I'll start off by saying,
WE WON THE IOE!!!
Tom and I got to Speedycop's house late Wed. evening. While Tom and Jeff worked on the car, I got to drive 2 more hours to go get a set of new Kumho Ecsta ASX tires that Jeff scored on Craigslist for cheap.
Thursday morning we were up early and started work on the car. Lots of things still needed done, like wiring up the kill switch, getting the engine to start, making the brakes work, etc. - you know, the little things.
Also, we had bought a '91 Celica GTS for $200 for its engine. Apparently the Celica motor requires negligible changes for it to work in an MR2. So, the motor had to come out of that.
We worked all morning getting stuff done on the MR2 and getting the motor out, and I got sent out around 2:30pm to go chase parts, get the tires mounted, and get welder and plasma cutter supplies. This kept me out til well after dark, and the double-fatality accident on the only road to and from the shop of the buddy who was mounting the tires for us only added to that. We had anticipated leaving the DC area just after the afternoon rush hour, so around 7pm... I think it was somewhere near 8:30 when I got back to the house.
I got my truck unloaded and saw the progress they had made in my absence and it was good. We still had to mount the seat and harness, wire up the radios, and a whole lot of other stuff that I can't even remember. Nevertheless, after a break to eat dinner, we resumed work on the car and finally, around 2:30am, decided that we needed to just load the tools and the car, shower and get on the road.
We finally left right around 3:30am, and after a relatively uneventful (by our standards, meaning no double-blowouts) drive arrived at the track at 5pm Friday.
As we started unloading the car, the crowd started to grow. We knew we had a hit on our hands, and more racers and the Judges came over to see what we had wrought.
It was then that we started running down the checklist of what all needed to be done. While others started building the cooling system, I set to work on the completely-shot d/s front inner tie rod. After lots of fighting unsuccessfully, a self-proclaimed MR2 expert and engineering student offered up his totally badass, giant Knipex pliers and it came right off. Go figure. Unable to source a replacement, and unable to source a close-enough substitute meant we had to improvise.
This was done by means of an oxy-acetylene torch and a 3lb sledge, using a 6-ton jackstand as an anvil. Surprisingly, it actually worked. We were able to get the opening in the socket to close down on the ball enough to remove almost all the slop caused by the completely-missing interface material. We shot it full of Mobil 1 grease after it cooled and I put it back together. Then, I got to do a full tune-up on the car, which it turns out was desperately needed. The plug wells were full of oil and all the plugs were well worn and over .060" gap. Also, the wire boots were cracked and the rotor was completely corroded. So, new plugs/wires/cap/rotor and a new cam cover gasket with new plug well seals and we were ready to move on to something else. Since my only other 2.2 experience comes from Camrys, I was really surprised to see the complete lack of oil sludge in the head.
Anyway, we hit the button and it started right up and purred like a 2.2L kitten. I then set about working on getting the cooling system to burp. I don't remember a whole lot after that aside from getting the brake lights to come on.
Saturday morning we still had plenty of stuff to do (again, not much of which I can remember) and so, in the rain, we set about trying to align the front end using nothing more than our eyes and a simple spring-loaded toe-in/out checker. We drove it into the tech shed for inspection and, even though everything safety-related checked out, we were failed for a very small pinhole leak in our radiator just below the inlet. We tried to convince the inspector that straight water dripping slowly onto a rain-soaked track on a day where it's actively pouring down wasn't an issue, but he insisted that it was. So, back to the trailer for a JB Kwik fix. Rolled it back through and he was satisfied, so 20 minutes after the green had dropped, we were on the track.
About 30 minutes later Jeff came back in complaining of horrible handling and we redid the front alignment and tried to get the rear tie rods to break loose so we could align it. Some heat from a neighboring team's torch and the special Knipex pliers again saved the day and we were back out within 30 minutes.
After that, driver changes went normally, and we spent an incredibly uneventful day on the track... uneventful, except for the NPR reporter who was covering the race and came over to interview Jeff and I about our team. That was cool.
He actually wound up coming by Saturday night and had beer and fried turkey with us and the Lemons staffers and lots of other racers. Next time I'll have to remember to bring a second fryer and do more than 30lb of bird... we got to bed around 2am Sunday, and were up at 7:30am to do a couple little things to the car and make breakfast. Since I was mostly on cooking/photography duty I made sure we ate well. We fired up 6lb of bacon on the grill (on a cast griddle) and made some eggs.
We were on the track for green, and ran another uneventful day. Right up til the crew from Speed TV's "Lucas Oil - On the Edge" came over to do a piece on us. They interviewed a couple of us and then jumped at Jeff's offer to drive the car. So, we loaded it up with HD cameras, strapped the host in and sent him out for 20 minutes or so. He loved it.
And then, after that, veteran road racer Randy Pobst came over and was offered a seat. He actually finished the race for us, and was consistently 3 sec/lap faster than our fastest (Jeff's) all weekend. His 1:22s in a cobbled-together mishmash of two cars were truly impressive. :up:
Throughout the race we had been told that, although we were running an awesome car, the purple '89 Olds Ciera and the 3-cylinder Geo were the real IOE contenders because we were like 30 laps behind them. So, falling for that, we expected to get Organizer's Choice or something like that, so when they announced the winner of that, we were truly confused. Then, when they pulled out the unique-to-this-race MR2 Cup trophy, and gave it to another team, we were surprised yet again. When it came time for the IOE announcement, Jay Lamm started talking like it'd be someone else, but then went into our story and we knew it was coming.
After we got the check and were mostly packed, and after most people had left, I pulled out the Celica airbag I had brought with me, and we found an unused bag of Bisquick which I perforated with my knife. While I was poking it, someone said we should stage a pic where it looked like I was cutting lines, so we found a razor.
And then I set off the airbag. Apparently blowing airbags in the paddock is an uncommon thing, because almost everyone was surprised at how violently the bag exploded. I was just amazed by how far in the air it shot flour, and by the big chunk of bag and flour that flew across the ground and hit Jay Lamm's rental car in the wheel. :teehee:
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Among my favorites this weekend:
The Crown Vic with a stripper pole mated to the cage and three real strippers doing shows in the paddock during downtime
The first-gen Geo Metro with a widebody kit and a second-gen Taurus SHO engine under the hatchback.
The carpet-covered Neon homage to the Mutt Cutts van from "Dumb and Dumber"
The Track Pillagerz! Park Avenue, which I've always been a fan of. The team is good people, too.
The G-body Grand Prix with authentic pine log bumpers.
There was only one serious accident all weekend, when a first-gen MR2 driver, on the 4th lap of a full-course yellow, was fiddling around with a zip tie on his shifter instead of watching the track, and sped up instead of slowing down and seeing the traffic piling up in front of him... and proceeded to rear-end a CRX hard enough to total both the CRX and the 240Z in front of it. The MR2 had "bull bars" for a front end, but because they were contained within the original body lines of the car, it passed inspection. We're expecting a rule change soon as a result of this.
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