Joliet Prison Break post race thread

1. It's a VR6 in the Rabbit because "They were tired of being passed by the minivan."
2. The driver had to check with EMTs per track rules and was fine. The Mustang didn't flag out and was fine to race again, but it was proving too difficult to drive in the conditions, so they parked it and went home.
3. He checked out ok.

Care to share your lesson with the rest of the class?

apparently Continental DW are the bees knees (not DWS)

Bad Decisions had a fun weekend with some mixed results.  With two newbies driving, a totally untested car that which was one of two, we knew we were not in contention for anything.

Dustbuster ran great with no mechanical issues and easily could have been a contender for class C had we run our 3+ hour stints.  It is still awesome in the wet.  Each newbie got a black flag in it...one for getting hit (not an f-body this time) and the other for spinning it.  No damage thanks to GM's amazing plastic panels now covered in at least 8 coats of latex paint.

Reborn 1947 Plymouth was a blast to drive!  All things must now be supercharged!  Despite maybe 5 miles on it since its transformation, almost everything was set up well.  Turn-in was good, held the line,brakes were strong if high effort and engine ran almost flawlessly (igniter unit went bad on lap one).  Needs a few things but mainly a better shakedown in the dry.  Sadly it was parked most of Sunday because of visibility issues (wipers stopped working and no defrost).

The Potluck went OK though unlike the last three only about a third of the food showed up on time.  It got there and got eaten in the end plus folks seemed to have fun.  Yokohama boys were happy enough they gave us one of the tire vouchers and I certainly think they got the personal interaction with the teams they were hoping for.

Always great to see old friends and make new ones.  Now if we could get a race with nice enough nice weather to socialize all three evenings I would be over the moon.

Chad, great to have you back as the last few years of racing I have had excess beer at the end of the weekend without you there to drink it for me.

Same, I’ve had it with this existential abuse we call “Weather” in this part of the country.

WHY THIS RACE GOTTA BE SO COLD (Lots of great stuff again. Fun if weren't so damned cold)

^^This^^

Rain tires are the secret.  Lesson learned.

I brought 5 rookie drivers to Joliet to pilot the #501 Dropped Packets Integra, and other than one black flag for passing under yellow - the rookies all had a great time, kept the car in one piece and didn't break anyone else.   Success!   We took off early on Sunday, as we had a 16 hour drive back to Nebraska and everyone got a chance to drive and wants to come back again.   We will see you again at the BFE GP!

You might find one of the comments on this post interesting, if you have access to a TIG welder and someone who can use it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledinto … tall_yeah/

I recently acquired the former #81 Punisher Caprice, now the #54 Caprice. This was my 2nd LeMon's race, first time as the car owner. My buddy Don and I both drove the car at CMP last fall, and brought 3 rookie drivers with us. Don, myself, and 2 of the  rookies have many hours of HPDE and autocross experience in Caprices/and Impalas. The 5th driver is new to everything, his previous 4-wheel experience is racing quads.

Some of the more veteran participants may recognize the car, it's been running Lemons since 2008 or 09, and took a 4-5 year hiatus until CMP last fall.

We acquired the car in early March, and tended to some of the things that needed tending. New ring&pinion, updated diff cooler, new front spindle, corrected the 7/16" toe out, new belts, and some engine electrical issues.

We clearly need more prep. First full green lap of the race had the engine dead turning into 8, started to coast into 9. That's when the cockpit got really smokey, sparks shooting through the not-so-sealed firewall, and I decided I should probably not stay in the car. I accepted the eventual penalty. It took us 2 hours to get back to the paddock, get some new battery leads, route it better to the main cutoff, and get back on track.

I had a great stint in the car around hour 3-4 putting in about 27 laps, started to turn mid-high 1:50's laps as the track started to dry out. I was having a blast racing one of the Group A SHO's and I think an MR2. The MR2 and I were both barreling down the shoot between 7 and 8, he went inside to get around some slow traffic, so I went outside to do the same. I quickly found out that side of the track was not nearly as dry as I thought, and the slower traffic was hella-slower, so I decided to hit the turf between 8 and 9. I ended up about 20-30' off track, and was able to get back on, and head to the penalty box. I was informed that this was my 3rd black flag, and I tried to assure them that it was my 2nd, but the judges know best.

The next driver went out and only had a few laps in before the full course yellow. After the green, he ran into similar issues as me in 8 and went off. The judges parked us for 1 hour.

Driver 3 went out and had a great hour, but spun between 5 and 6, staying on track. That last penalty parked us for the day, around 3pm. All in all, I think we had 2.5 hours on track.. bummer.

Instead of listening to my gut, and figuring out how to get the heater box working in the car (still has a full dash), we covered the car, packed up the tools and called it O'beer:30

Sunday, we went out with the pack, and came in totally fogged up. 2 hours later, after a trip to the parts store, the heater box was blowing warm air on the windshield, and we ran the rest of the day untroubled. We had 2 more spins in the wet, one assisted by an ass slap to our right 1/4 panel, but other than that, we ran within 5 mins of the checker.

So, not great, not any more time on track. We didn't stay up until 2 AM changing out cylinder heads and a transmission like we did at CMP last fall, but silly minor issues still caught us out.

Look forward to hitting a couple more events this year. We have some drop throttle oversteer issues, and have some ideas to get more understeer in the car for wet laps. I'll be whittling away at the car with the plasma torch as well.

Yes, Jose and I have been chatting about the car for several years. Cunning as he is, he invited myself and another friend down to CMP to run the car last fall. After months of make vs buy discussions, we decided to follow the racer's credo and not build our first race car. The car is a tired and overweight, but TLC is relatively cheap, and so is the plasma torch

If we can only stop people from slapping it's fat ass around on track...