat-A-Palooza
Better start learning the lyrics!
