ATTN: CAPTAINS, I WANT SOME INPUT (Page 3 of 3)

Every Lemons team needs a mom. While I may be the team captain, my wife serves as the Lemons Mom in addition to driver. Sounds like we need a for hire service to get captains married.

Everything people describe as "Team Mom" just sounds like what I do as a team Captain. Am I doing it wrong?

Also how do you feel about Air Faire?

I'll add that the best way to lose good friends is a fight over money.  Building a "$500 car" is a significant investment, and all involved need to be totally aware of this fact.  If you have an interested party who can't fork over $1K right from the get-go, he/she will most likely end up owing you money, and you will no longer be friends.

On my team we decided we would be friends first, teammates/car co-owners second.  We've been doing this for 10 years now, we're all still friends, so we must be doing something right.

You need to decide if the car will be owned by the team or by the captain and exactly how the finances will be split.  We use a Google Spreadsheet to track ALL costs, and ALL costs are SPLIT EQUALLY between the four owners. 

Also some agreement needs to be hashed out between all the the teammates as to what happens if things go south with the car due to driver error or something else.  Again, you and your buddies may no longer be buddies if he/she balls up the car the first stint because he/she drove like a jackass or made the engine go boom.  Who pays for what under what circumstances?  On our team if you break it, and it was 100% your fault, you pay for 100% of what it cost, and help with labor to fix it.  Can't afford to do that?  Don't break it, or find another team that hands out charity.  Racing incidents happen, but 99.9% of the time YOU KNOW if it was your fault, so man-up, admit it, and we'll move on from there with the repair.  If you think one of your teammates would lie, or just walk away from his/her major f*ck up, you don't need them on your team.

To add to OnkelUdo's list above...radios.  I don't know how teams get by without them.  You can get a decent setup for about $75 per driver these days, so just do it.

One problem with an official or semi-official checklist is there are SO MANY different variations of participating in Lemons. Just look at all the advice/help/guidance offered to people in the newcomer's threads.

Having a looooong checklist of things to consider is tantamount to having a 3" thick rulebook for a newbie. It can help some and it can hurt others.

Some people are paralyzed when they don't have enough information. Some people are paralyzed when they have too much information.

When I tell someone they can build a tech-legal Lemons car for under $500, safety equipment included if they buy smart, someone else will come on and say a race-ready Lemons car can't be built for under $5,000. If I say 1.75"x.095 ERW and a tube-frames FIA approved race seat, and 12 year old radials off craigslist is fine for their 1984 Plymouth Colt, someone else will say they would never sit in anything that didn't have a Butler full-containment seat, 1.75x.120 DOM cage, and fresh date coded 190 treadwear Yokohama DaShiznit tires.

There are people who would NEVER EVER enter a hot track in one of my cars even if they were paid. Likewise, I have absolutely zero interest in sitting in a real racecar, and if someone offered me chance to turn laps in a Daytona Prototype car during an ALS event, I'd say "Thanks but I respectfully decline your offer" unless I could put a larger than life styrofoam replica of Judge Phi's head on the roof. Now, if they'd let me take the Moke out there for a few laps during an ALS event, I'd be all over that.

Point is, while we all have great intentions by offering advice. I think little tweeks of the existing resources (facebook twitter and instagram posts to the forum even to dredge up old, helpful info. Perhaps a hyperlink to a particular "Hot Forum Topic" at the end of a race  spam announcement. When we sign up as teams, we have the option the check or uncheck a box to make our team info made public. I have NO IDEA where that goes. But those who select that option can maybe be fed into some clickable map based on city / location for a "Would you like to be added to our Resources in your Area map to allow other teams to contact you for help?

Just today's 2 cents.