Sunday, July 27, 2008

We were on TV!

WIS TV in Columbia came up and did a short piece on the LeMons on Friday and shot some video during the test day. Here's the link- you can see our car at about the 12 second mark and again at about 1:10. Looks like Daniel was driving- he's got the black helmet. I'd embed it here, but they don't seem to allow it.

Link HERE

The first time it loads, it may not play right, so you might need to go back to the beginning once it catches itself up.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Not what we'd hoped...


Maybe I'll flesh this out with a more detailed report of our day, but here's the short version. I started the race, and the first hour was intense but managable. Up next was Jordan, and he had a really great session. The first timing updates had us in 13th place, which I think came out right after our stop. Then Daniel climbed in after hour 2, and shortly after that we found out we were up to 8th. It started raining hard when Brian came out, and he was storming through the field. At the last update, we were 6th out of 78 cars and still climbing.

Then Brian radios in..."sounds like a rod knock...yep, I think we're done." And he was right. He brought the car back in, he and Daniel looked it over, and called it. We called every auto part store in the area and nobody had a rod bearing for a 1985 MR2 in stock...can't say we were surprised by that one.

We contemplated trying to drive it a little more, but decided not to bother oiling down the track for our now ex-competitors by blowing it up. Instead, it was on the trailer and we departed for home.

We salute the numerous teams that raced along side us cleanly and came in the spirit of the LeMons. And to those teams that showed up with purpose built race cars and tried to knock us off the track, well, we hope you meet the crusher, if not tomorrow then some other day soon.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Trackside Update #1


We're through 4 20 minute test sessions with the Shark Sandwich MR2, and so far everything here is fantastic. The competitors are great fun and mostly good, fair cars (not sure about one miata, but we'll see) and great people. We've made it through tech which means we're ready to race, and we've made it past the BS Factor evaluation with no penalties- means the judges have decreed that our car indeed is less than $500. And it is.

The track is also shared by a test day for real race/high performance cars, so we've got our beater MR2 with a Geo Storm across the street, with a Porsche 911 GT2 and a Panoz Esperante around the corner.

A full day 1 gallery is located here.

2 more sessions today, and then it's time to refuel and rest for the main event tomorrow (and Sunday).

Monday, July 21, 2008

It's go time

The car is essentially done, the driver suits are packed, and everyone is eagerly anticipating the weekend. I'll be posting updates using Twitter, there's a box just to the right where you can see those, or if you're already a user you can follow along using the regular twitter interfaces.

The lineup is Josh, Daniel, Jordan, and Brian, although not necessarily in that order.

The weekend starts Friday, with a test day where each of us should get about 20 minutes on a less crowded track to get a look around. After that, we twiddle our thumbs until noon Saturday when the mayhem begins.

Finally, a few before pictures. If all goes well, I'll post pictures and an update Friday night after practice, but it's hard to know what to expect, connection-wise. These pictures are from the first build weekend when we took possession of the car.