We just finished the first days racing and we are currently in 6th place just 13 laps behind the leader. Wish us luck for tomorrow.
Archive for December, 2007
In 6th place
Sunday, December 30th, 2007Frame repair, Lemons style
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007
The cumulative result of all the contact in the Lemons race in Altamont was that the front end of our car was in pretty bad shape. As you can see from the above picture, the left front corner is a couple of inches too high as well as an inch or two inboard of its regular position. Now a real race team would either replace the frame or send the car to a bodyshop for some frame repair. Unfortunately both those options would have put us well past the $500 limit for the race. This is where Robs forklift comes into the picture 
We started out by cutting the metal bar that served as our impromptu bumper after the hearse took out our original bumper during the race.
Step 2 was to lower the left edge of the frame. For this we wedged the left frame mounting point of the bumper under a truck and then used the forklift to raise the rest of the car. It took a couple of attempts, and some interesting moments with the forklift on two wheels, but we eventually got the front end into a level position.
Frame Repair, Lemons style from rnair on Vimeo.
Step 3 was to attach chains each of the bumper mount points and use the forklift to widen the front end.
Body repair 2 from rnair on Vimeo.
As you can see we ended up moving the right edge over a bit so the final step was to push the right edge back in.
Body repair 3 from rnair on Vimeo.
In the end we were able to fix our front end for $0 and keep with in both the rules and the spirit of the 24 Hours of Lemons 
Installing the Nokia N800 OS2008 Software update (swap key issues)
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007The official instructions for entering the “Install mode” on the Nokia N800 OS2008 Software update are incorrect. The Internet Tablet Software Update Wizard will tell you to enter the update mode by boot the device while holding the “swap” key down – this will show the USB icon on the top right corner for 2-3 seconds after which the tablet will quit the install mode and continue booting. What you should actually do is hold the “Home” key (the one with a house icon) down during bootup which will put it into the sustained install mode that is needed for the software update wizard to do its magic.
Update: If you are having issues with downloading the update using the Software update tool you can grab the update file from this torrent (N800 only) for a manual install. Use the torrent client of your choice to download the .bin file and tell the Software Update tool to install the file. This file will work only for N800 – N810 users will have to find the image file elsewhere.
The best Lemons video EVER!!!
Saturday, December 8th, 2007Craig from Group of Fools (Car #9) contacted me a few days ago saying that he had some on-track video from his car that included our car and asked me if I’d like a copy. After being deafened by my “Hell YES!!” he mailed me a DVD with a 10 minute video clip of their car following us around the track.
The following video merges 3 video streams for your viewing pleasure. The top and bottom camera views are from our car (#56 White BMW with a wing)). The camera in the center is from Group of Foolz (#9 Maroon BMW with a baby seat on the top). The video starts with me coming out of the pits to start my Saturday stint and by the 40 second mark you can see the #9 car right on my rear bumper. They then follow us around the track as we both go through slower traffic until they finally pit after about 10 minutes.
Major thanks to both #9 Group of Foolz for sending me the video and ChaseCam for giving us the video setup we used in our car.
3 camera action from the 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.
#56 SFF1 (us)
#9 Group of Foolz (with baby seat )
Another year in pictures
Thursday, December 6th, 2007Since my car just turned two years old I figured it was time to write a follow-up to the original year in pictures post.
30 Dec 06: Another trip to LA down Highway 1. Tons of pics here.
17 Feb 07: Visited the Tesla factory and saw the latest roadster to be built at Hethel.
24 Feb 07: Start the track season at Thunderhill with TEAM
1 Apr 07: East Bay Etalk Brunch
24 Apr 07: Met Crudson and JnC on their cross country trip
12 May 07: Had a 95 mph spin at Reno-Fernley Raceway
15 June 07: A photo of my car (post spin) is used by the SCCA for an ad in Sportscar magazine
16-27 June 07: 2500 mile roadtrip to Vancouver
12 Aug 07: Broke down on Highway 1 with no cell service. Had to hitch a ride to town to call the tow truck.
18 Aug 07: Saw a bunch of classic Lotus at the Monterey Historics.
1 Sept 07: Elisetalk photoshoot in Alameda
22 Sept 07: Finally convince Nithya to drive in the GGLC autocross – was in the GTI rather than the Elise but she still had fun
Nithya @ the GGLC AutoX from rnair on Vimeo.
20-12 Oct 07: 24 Hours of Lemons with Team SFF1. More details here.
2 Dec 07: 2 years and 33,500 miles later my luck finally runs out and I get rear ended
