Back from my first LeMons race
For me this event and all the others are more about hanging with friends with some driving thrown in for good measure. Even though I barely knew my teammates they turned out to be a good group of guys. As far as the event itself, racing wheel to wheel was a lot of fun and I would definitely do it again. There was a real sense racing involved.
For those of you not familiar with the LeMons format, here are the highlights. It is a true wheel to wheel race. Passing is allowed anywhere on the track. No point by required. At one point I was going three wide into turn 10a at Gingerman. Excluding the cost of safety equipment (roll cage, fuel cell, brakes, tires, etc) you are limited to spending $500 on the car. Not surprisingly people go over budget. Some more than others. You need to bribe the judges and even then they may penalize you by either keeping you off the track for a period of time or just adjust the number of laps you run. You also have to run tires with a 200 or higher wear rating, which rules out the use of slicks.
Our car was a 1983 BMW 635 Euro. Not the best car due to scarcity and cost of parts. We were scheduled to leave at 6:00 am Thursday and the car was not running until less than 24 hours before that due to a faulty ECU. We got to the track late afternoon Thursday, unloaded the car, picked up a really nice 31 ft camper and spent the rest of the evening working on the car fixing minor issues. Picture it – me using air tools, a floor jack, etc. Did anyone feel a movement in “the force”? J
Friday was an open track test and tune along with tech inspections. We didn’t want to risk breaking anything so we limited our track time to less than 5 laps each. I managed to get in two. The brakes were locking up in almost every turn and the car was stumbling badly. On my first lap, as I was entering turn 11 (the long straight onto the main straight) the brakes locked up and I was rear-ended (pretty much just tapped firmly) by a mustang. I’m sure the driver wasn’t happy with me. I finished the second lap and came in. After this and all of the wrenching, I emailed Pam and told her I must have been out of my mind to pay good money to not have any fun.
We went through tech in the afternoon, no real problems, we just need to cover some holes in the rear bulkhead because the fuel cell wasn’t FIA rated – and we drew some real harsh criticism for having a set of 180 tread wear tires on the rears. They told us that we were cheating, to get them off and that they would be watching us. Fortunately we had all sorts of used tires and wheels. The holes we needed to cover were pretty large so we were searching for some metal to do just that. One of the guys suggested we use beer cans. So a teammate’s dad that had come along drank six Bud Lights in the space of about 10 minutes. They worked perfectly. That night we all sat around, drank and bullshitted. No surprise there.
The race was scheduled to start at 9:30, so we had the traditional driver’s meeting about an hour before. During the meeting they mention that you would get a black flag for speeding in the pits, passing during a yellow and for two or more wheels off, and other transgressions. The first black flag for a group meant a slap on the wrist. The second a slightly more stiff penalty and on the third you were going to get whacked hard. The fourth meant you were done for the rest of the event.
Every car was provided a transponder and cars were slowly let onto the track as they were led by a pace car under a yellow flag. Our first driver (Clay) had track experience but only with front wheel drive cars. The checkered flag was dropped and off everyone went. As you can imagine Clay was excited and nervous. No surprise there. As he comes off of the main straight into turn 1, oooops, off he goes. We’ve just earned our first black flag at 1 minute into the race. Clay gets back onto the track, runs OK. The brakes are working better with different tires, but it is still stumbling. The only solution seems to be refueling every 25 minutes or so.
After Clay’s two hours were up, our next driver (Steve), a more experienced Porsche driver, gets out on the track. He runs some respectable lap times. He does go two wheels off at one point but no one sees him so he continues on. A very uneventful session.
Our third driver (Bob) is an HPDE instructor (GTI and Elise). While he’s out on the track, there’s a red flag due to a car rolling onto its side. Our crew chief (Phillip) suggests we pit for refueling. This little move manages (don’t ask me how) to move up at least a dozen spots in the race. This must have attracted the attention of the event judges. It wasn’t much longer after the red that that Bob was black flagged for passing in a yellow and speeding in the pits. Bob said it was possible he passed in the yellow, but he thought it might have been more in retaliation for the pit under red. Our punishment was to round up to pieces of blank cardboard and string. They used this to make up a sign for the next poor schmuck that black flagged to wear.
During Bob’s run, A friend of mine (Jim) showed up, took some pictures and visited with me in the pits. Not long after he arrived it was my turn to hit the track. This was about 3:45. Jim said he would hang around for a little bit longer, but would be gone by the time I got off the track.
It was pretty hot inside the car while I was getting strapped in and all of the radio equipment was attached and checked. Because I have a single layer suit I had to also wear fireproof underwear. Once I got moving though it was reasonably comfortable. With the side and rear windows removed there was plenty of air flow, plus they ran a dryer vent hose from outside the car up to the dashboard so that it blew on the driver’s face. After 40 minutes of driving I was blocked from passing a guy between turns 3 and 4. Not being happy about that I raced him to turn 4 and attempted to turn inside of him as we went through turns 5 and 6. I wound up going to wheels off at turn 6. Damn!! Now as a team we decided that if you did go off to go ahead and not wait for the black flag but to turn yourself in. Hoping for leniency from the judges. Wrong move. The bastards penalized us with three hours of being off the track. We could get back on the track with only 28 minutes left in the day but they said we were out of our minds if we did that. A fourth black flag during that time would mean we’d be done for the weekend. The flags would reset on Sunday. Fuck, fuck, fuck. So we went to drank, flirted with the waitresses, had ice cream at an ice cream place that was packed, and went back tot the trailer and crashed. The 5th driver, Justin (car owner), did not get to run.
Sunday morning we couldn’t start racing until noon due to the churches nearby holding services. We spend our morning trying to figure out the stumbling problem. The session was only 5 ½ hours long. Justin drove first for two hours and then we picked back up with the same rotation as Saturday, only running for shorter periods. Bob and I cut our sessions a bit short so that Justin could run the last 30 minutes up to the checkered flag. With the exception of one black flag for going two off it was an uneventful day. Justin set our team’s fastest lap time. I think it was 1:48 and we wound up 33 out of 65.
Clay and his Dad had left right after Clay’s run earlier in the day. Bob, Phillip and I decided we wanted to head home that night instead of waiting until this morning to return the trailer and then caravan home. So being complete assholes, we left Steve and Justin to deal with that and I arrived at home at 2:00 am this morning. Steve and Justin will be arriving at the garage around 5:30 this evening and I am meeting them to help with unloading everything. Hopefully that offsets a little bit of my ditching them yesterday.
Steve
Sounds like a neat opportunity.
