Topic: Our first race experience (New Orleans)
One last thank you from the Piranha and Shrimp Boots teams. It has been very interesting reading all of the posts and I hope that everyone had a good time. I want to thank all of you for allowing us to have a good time. Sorry to those that may have been kept awake with the karaoke. I did try to end it at a reasonable time.
All the guys have been talking about is how to make the cars better and when can we go racing again. This was the first time any of the 9 drivers on the teams have ever sat in a race car (if you want to call it that). We had to keep reminding each other what the flags meant. We are truly amateurs. It was a great experience building the roll cages from scratch, ordering the suits, helmets, etc. We had no idea what we were doing. I can’t believe we passed tech. the first time. We only had one suit, helmet, shoes, and pair of gloves per car. We had to find someone from another team to hold the fire ext. while the driver fueled the car.
Our cars were truly Lemons. One of them we got for free and only had to put a starter on it. That’s all; nothing else was done to it. The other one was bought in New Orleans for a couple of hundred dollars from some drunk guys that I think were from Mexico. It was not even their car. We only had to install a clutch in that one. We started the race with the same breaks, hoses, belts, shocks, etc. that was on the cars when we got them. We even ran some of the same tires that came on them along with some $50 tires we bought new.
We drove shoort stints so every one would get a chance to drive. We all improved on our lap times about 12 to 15 seconds from the practice Friday to the end on Sunday. Hell one car was almost in the top 10 late on Sunday until it broke with 2 hours to go. The other actually finished. Look out next time; we are EXPERIENCED race car drivers now.
Hope everyone got to smell the dead fish and crabs in the crab trap.
Quote from all the guys. This Lemons stuff is some good shit!
Mike