The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Our Crappy Race → Both jersey tracks........
How many Lemons veterans think that going back to Lightning was the best race in a while?
I forgot how much a shorter track amps up the excitement. Lap times in the 1:20 to 1:30 range makes position changes more interesting.
Loved it.
Manny
Full disclosure, I've never driven Lightning, however I don't think I ever will. As long as PittRace or some other alternative is on the calendar I'll pick that over Lightning every time. We can only do 3 races a year, and CT and NH are home base, so we'll always go there. The third depends now I guess.
NH is similar length to Lightning, with fast lap times in the 1:20s-1:40s, so we've already got our fill of short lap times.
CT is a touch longer with fast times in the upper 1:20s to 1:40s.
We like the fact that Thunderbolt is longer and mixes that part of it up. The track is interesting and challenging, and gets repetitive way less than say NH. Plus it has garages, and power, and showers, and those things are worth it every time.
So, count us out of any NJ race on Lightning, unless it is literally the only option for our third race of the year.
If it wasn't local, I would not travel to it. I find the track boring and this race, more than most, was a sheetmetal grinder. It's too thin to allow decent passing options and you found that with what appeared to be more contact than usual as people became frustrated and tried to force their cars through. Some of that does come down to the number of cars on track and also a lot of novices (175 +/-) who just didn't have the experience to know when/how to turn off the red mist.
I agree with the dislike. This would be a great track to do a HPDE in a high horsepower car, but in terms of wheel to wheel its boring, passing on it can suck due to its tightness, the bowl eats tires and wheel bearings, no garages, no electric. I won't say no to it due to its proximity to home, but Thunderbolt is significantly better.
If it wasn't local, I would not travel to it. I find the track boring and this race, more than most, was a sheetmetal grinder. It's too thin to allow decent passing options and you found that with what appeared to be more contact than usual as people became frustrated and tried to force their cars through. Some of that does come down to the number of cars on track and also a lot of novices (175 +/-) who just didn't have the experience to know when/how to turn off the red mist.
I do think there were way too many cars for that track. I was lucky because I was driving the end of Saturday and there was a fair amount of open track. The morning was a zoo and it was reminiscent of the old days at Stafford Springs.
I drove second stint Saturday and first stint Sunday. Night and day. I found Saturday to be frustrating, no room to pass and constant yellow flags. Sunday morning was a nice enjoyable drive for the most part, a lot less traffic due to all the broken cars and much cleaner racing overall.
Then the red mist set in during the afternoon and we had two people recklessly try to pass and nearly get themselves and their fellow drivers hurt. This could happen on any track, but it is a narrow hard to pass on track and it doesn't help. I enjoy thunderbolt a lot more, but so does everyone else (nasa, SCCA, etc.) so we got bumped.
As my local track I'll likely come to Lemons here each year regardless, but the lack of garages and facilities on lightning is a big letdown compared to thunderbolt and I wouldn't disagree with any teams choice to sit this one out in favor of other races.
I have similar issues with NH, despite their being better facilities, I'm not sure how much I like the track and will probably not travel to it this year.
I came not expecting much but ended up loving the track. It was quick to learn and it was well suited to my guest ride in the Old Guys with Angry Wives Honda Civic (shockingly so, considering it's a stock d series with primaries the size of my thumb). I found many options to pass, although I will agree that the straight was tight, but that's also part of the game. 666 needed to wait on that sketchy pass, it's a tough lesson to learn, and I for one will definitely be thinking of that next time I'm having second thoughts running in tight company.
I thought the experience Saturday was amazing with the car show, go carts, mini bike racing and our race. It really felt like a festival and I don't think I've ever seen so many people watching a Lemons race.
^ agree 100% with the previous poster. Felt like the old days of Summit Point/Hyperfest with all the people there Saturday, only with a facility prepared to handle such a crowd.
Lightning isn’t as much fun as Thunderbolt, but I welcomed the change. I can’t stand the totalitarian management at Thompson, so stopped going, my schedule was getting kind of stale. Lightning is what Thompson should be. The NJ race still sells out every year, would love to see a 2nd race there later in the season, as they did years ago. One on Thunderbolt, one on Lightning?
I’m with Manny, I got a kick out of the high lap counts and rapid position swings.
Thompson management seems to have chilled out a little. I haven't seen anyone get shaken down for garage damage in a while. We thought it would happen last year because there was pre-existing damage, but nothing came of it. I will take CT over Lightning every single time.
NH already fills the role of short not so amazing track with high lap counts for me. But at least NH has good facilities, enough places to pass safely, and the benefit of being 40 minute from my house.
I had way more fun then expected , The track was very well suited for light fwd and i was able to play with the big boys. turn 1 was a blast when i was able to take the rear line and basically jump over the hill and push outside. I think 130ish was too many cars on sat morning i started the race but it was fun working through traffic. The track rewarded low power momentum cars so it leveled the competition between a and b. That said thunderbolt is the better track for Lemons but it was nice to try something new. It was way better than thompson imho probably nh too.
Thompson management seems to have chilled out a little. I haven't seen anyone get shaken down for garage damage in a while. We thought it would happen last year because there was pre-existing damage, but nothing came of it. I will take CT over Lightning every single time.
I agree, they totally lightened up after that first year. They basically said they were going to ban me from the track (and tell Jay to ban me from the series, hahahaha) because I told them to fuck off on paying for garage damage. Turned out one of my teammates knew the owners of the track, called him up and told him what was going on he came down and apologized profusely and cut them off. Unfortunately I don't think everyone who paid got anything back but they stopped harassing people. AND he pointed out the damage to my garage was done over the winter with one of their payloaders. The guys who threatened me caught up to me later when I was loading up and apologized and said they were "just doing their jobs"..... yeah ok. Either way the track has been very accommodating since.
NJMP is the closest race to us in Baltimore since they dropped Summit, but I hope they bring back Thunderbolt for 2020. There's a lot more room to pass on Thunderbolt and fewer yellow flag bottlenecks there. That said, we had our best finish overall (9th) and tied our best class finish (3rd).
Thunderbolt is absolutely better suited for Lemons than Lightning. If nothing else the bathrooms are larger, that's enough for me. I had fun on Lightning and would love to do a track day on it but 133 cars is too much. That's equal to 158 cars on Thunderbolt which we know the one time that happened it was a shit show on Saturday also. 100 cars at this track would have been fun. Part of that it seems is the new way Lemons does registration where you are automatically in as long as you register early. It makes it harder for them to limit the numbers. Also I'm 45 minutes from the track so I'll be at NJ regardless.
However, I wasn't impressed with Thompson as a track, and if I'm doing a winter race I'd make the trek to Road Atlanta or Barber before heading to NH. Pittsburgh was a fun track and overall nice facilities so there is a strong chance we will bring at least one car there next year.
I enjoyed lightning, but then again, I like racing anywhere. The facilities arent nearly as nice as T bolt, which is a pain in the ass, but the track is fine. Didnt seem too narrow to me, but I also enjoyed Shenandoah, which is far tighter.
Car count should be trimmed to 100, which will lead to alot of butt hurt when people are turned away.
With all that being said, if I had to pick 90 minutes to NJMP or 4 1/2 hours to Pitt, id choose pitt EVERY DAMN TIME!!!
This was my first time running Lightning, and if Im completely honest....I wouldn't be upset if we never ran it again. Track was kinda boring, not that great to race on, no garages. I prefer Thunderbolt. I liked Pittrace, but I wish we would've waited till next year to add it to the schedule so we could've had Pittrace and Thunderbolt. Just my 2 cents.
Loved lightning. The banked 180 degree ish turn was so much fun. It was a tight track, always in traffic, always playing a passing game. We kept it somewhat conservative which I think many people did. Some dumb aggressiveness for sure. Some poor flagging at first before the flaggers woke up and realized their were 130 cars on the track. I witnessed the Moscow mule guys crash Saturday morning. Poor flagging was a contributing factor. They ran under green right into stopped traffic.
Regardless. Track was awesome. Bathrooms and showers not so great.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Our Crappy Race → Both jersey tracks........