Anyone playing this weekend? I'll be out there as part of the Blue Oval Cult, trying to keep a SHO powered Mustang on the track for more than 3 laps. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/World-Headquarters-Sanger-TX/Blue-Oval-Cult-Racing/124677377568583
Friday night Mitch Jacobs is at the West Alabama Ice House...starts at 6PM 'till 10PM. Saturday night Mike Stinson is at the Continental Club down on S. Main. Good luck!!!
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First, pics from various sources here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30045&id=149958328366354&ref=mf http://picasaweb.google.com/JFazeli/Yeehaw?feat=directlink# http://www.flickr.com/photos/whoapower/sets/72157624949084946/ http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11763&id=100001543937685&l=ceb914603c My buddy Dave and I comprise Scuderia Ignorante, but as of yet our car is unfinished (or technically, unstarted), and so we beg, borrow or buy rides in the show. Last race in Dallas we were signed up with Blue Oval Cult and we helped build a SHO-powered Mustang that made all of 3 laps before going BANG! Dave and I finished that race with the Dirty Some Beaches in a Hawaiian-themed Honda. For Houston we had higher hopes. The ShoStang had a new motor, a new paint job, and several hundred more hours into the build. Even better, garage buddies/teammates Los Bastardos de la LeMons were bringing out the much anticipated Renault Dauphine. The 1957 model French car is dropped over a custom built tube frame and powered by a Mercury Sable V6 front-wheel-drive setup, now mounted behind the driver and powering the rear wheels. Radical is precisely the word to describe this car. The teams had trouble getting to the track (sunk trailers, bad bearings, etc. etc.) but did make it out on Friday. Dave made it in about midnight from San Angelo. I had server troubles at work and then crashed, and so ended up leaving at 2 AM and never did make it to the hotel that night. I rolled into the paddock about 8:30 AM after dropping Ash with her friend in The Woodlands north of Houston. Neither car had made it through tech yet, so I helped Bill work on the Renault while the ShoStang was getting a brake job. Wiring, foam, brake lights, tow hooks, etc. As it happened, both cars made it to tech about the same time, and about an hour or so after the race start. The Mustang got a clean bill of health, the Renault did too after some minor remedial work. The tech inspectors required the Renault be set on jack stands front and rear for a thorough look. After some confused mumbling, they let it go on the track. Tom took the Mustang out first, and Bill took the Renault. The Renault came back in first, with smoke billowing off of it. There wasnt anything wrong, though, just a years worth of shop dust and build gunk working its way off the car. It was just that Bill was done after working heroic hours to get the car there at all. Driver swap time, and it went back out. Tom showed up at the penalty box after spinning the ShoStang. The judges decided that a proper penalty would be to repeat his spinning antics in front of the entire crowd, so we went in front of the grandstand and Tom gracefully spun in place to a boombox until the crowd gave him a thumbs up. So my turn in the car. Unfortunately, Tom is something like 73, and built the car to fit him nicely. I had some trouble reaching the start/kill switch and had to shove foam under and behind me to reach the switches. That worked well, but also ended up putting my head high enough to block the mirror. Fun stuff driving the car with no rearward visibility. I was slow- due to not knowing the car or track, and couldnt see the fast guys coming, but it was a good time. The car handled wicked, and we found out why later. I ran for about 45 minutes and had to come in. It was really hot, and we didnt have the time to put in a cool suit unit or any hydration equipment. After my turn Dave went out, and he had some good laps too. After about an hour the heat got to him too, and he spun the car. We didnt see any black flag, but he pulled in anyway. When our next driver tried to go out, we were informed we had 3 black flags and were on a mandatory 3-hour hold (with 2 hours left in the day). After some discussion at the judging table, it turned out we had picked up 2 black flags on the same lap that Tom spun on, and we just didnt know it. Add those to Daves and were done for the day. That let us focus on the Renault, which had been on and off the track. Several folks had driven it and all loved the car, but it was having teething issues. Specifically, it was puking transmission fluid and melting plastics in the engine bay. Bill and Randy and everyone else dove in and worked on it to make it better. The heating problem was eventually traced to the exhaust not exiting the engine bay (fixed with a sawzall), and the transmission fluid problem was reduced with Lucas Oil miracle stuff and tightened clamps. There was also a fuel delivery problem as in, there was no fuel to deliver. Oops. Sunday was more of the same, thrashing on the Renault (now with periscope-powered driver cooling). The Mustang had the custom-built clutch disk come apart in the first stint, but it was handling much better once Randy reminded us to check the air pressure in the tires. 48 in one rear and 26 in the opposite front makes for interesting handling. Chuck pulled competitive laps, and he feels the car will actually be a contender when the bugs are worked through. It certainly sounds great and has good power and balance. The team decided to park the Mustang until the closing laps and then have Tom get out there to finish the race. It would shift by rev matching, it just had to be started in gear. Mara and Randy and Bill and Bob got to drive the Renault on Sunday. I had to leave before the end of the race to get back north. Dave and Tanner headed west to San Angelo. Judging from the time sheets, Tom did get the Mustang back out to finish the race. In the battle between the teams, the Mustang won with 59 completed laps with a fast lap of 2:08.8, and the Dauphine made 54 with a fast lap of 2:06.1 Good times! I feel for the poor guy who 'won' the Heroic Fix and I Got Screwed trophies. I'll add his commentary below: ======= I had a 96 Integra GSR that was totaled. Loading it on the trailer Friday, it wouldn't start, so we tried to pull start it. When we popped the clutch, the axel broke. Got it to the track at 6 and finished with the axel around 230AM. Went to tech after the driver's meeting. Tech found a few small safety issues. Fixed them, came back and tech noticed my fabbed rear subframe was fitted, but the bolt was loose and the bracket was not welded. Welded it and tightened the bolt, but Jay didn't like it. So... Jay told me to weld a box for strength on the subframe, replace the bent wheel, replace the loose front hub and fix the loose steering. He said "Do all that, it will take you a couple of hours, bring it to me, I will test drive it and if I'm happy, tech can re inspect it. They may find a different problem you will have to fix. You may not get on track until Sunday. What do you want to do?" I told him I would have to discuss it with the team. I told the team I thought we could do it, but it was there call. Two drivers said "I'm going home"; one said "I'll stay". Mr. I'll Stay ment he would stay and get caught up on a novel he was reading. By 5PM or so, one of the "I'm going home" guys called to see how I was making out. I told him we made some progress, and he said he was coming back. Team Blue Goose dropped the axel out of their CRX and washed their hands of the car. They offered it to Jay as a Peoples Crush. Jay emailed me and said "use whatever parts you need to get your car fixed. The plan was to use the CRX bearings, but Jim Berg showed me how it would be easier to "fix" the old hub with a belt sander. Around midnight I finished Jay's list. After Sunday's drivers meeting, Jay took a joy ride. He came back and said "the breaks are locked up. Go fix it". He suggested putting the thinner, older roters back on. Did that, brought it back, Jay drove it again and same problem. He thought it was the front passenger calliper locking and that is why it was pulling to the right as well as locking up the breaks. That was 11-1130ish O'Reilly's had a calliper, but the closest one was 30 miles away. I drove 60 miles round trip, put on the calliper, took it to Tech by 2, were Phil just leaned on it and could NOT push it. Breaks were still locked. Took it back to the pit, and discovered that in it's front end accident, the driver's shock tower pressed on a steel break line at the master and crimped the tube. I was gonna throw in the towel, because many teams were gone. I needed to borrow a flaring tool and a tubing bender. No one would have those, and there was only an hour left. I walked half way to Tech to tell Jay, when I had an idea. I cut the tubing way back and put the flare nut on. I then used the rubber break hose from the TBG CRX that goes from body to calliper, ground off 1/4" from the banjo bolt to make it short enough to fit in the tight space between the master and shock, and connected the other end to my flare nut, that I flared with long-nose pliers. Topped off the fluid and brought it to Jay at 245. He asked "is it fixed?" I responded "maybe". As he climbed in, he said "Go suit up." I ran all the way back to the far end of the pit to grab my stuff. Got a ride from chief tech David in his golf cart. Suited up in the penalty box with about 5-6 guys helping me. They then strapped me in. Jay instructed "the steering still sucks and the breaks are horrible, so don't go fast. Stay out of the racing line. I got on track with an escort from Dave clearing a path. By the time I got all the way around to the start line, the checkered was waving. I got the Heroic Fix for sticking with it and getting it on the track without my team. (Jay has, though, banned it from all future LeMon's events) I got the I Got Screwed for sticking with it without my team.
Tillman pretty much summed it up. It was really a cool feeling to drive the SHO-Stang finally. Having spent probably 50 hours of labor and almost as many crisscrossing the state over the last several months contributing to the build, it was really satisfying to get in the groove. I had better visibility and so felt ergronomically comfortable in the car, and my first few laps were yellow so I had a more relaxed stint than Tillman's. But after only about 45 minutes in the car without the cool suit hooked up, the heat began to take its toll and I decided a few more laps were all I wanted, and gave myself plenty of room by letting people pass... which was good because I had a slow spin coming out of the keyhole (running clockwise) and decided to pit in. As a novice, I think I enjoyed the MSR Houston track more than ECR, because it seemed less technical. ECR seems a steeper learning curve, IMO. Not that I mastered MSR Houston, far from it. But I walked ECR the night before, and studied maps, and I still felt lost on my laps during that race and never was sure about which corners I was in. MSR Houston was pretty straigtforward and I was able to at least think ahead a couple of corners because I could actually see them in front of me. The Nissan Sentra team that Andrew S was on looked like they were having a pretty good time as well.
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Great effort you guys!! Love the paint job with the tongue hanging out - LOL And the Renault - Up Periscope!!
Lemons got some airtime on crappy Houston UHF television... www.racing.lmwrealty.com/yeehaw.wmv The SHO-stang cockpit is featured at the 6:40 mark, our buddy Tommy is the one interviewed.
