The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Where should a new team focus efforts to perform well?
My team and I are discussing how we can best perform. None of us have ever raced in a Lemons race before, so I come to you for expertise:
What’s the first place a rookie team should focus their energies to perform well?
My best guess is:
Reliability
Handling
Efficient pit stops and downtime management
Driver skill
Power
Would love thoughts.
I understand the desire to go fast. But for a lot of people that's putting the cart before the horse. Your primary goal is to get the car through tech. Your secondary goal is making the thing reliable. Next up is keeping your team together and failing either of the first two will likely cause the 3rd to fail as well.
Once it's reliable, work on brakes.
The rest of your list can wait until you've done a race or two. Watch how others do it and learn.
Don't focus on "performing" but on having a ton of fun. Your odds of doing "well" by any objective performance metric your first time out is about 1 in 5000.
For the car, in order:
Pass tech (it is easy but a lot of people fail regardless)
Reliability
Braking
Reliability
Handling
Reliability
Driver comfort
Reliability
Then maybe handling
Reliability
When all other avenues are perfect, more power while not sacrificing...
Reliability
For the team, also in order:
Make sure all you understand and agree on why you are at the track and the type of car/team you are building
Member retention and meeting continued financial requirements
Being predictable on track
Member retention
Situational awarness as traffic management done well is faster than a 30% bump in horespower and also the hardest skill to master after...
Member retention (seriously, the average team loses 75-150% of its members by the green flag on race #2)
Clean, fast pit stops
Ability to follow a race strategy
Member retention
Assigning, understanding and executing non-driving roles well (crew chief, cook, mechanic, team mom, logistics officer, etc)
Driver training
Member retention
A few notes on some of the above. Getting 4-5 idiots to agree to and follow through on all the time and financial requirements to get your first race is highly unlikely. Vehicle prep (everyone has a different number) for most new teams is about $4500 then everyone has to have their personal safety gear ($700-2000 to own, like $125 weekend to rent) and $350'ish in entry fees and and about $4-700 in consumables, test and tune, food, ice, beer. You also have to get the car to and from the track, sleep somewhere, bring spares, tools, fuel jugs, refill jugs, water, food, etc...all of these things go better if someone is really good at logistics.
Traffic management is overwhelming for most for at least the first 5 laps and you don't learn it at test and tune or virtually all other forms of racing. 100+ cars on two miles of track with 11+ turns is (and this is not how it happens) one car every 100' or so or about 9 cars per turn. More common is you will end up in a group of 12 cars trying to pass you at roughly the same pace with 3-4 cars that are slower than you in the mix all at the same moment. Running clean with no gblack flags is about 1 second a lap faster PER BLACK FLAG for the first two for the whole weekend. Get a third black flag and you can usually count on that being the equivalent of 5 seconds a lap (totally rough calculations but the third will have you off track for 30 minutes minimum in most cases).
The only thing that takes you off track longer than black flags (unless you have crash damage) is stuff breaking you did not anticipate breaking...heck, and mechanic issue that gets you towed in will cause a 15-30 delay even if its just plain running out of fuel. Blown engine...usually many more hours. Non-unitized wheel bearing failure and swap can be done by the best teams in about 20 minutes but it will likely take your team 40-60 minutes if you have the parts and it goes well.
Good answers from people who know. I won't muddy the water because the previous posts pretty well nail it.
I will say this for complete beginners:
(1) More power primarily gets you in trouble faster. The problem is seldom a lack of it.
(2) Patience with your own abilities is absolutely a virtue. A lot of competitive people want instant results and endurance racing just doesn't work like that. The learning curve is steep and many teams you'll race against have been doing this for 5-10 years (and often longer in other series). And therefore...
[I can't stress this enough]
(3) Don't worry about your lap times and your position. Be predictable and get a flow for things. You will get (significantly) quicker and more confident with experience. It takes a lot of time, just remember that.
(4) Don't worry about pit stop times, either. Do it carefully and correctly first and foremost; rushing means mistakes and mistakes mean people can get hurt. Like lap times, the driver-change times will improve the more you do it.
(5) After 3-4 races, you won't have it. This isn't categorical, of course, but beginners seldom make huge mistakes; those often are made by people who have just enough experience to think they've seen it all. They haven't and they occasionally (severely) overestimate their ability.
Good luck!
My team and I are discussing how we can best perform. None of us have ever raced in a Lemons race before, so I come to you for expertise:
What’s the first place a rookie team should focus their energies to perform well?
My best guess is:
Reliability
Handling
Efficient pit stops and downtime management
Driver skill
Power
I think your list is pretty darn good.
What everyone else said for the details.
Yep, I think everyone here has hit the nail on the head. I'll just give you an example to illustrate all the points raised above.
At the race we just finished, we had a brand new team. A father and his two teenage boys. I can't recall if the dad had prior experience, but I'm positive the two teens didn't. They did a ton of research before the race, prepped the car to be reliable, and showed up with the right attitude. Their car was an automatic '89 Honda Prelude, bone stock. Not a fast car at all. Using all the tips that have been outlined in the above posts, they ran the entire weekend. They didn't worry about lap times, pit stop times, pushing the car to its' limit, or the driver to their limit. They just went out there and turned laps, soaking it all up. They were very predictable on track, and had zero issues from other drivers...in fact, they received compliments. Most importantly....they were on the race track, not in the penalty box or in the paddock wrenching. Despite being about the slowest car out there, they finished 33rd out of 79 cars and left with the worlds' biggest smile.
The advise given in the prior posts is spot on, take it to heart and you will do great!
Yep, I think everyone here has hit the nail on the head. I'll just give you an example to illustrate all the points raised above.
At the race we just finished, we had a brand new team. A father and his two teenage boys. I can't recall if the dad had prior experience, but I'm positive the two teens didn't. They did a ton of research before the race, prepped the car to be reliable, and showed up with the right attitude. Their car was an automatic '89 Honda Prelude, bone stock. Not a fast car at all. Using all the tips that have been outlined in the above posts, they ran the entire weekend. They didn't worry about lap times, pit stop times, pushing the car to its' limit, or the driver to their limit. They just went out there and turned laps, soaking it all up. They were very predictable on track, and had zero issues from other drivers...in fact, they received compliments. Most importantly....they were on the race track, not in the penalty box or in the paddock wrenching. Despite being about the slowest car out there, they finished 33rd out of 79 cars and left with the worlds' biggest smile.
The advise given in the prior posts is spot on, take it to heart and you will do great!
The dad did have some experience and he was the one that got their only black flag the entire time and that was a blend line violation. The boys loved it.
One more thing: If you decide to "improve" the car, change one thing at a time.
Klayfish wrote:Yep, I think everyone here has hit the nail on the head. I'll just give you an example to illustrate all the points raised above.
At the race we just finished, we had a brand new team. A father and his two teenage boys. I can't recall if the dad had prior experience, but I'm positive the two teens didn't. They did a ton of research before the race, prepped the car to be reliable, and showed up with the right attitude. Their car was an automatic '89 Honda Prelude, bone stock. Not a fast car at all. Using all the tips that have been outlined in the above posts, they ran the entire weekend. They didn't worry about lap times, pit stop times, pushing the car to its' limit, or the driver to their limit. They just went out there and turned laps, soaking it all up. They were very predictable on track, and had zero issues from other drivers...in fact, they received compliments. Most importantly....they were on the race track, not in the penalty box or in the paddock wrenching. Despite being about the slowest car out there, they finished 33rd out of 79 cars and left with the worlds' biggest smile.
The advise given in the prior posts is spot on, take it to heart and you will do great!
The dad did have some experience and he was the one that got their only black flag the entire time and that was a blend line violation. The boys loved it.
I'm really sorry you had to leave before awards. I'm sure there are pics/videos out there. Those boys were just downright giddy with everything and came to seek us all out after the award ceremony. As a new team, they got it right.
I'm really sorry you had to leave before awards. I'm sure there are pics/videos out there. Those boys were just downright giddy with everything and came to seek us all out after the award ceremony. As a new team, they got it right.
I am disappointed I couldn't stay later as well. They did a great job from beginning to end and deserve their accolades. I hope someone has video of the awards ceremony.
^All excellent advice. I will echo the note about "traffic management". Before our first race, our team had multiple drivers that had never been on a road course. Watching in-car youtube videos from previous Lemons races (ideally from the track you'll be racing at) helped us get an idea of what to expect, and what proper etiquette looks like. Lookup lemonaid racing's videos or another veteran team that is known to have good etiquette, that way you're guaranteed to see what it should look like.
Our first race was my first road course experience and they rolled me off P2, with 90 cars behind me lol. I pointed by a lot of cars the first two laps, not worried about holding position, but rather just staying clean and settling in.
For the car itself, thermal management. Keep the engine and brakes cool at all costs. Put actual race brake pads on the car (Raybestos ST43 or other). We hit the easy button and bought a well seasoned Lemons car from another team, so all the reliability fixes were already complete. Good luck!!
Get something with decent gallons per hour (especially in these times) and reliable-ish, and get seat time. A lot of fast / good teams are just experienced and know how to keep clean (avoid black flags) and also pit like clockwork. But success is usually boring and hard work, rather than some fancy build or anything... plus a lot of luck and perseverance. If you break down then basically top X is out of the picture (although heroic fix maybe there). Race winning teams sometimes just have a fuel efficient Civic with a huge fuel cell and are turning modest laps but stay out for 4 hours somehow.
Situational awareness and keeping a team together are challenges. A huge convex mirror helps the first, and manageable costs and picking the right people helps the other. We lost someone to a relationship after 1 race and a couple others to other time-suck hobbies eventually. Then I had someone who was a bit aggressive and kept spinning. Now onto a new set of teammates, hoping for good match. But our goal was cheap seat time and fun, not being competitive - because that led to 4 spins and an attempted money shift.
Brakes are budget except, as are tires/wheels. You can find a lot of speed in those items, but just endurance pads (we like PFC08s) and cheap tires that wear OK and plentiful (like our 205/50-15) can get you out there and having fun. If your car fits larger/wider wheels then can always step up capability by going 245/40-15 later.
I don't disagree with anything that has been said already, but once you have nailed tech and reliability, and you want to improved your finishing position, work on your pit stops. Think of every stop that takes too long like they are penalty laps.
Some teams use a huge fuel cell so they can drive four hours to reduce time in the pits. My team just isn't that dedicated. After two hours, my old-@ss had enough and I'm ready to let someone else behind the wheel.
Like everything else, practice makes perfect. We've practiced pit stops in my driveway, in full race gear, in July, in North Carolina. Practice w/o gear skews the results as it's a lot more difficult with gloves, helmets, and sweat. Yeah, my neighbors likely thought we were idiots, but it's absolutely paid off at the races. Your team doesn't need to be NASCAR quick, but the fact each person knows what to do, and when, without stumbling over each other, is worth quite a bit. We've found that calling out everything "Lap belt, cool suit, radio, etc" works wonders.
For frame of reference, sit back and watch some of the top teams at the race, and time them with your phone. The top teams can do a driver change, and fuel fill in less than 3 minutes, while some of the other teams could be timed with a sun dial.
A teammate of mine one wisely commented "You can't drive fast enough on the track to overcome a bad pit stop (or penalty)."
There's usually an optional practice Friday before the race. I highly recommend you plan to run as many laps as possibly during the track day.
A-You'll learn the track and your car and get a very light taste of traffic management. The earlier you get on the track the better. Get all your drivers to rotate through. Multiple times if possible. Plan out your testing with gaps for mechanical issues, track downtime, driver coaching, etc.
Learn to watch your mirrors and don't make erratic moves. Faster cars will go around you. Point them by the direction you want them to go.
B-Something on your car will likely break. I think it's a good idea to go do a track day well before the race in case its something big that breaks. We have a reliable car and have discovered issues in each of our testing sessions that would have resulted in racing downtime.
When you go to the parts store to repair that broken part, buy a second one. You can return it on Sunday if you don't need it.
Wanna finish better? Stay on track. Looking at our results from buttonwillow, a black flag cost 2-3 laps just talking to a judge, not even getting a penalty. Now, compare that to running a more conservative lap, like 5 seconds off your fast and slightly out of control pace. That is going to cost you about 0.8 laps/hour. or 10 laps over 14 hours of racing. You will spend more time than that in the penalty box if you try and run a "fast pace"
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Where should a new team focus efforts to perform well?