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Goin’ For A Win – recap of Lemons Reno 2009

Friday, May 29th, 2009

The Goin’ For Broken race at Reno Fernley raceway was the 5th 24 Hours of LeMons race for the Formula BMW team and the debut of our new Pink Pig race livery. Additionally the car was quite a bit lighter than the last race with the sunroof, dash, heater core and inner door skins being removed. We cracked our windshield during the dash removal which we replaced with a sheet of lexan to further drop weight. We were going with our regular driver lineup of Guy Argo, Gabriel Matus. Rob Dietsch and myself. Since the racedays were of unequal length (8.5 hours Saturday, 5 hours Sunday), our plan was to have Guy, Rob and myself run a single 3 – 3.5 hour stint with Gabe splitting his stint between the two days. The long stints would minimize our driver changes and would allow us to pass people in the pits and finish higher than the 10th place we recorded at Thunderhill 08.

I was driving the first stint for our team and got off to an inauspicious start when I had to pull in to the pits just before the green flag (Lemons has a rolling start) because of a loud noise and vibration from the right front on right hand turns. It turned out that our new wheels were rubbing against the right front strut while at speed. We had test fitted the new wheel on the left front tire where it fit with no issues but we had forgotten that we had bent our struts for extra camber at Altamont 07 which meant that while they fit fine on the left there was rubbing on the right which was aggravated on right hand turns. Luckily we were able to borrow a wheel spacer (Thanks Squirrels of Fury!) but by the time we put that on we were already 2 laps down on the leader without having driven a single lap.

When I first went out under green my immediate impression was that we were waaaay faster than most of the cars out there and was passing several cars at each turn. This was probably down to my familiarity with the track and the car because after about 5-10 laps the cars became more difficult to pass as the other drivers became more comfortable with the track. About an hour into the race I noticed that the fuel gauge on the car was still registering full despite having plenty of hard racing laps in that time. This meant that our gauge was broken and we would have to time our pitstops based on fuel starvation. At about the 2 hour mark the car started fuel-starving on the fast right of turn 14 but was still doing pretty well elsewhere on track. We decided to keep going as long as we could and/or to wait for the next yellow. I kept driving the car in higher gears to help with the fuel economy but after about 5-6 laps the fuel starvation was getting bad enough that we were sputtering on the straights after right handers and i brought the car in for a green flag fuel and driver stop. It was about the 2.5 hour mark when I came in and despite the fact that my long stint had put us back on the lead lap (9th overall), we were still well short of the 3+ hour stint we were originally planning on. The good part was that we knew that we could use the right hand turn fuel starvation as a gas gauge to decide when to time our next pit stop.

Photo by Jeff Balliet/ASK photography

Guy drove the next stint and kept in touch with the leaders. At this point we knew that we were in the top ten and were basically trying to put in reasonable laps without doing anything crazy. Guy drove for about 3.5 hours before the fuel starvation became bad enough that we were forced to do another green flag stop. At this point we were 4th overall and just 5 laps behind the race leader despite having the slowest “fastest lap” of any car in the top 15. Gabe got into the car with about 2.5 hours left in the day and was putting in some excellent lap times when he had an unfortunate spin at turn 15 which brought us in for a black flag penalty. Since we had been good racers for most of the day (and bribed the judges with some excellent Guatemalan rum ) we were let off with a driver change penalty which put me in back in the driver seat for the final 10 laps of the day.

At this point the traffic had thinned considerably and I was able to able to drop my fastest lap down from a 2:51.844 to a 2:46.177. Right about this time the #72 E30 of the B-Team (who I knew from Lotus Talk) pulled up right behind me and tried to get past. I knew that I wasn’t racing them for position so I did not try to block, but I certainly wasn’t going to move aside and let them past either. They tried a few different attempts at getting past but I hung onto the inside line and was able to stay in front. About 5 laps into the battle they came right alongside me on the front straight which led to the action you see in the image below.

Source photos from Jeff M/The B-Team. Animation by Rahul Nair.

This moment started as we were coming onto the main straight when I got a bad run into the corner while the B-Team got a great slingshot out and pulled alongside me down the straight. This had happened a couple of times before but since I always held the inside line into the esses they had had to lift in the end and tuck in line behind me. On this particular lap the #26 Team Carpet Pissers CRX was pulling out of the pits and made it into the first bend of the esses right just before the two of us. Normally I would have tucked in line behind the CRX and passed them going into turn 2 but on this lap I spotted an opening and decided to pass them between the 2nd and 3rd esses expecting that the B-Team would get boxed in behind them which would give me some more breathing room. As luck would have it the B-Team driver decided to do the exact same thing on the outside and suddenly we were three wide through the turn at about 95mph. I was up on the rumble strip on the left while the B-Team was on 2 wheels in the gravel on the right. At this point the driver in the CRX sees the B-Team on his right (and I suppose didnt see me on his left) and jinks left to avoid them. The front bumper of his car hits my right front wheel and leaves a black line down both doors. The impacts pushes my car to the left but I am able to maintain control while the CRX unfortunately spins out. Amazingly both B-Team and I are still side by side entering turn 2 and I am able to get ahead under braking. While it looked (and was) pretty exciting it was still a dumb move on my part especially since we were not racing for position and the next day both B-Team and I went up to the driver of the CRX and apologized for putting him in a difficult spot.

At the end of day one we had completed 129 laps and we in 4th place overall, 6 laps behind the Eyesore Racing FrankenMiata. We were still the second slowest fast lap in the top 10 but we used our long stints to make up for our wheel issues at the start as well as 3 green flag pit stops. Now we just had to keep on doing more of the same for day 2 and hope that the leaders would trip-up enough for us to pass them in the pits.

Day 2 started with Gabe driving the car. It was obvious from the lap times that we had no chance on catching the FrankenMiata with speed alone. They were pulling away from us at 10 seconds a lap when they suddelny spun and stalled on course on lap 5. As they were being towed in we began to push like hell to make up laps and we got back 4 of the 6 laps before they got out on course again. Gabe kept putting in consistent laps but the FrankenMiata was back on pace and was consistant pulling out 8 seconds or so per lap. Both teams came in for a driver swap just a lap apart which kept us 3 laps behind with 3 hours to go. Rob put in some stellar laptimes including our fastest race lap of a 2:42.809 but in the end it just was not enough to catch the FrankenMiata.

We ended finishing first in class and 5th overall just 4 laps behind the FrankenMiata which hung on to win the race. We did get a nice trophy to stick on the mantel place but I personally am still annoyed at some of the mistakes we made which cost us a possible win. The good part is that we know what to fix and we know what we need to do at Buttonwillow in 3 months. We wont rest till we get some nickels (Lemons cash prizes are awarded in nickels )

Tags: 24 Hours of Lemons, E30, formula bmw, Lemons racing, race review, reno-fernley, Reno-Fernley Raceway
Posted in 24 Hours of Lemons, photos | 6 Comments »

Lemons Penalties 101

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent most of the Lemons South Spring race as a guest judge. This meant that I not only got to decide and hand out penalties, but I also had a chance to document them. So now for your viewing pleasure, I present my guide to the penalties from Lemons South Spring 2009

Studs and Spurs
While in Texas, the Judges found a calendar that Lemons drivers love to emulate. Judge Jonny will lead you through a mock photoshoot in your pink cowboy hat

Studs and Spurs penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Marcel Marceau “Mime Your Crime”
Offending driver must put on a French striped sailor shirt, a beret and paint his/her face white. Then the driver must mime their stint in the car – starting with putting on the helmet and gloves, driving around the track, the incident causing the black flag, the drive to the pits and the spin of the wheel.

Marcel Marceau “Mime your Crime” penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Taiwanese National Anthem
This penalty was dreamed up by Judge Phil and qualifies as truly cruel and unusual punishment. While he explains it best in his post, the short version is that the team must wire a six tone car alarm into their car and the alarm must play constantly until the car comes off the track. As an added bonus the team must warn competitors of their bad driving by attaching a Taiwanese flag to their car. My thanks to the #56 Blind Rodent Racing team for demonstrating this penalty so that future lemons racers can understand just what fate awaits them.

Taiwanese National Anthem penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Follow the Leader
This was an impromptu punishment dreamed up by Judge Lieberman when a seven car incident filled up the judging area with multiple miscreants. Rather than dealing an individual punishment to each team, all the drivers from each team were required to line up behind the Judgemobile and follow in single file while they took a slow lap of the paddock. They then had to warn other teams of their behaviour by shouting “We’re bad drivers!” every time the Judges honked the horn.

Follow the Leader penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Butter and Moonshine
One thing the judges can always be counted on to do is to come up with creative punishments using locally available materials. In this case they pour liquid butter into the crankcase of the car followed by adding some local moonshine into the gas tank. This was particularly ironic since the team in question was the one that bribed the judges with the moonshine in the first place.

Butter penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Moonshine penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Three Legged Race

Three-legged race penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

This is a special penalty for the cars that are involved in metal to metal contact. Both cars are black flagged and since the drivers obviously like each other they are tied together for a three legged race around the paddock. The best part of this penalty is that it can be applied to any arbitrary number of drivers. In the video below we have 4 drivers from the same team taking a 5 legged lap of the paddock.

Three-legged race team penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Bobby Bosch Relay Race

Another diabolical creation from the twisted mind of Judge Phil, the Bobby Bosch Relay Race is an E30 special penalty where the teams are handed a bag of Bosch relays of which one has been tampered with. They then have to go figure out which relay is the defective one before they are allowed to rejoin the race. And in case you were wondering you can tell by any external marks since Judge Phil opened the casings on all 10.

Preaching to the converted
Driver must stand on the hood or roof of his car and read “Pinto with a Pedigree” and the following chapter “Rescuing a Red Farmer Rust Bucket” from Tom Cotter’s book The Hemi in the Barn alound to his team, gathered around the car.

Preaching to the Converted penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Paint your whip with Bob Ross

Bob Ross was a well known american painter who was famous for painting landscapes using oil paints. Teams that get this penalty must put on the Bob Ross wig and paint a serene landscape from the Paint with Bob Ross book on the hood of their car. This particular example was painted by #32 Superkak racing team.

Bart Simpson
Write your penaly on your car 100 times – “I will not pass under yellow” for example

An E30 edition of this penalty requires that you write the penalty in German

Barnyard
The Arc Angel attaches a metal farm animal or the “Move Over Dick” mirror to the offending car.

Graffiti your Ride
You must graffiti your car with reasons why you wish you were driving a different marque. This particular example from the Crown Victoria of #60 Pleasant Valley Racers includes “I wish I was driving a Honda”, “Nascar Sux”, “Honda Rules” and even a Japanese flag on the roof.

Stay with Your Ride
If a team follows the judges around with too much whining the whole lot is duct taped to their car for the duration of their punishment.

The Pacifier
Drivers that whine at the judges have a baby bottle taped to their hand and must gnaw on a pacifier for the duration of their penalty.

Close Shave – Shave your way out of it
Have a beard or a goatee? Shave your beard or goatee off – as soon as its gone you and your car can return to the track. No facial hair/. How about shaving the legs from the knees down?

Shaving facial hair to avoid a penalty – 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo.

Why am I Upside-Down?
You’re upside-down because you have no business being out on a racetrack. If a car rolls at a Lemons race it is immediately done for the rest of the race. Unfortunately this is one rule that I am very familiar with

Photo stolen from Jalopnik

Peoples Curse
And finally the ultimate Lemons penalty – utter devastation of the peoples curse car at the hands of the excavator. The second car in this video is from another team (#85?) which was sick of working on their car and asked Jay to crush it along with the peoples curse.

Peoples Curse – Lemons South Spring 2009 from rnair on Vimeo.

Tags: 24 Hours of Lemons, Carolina Motorsports Park, judge, judging, Lemons south, Lemons South Spring 09, penalties, penalty
Posted in 24 Hours of Lemons, photos, videos | 2 Comments »

Lemons South Race Recap

Monday, April 6th, 2009

This is going to be a very short recap since we didnt really get very far in the race. I flew into South Carolina and made it to the track on friday. The Schumacher Taxi Service Corolla FX-16 had already been teched and looked pretty well setup. I didnt get to drive the track or the car so instead walked the track to get an idea of the flow of the track and see where our likely passing zones were. The interesting difference from previous races thing the lack of temporary chicanes, we were going to be use the full west course of the Carolina Motorsports Park with no changes whatsoever. Another change new to Lemons was that the corner workers were going to throw local yellows instead of the full course yellows we’ve seen at the previous events. It looks like Lemons is growing up and looking more and more like a real racing series.

On raceday I was the first driver and also one of the first car on track. This was super helpful since I then got to do 3-4 laps under yellow which helped me get used to the car and the track. Once the green flag went out It took me another 3-4 laps to get comfortable with the dynamics of the Corolla before I really started pushing the car. It turns out that the car had no power or torque but it did have excellent brakes and pretty decent lateral grip. The best way to pass people was under braking into turns 1, 11 and 14 though I did manage to pass a fair number of cars around the outside of turns 1 and 12 as well. Since the start of Lemons is really chaotic (92 cars on a 1 mile course) I got almost no “clean” laps and was dicing for position on every lap. In the end my laps times were pretty competitive (best of 1:08.9 at a time when the fastest cars were in the 1:07s) and I managed to get us up into 7th place at around the 90 minute mark.

This is when things start going wrong – I was trying to pass a car into turn 13 when a Miata hit my from behind and spun me around right at the apex. I got a black flag for spinning (the Miata got away scot free) and we spent about 20 minutes in penalty area before the next driver was allowed out. The new driver had no track or racing experience and about 5 laps into the race managed to do this:

Photo stolen from Jalopnik

Yup that’s our car on its side. He came into turn one too hot with one wheel off inside the rumble strip. At this point instead of just going straight off the track he tried to make the turn and caught a wheel on the curbing which led to a roll-over. Video of the roll below:

The driver was fine and the car was in surprisingly good shape. However Lemons has a “Why am I Upside-Down?” rule which says that if a car rolls it is done for the race. So that was the end of the race for us just 2 hours into the event. Luckily the 2 other guys on the team got 45 minutes of track time each with the other cars on Schumacher Taxi Service so at least it wasnt a total waste for them. I still had a day and half to go before my flight so I ended up becoming a guest judge for the event – more on that in my next post.

Tags: 24 Hours of Lemons, Carolina Motorsports Park, CMP, flip, Lemons south, Lemons South Spring 09, racing, rollover, Schumacher Taxi Service
Posted in 24 Hours of Lemons, photos, review, videos | No Comments »

Winner

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

I just won the first race of the inaugural GGLC Winter Karting series. We had some 25+ folks shop up at LeMans Karting in Fremont for a fun afternoon of pizza, karting and a little competition. After a series of 10 heat races we were split into 3 semi-finals which were won by Jordan, Jay and me respectively. However because I started the lowest in my semi, I was on pole for the finals with Jordan and Jay right behind me. I knew that both of them were about half a second a lap faster than me which meant that I had no chance of beating them on pure pace. So I went to my “pole position plan” which is to make a good start and then drive a super defensive inside line – this meant that my lap times were crap compared to the others but I was still quick enough that they couldn’t pass me around the outside. Plus this has the effect of bunching up the field so that the people behind couldn’t try too adventurous a pass because it meant that they would lose a spot if they made a mistake.

Photo by norcalturbo

In the end I was able to hold both of them off and won the race despite having the second slowest quick lap of the field. Jay has taken to calling me “Captain Slow” for winning at the slowest possible pace. I’ll point him to the following quote from Alain Prost: “I always say that my ideal is to get pole with the minimum effort, and to win the race at the slowest speed possible.” What’s good for a four time Formula 1 World Champion is good enough for me

Photo by norcalturbo

Update: LarryB just posted this awesome video of the final race.

GGLC Karting Race- 1 from Larry B on Vimeo.

Tags: GGLC, gokart, karting, racing
Posted in motorsport, personal, photos | No Comments »

How good is the N95 camera?

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

I was recently at the WOM World get-together in SF when we started discussing the some of the ways that Nokia should market the N-series devices, specifically the N95 vs iPhone issue. One of the things we all agreed on was that the camera on the N95 is a huge differentiator that Nokia really hasn’t been pushing as much as it should. People are so used to seeing crappy photos from devices like the Razr and the iPhone that they dont expect phones to have good cameras. I, on the other hand, have been using various variants of the N95 for well over a year and the camera is so good that I can honestly say that I will never buy a point-and-shoot camera again. People who see the shots are blown away by the quality of the images and often wont believe that they are from a cameraphone. Additionally the fact that I can use ZoneTag to upload, tag and geotag photos directly from the phone means that I upload way more photos from my phone than I ever did with my point-and-shoot camera.

So anyway, I had a quick look at some of the photos I’ve taken over the last year and have pulled out a few of the really outstanding shots to demonstrate the quality of the N95 camera – hope you like them.

One of the first really great shots I took with the phone was this shot of the wreck of the Peter Iredale of the coast of Oregon. I took a bunch of photos of the wreck but I particularly like the contrasting colours in this picture. You can also see that the photo has been automatically geotagged using ZoneTag which allowed me to do 2-click upload the photo while on vacation while also suggesting the tags “shipwreck” and “beach”.

In case you have any doubts about the print quality of the images you should check out this photo of mine that was used in a full page advertisement in SportsCar magazine. The photo was taken with an N95 classic after I spun out at the track.

One of the things that people forget is that not only does the N95 take great photos but it also shoots 640×480 video at a full 30 fps. The above video was taken at a BMW club autocross using an N95 8GB (N95-2) on my homebrew track video setup. As you can see the picture is clear and skip free. The loud rustling sound is the wind noise from the air entering the cabin once you go above a certain speed. Also check out this trackday video that I made at Reno-Fernley Raceway using the same camera setup.

The two photos above are part of a set that I took from the front row of an Iron Maiden concert in San Antonio using my N95 classic. The concert environment with its combination low light, moving subjects, backlighting and audience jostling is pretty hostile to cameras and makes it super challenging to take clear photographs.

The biggest issue for me was the time it takes for the N95 camera to both switch on and also focus on its subject. I would often click the button to capture an interesting moment but the moment would be well past by the time the camera actually took its shot. I took about 150 photos on that day and roughly 40 were worth putting on Flickr with another 40-50 worth saving. Not a very good ratio but since people were having worse ratios with high-ish end cameras I certainly cant complain. Also being a cameraphone means that there are zero questions asked when you take it into the venue

The last thing I want to share is some video that I shot from another Iron Maiden Concert (this time in Concord). This was from an N95 8GB NAM and as you can see the video is pretty damn good despite the tough camera conditions. The sound is once again the biggest issue – it just cant handle the loud noise and ends up clipping most of the audio.

All in all I can say that the N95 has a truly spectacular camera (for a phone) and it can easily be a replacement for a point-and-shoot camera. Plus if Nokia can fix the sound/clipping problems on the phone they should seriously market the N95 as a full-on camcorder replacement as well. The addition of easy uploads to Flickr and YouTube (the current Flickr share SUCKS!!!) would make this the perfect point-and-shoot photo and video capture device.

Tags: camera, cameraphone, N95, Nokia, photos, video, wom world
Posted in mobile, photos, review, videos | 7 Comments »

Recap: Lemons SF 2008

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Its been almost a month and I’ve finally sat down to write a recap of Lemons SF 2008. We entered our trusty #56 Formula BMW E30 with the only changes being the addition of an LSD ($65 from the Pick-n-Pull) and putting in some stiffer springs ($200). We also put in a new (junkyard new that is) left rear hub ($150) to replace the one that led to our crashing out at Thunderhill. All in all we put in 2-3 days of work and we had the car back up and running for well under the $500 limit.

We originally planned to have a Max Mosely mannequin bent over the trunk (pants down of course) but we ran out of time and as you can see the car looked pretty much exactly the way it did at the end of Thunderhill (apart from the aforementioned left rear hub).

Since there was no practice day this time we all just showed up on Saturday and got ready to race. Rob took the first stint and was making excellent progress through the field. It was about an hour into the race when we looked at the scoreboard and realised just how excellent the progress was – WE WERE IN THE LEAD!!!

Photo by jyri1

We were trading back and forth for the lead with car #65 (a green MR2) with our buddies at Team Red Bear just half a lap behind us. Coincidentally all three teams were pitted next to each other making it the fastest section of the pits. The original plan was for each driver to drive stints of 2-2.5 hours so we we immediately knew that something was wrong when Rob pulled into the pits at about the 1.45 mark. It turns out that the heat from the exhaust had literally melted the engine mount which is never a good thing. Luckily we had a spare and we were able to replace it and send Jyri out for the second stint.

At this point we had fallen out of the top ten but we were only about 20 laps down on #64 who was leading. Jyri kept up a steady pace and about 1.30 hours into his stint we had made up a few of the spots when tragedy struck Lemons and driver Court Summerfield died on track. The rest of the days racing was immediately cancelled and we wet to the hotel wondering about the future of Lemons. After battling with it overnight and talking to Courts family, Jay decided to continue on with the race in Court’ memory. The Lemons organizers have organized a memorial fund in Court’ name and I encourage readers to donate what they can. The next morning the organizers made this statement:

A California Highway Patrol investigation was undertaken at the track. The CHP informed us that there was no mechanical failure or unsafe track conditions and that no other cars were involved. The CHP also informed us that, based on physical evidence and witness statements, it appears that the driver was not conscious prior to impact.

The race was now down to 6.5 hours and we had 3 drivers who hadn’t turned the wheel yet. Gabe got to take the start and despite a couple of scary moments kept up decent pace. About 2 hours into his stint he came into the pits for the scheduled driver change when we noticed a crack in the oil pan. At some point the oil pan had struck something on the track and developed a crack that was furiously leaking oil. This was heroic fix time and like last time Rob came up with another winner. He used a drill to drill a small hole in the center of the crack and then used a screw to attach a Gatorade bottle tap filled with red silicone. Amazingly enough this bottletop fix not only lasted over 4 hours at race speed but also took a couple of heavy wall impacts without coming loose.

At this point we were some 60 laps down and had fallen all the way to 37th place. It was time to get back on track and put in steady laps. While that sounded great in theory it was further complicated by our shifter mounts breaking. This meant that the entire drive train would move under braking and resulted in our car popping out of second gear under anything resembling heavy braking. Since there was no time to fix that we just had to drive around the problem and drove the entire lap in 3rd instead. This meant that we were very slow coming out of corners but once we got into the working range of the engine we would take off. This must have confused a lot of our competitors who would come alongside by the midway through the banked turns only to be left behind when the car hit its stride It also made the car much more of a momentum car – I found that I could take the esses quite a bit faster than the other cars out there but would usually have to brake to avoid hitting the car in front only for the other car to out accelerate me coming out of the turn.

Guy and I put in some steady laps and which pulled us back into the top 25 before handing off to Rob for the final stint. He putting in some excellent times when someone put him into the wall just 2 laps from the end.

Photo by Murilee Martin

In the end the car went through a lot and kept on running. We finally ended up 20th and were some 50 odd laps behind the winner. The 2 laps we lost in the end were crucial since we were just 2 laps behind Red Bear who finished 18th. All in all it was a fun event though the tragedy did bring home the dangers of racing. Formula BMW will definitely be back for Thunderhill.

Tags: 24 Hours of Lemons, bmw, E30, Lemons SF, Lemons SF 08, recap
Posted in 24 Hours of Lemons, photos | No Comments »

GT5 Vs RL

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

Jalopnik just posted this incredible screenshot of a Ferrari F40 from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Compare that with this photo I took at Canepa Design using my 5MP Nokia N95.

Not only does the GT5 shot have much better colours, the details (check out the wheels) are truly spectacular. With the recent Blue Ray win I think I might just have to buy a PS3 after all

Head over to Jalopnik for more GT5 info.

Tags: F40, ferrari, graphics, gt5, gt5 prologue
Posted in cars, photos | No Comments »

Another year in pictures

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

Since 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

Tags: Elise, Lotus, pictures, year in review
Posted in cars, personal, photos | No Comments »

Race Review – Sunday

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

We got to the track at 7 am on Sunday so that we could prep the car for the 9 am start. The car was in reasonable shape and the main thing we wanted to was to replace the transmission mounts and the driveshaft with parts we had managed to scrounge up from various disreputable sources . However just as we were about to jack up the car we realised that we had left them at home wallbash . Seeing that we had no way of further patching up drivetrain, we got to work fixing the front end bodywork which had taken a few hits on Saturday and was dangerously close to the radiator. Rob hooked a chain from the car to the trailer hitch and stood on it force the bodywork back into shape.

Guy once again started the day and gave a good account of himself. Midway through his stint there was some contact which ripped our front bumper out of the car and left the radiator unprotected. Though Guy was still continuing, we knew that it would be too risky to run for to long without a bumper. At this point we went around the pits to see if we could scrounge up any spare parts. In a typical display of Lemons (and racing) spirit one team gave us about 5 feet of hollow iron bar while another team lent us the use of their welder. Unfortunately I don’t remember the team names but major thanks to them for helping us out. We lost about 45 minutes as Rob welded the bar in as a replacement bumper and then Gabe went out for his first stint.

Unfortunately just a few minutes into his stint we has a run-in with some very heavy Detroit iron that felt that smaller cars should magically disappear from its path. Since we haven’t yet mastered the fine art of teleportation, there was some fairly hard contact which ended with the other car getting a flat tire and our car slicing its lower radiator hose. We pulled the radiator and got to work fixing the powersteering bracket which was bent out of shape. After another round of begging in the pits I got a spare hose from the Edge Motorworks team while Team Blue Goose donated a hose clamp. In all we lost about 20-30 minutes during the fix.

At this point we had lost some 3.5 hours due to repairs and we were way behind on laps. Gabe, Rob and Jyri did some great stints but we knew that our only chance of making up ground was to do long stints and pass people while they pitted. I got into the car with a full tank of fuel and went out to do a hour stint. The lack of a real front bumper meant that I to be extra cautious about traffic and sometimes had to step HARD on the brakes to avoid any front end contact (even got rear ended a few times as a result ). After a few warmup laps I really got into the groove and was pulling of some pretty fun passes through the traffic. My laptimes were good enough that the team asked me to stay out there as long as possible. About 90 minutes into the stint, driver fatigue started becoming an issue. Interestingly the effect first started during the yellow flag laps – I started feeling a bit hot and uncomfortable. However the second the flag dropped adrenaline would start flowing and the fatigue would disappear and I would get back to race pace. After going through another 2-3 yellow flags I decided that enough was enough and ended up pitting after an hour and 45 minutes on track.

Jyri took on the next stint and was doing quite well until he was punted off the track. As you can see in the video, he recovers well from the first hit in the esses but a few seconds later he gets hit again while going through the right handed sweeper and goes into the tirewall. This ends up bending out left control arm and completely messes up our toe settings. Rob once again came to the rescue and eyeballed a toe adjustment to get us back on track. Gabe then took over for the final stint of the race and despite a couple of ‘moments’ he brought the car safely to the end.

Ouch from rnair on Vimeo.

We finished 44th out of 85 cars which is a pretty good for a group of Lemons newbies who were lying in 62nd on Saturday night. A big thanks to our sponsors – Dietsch Werks, Griffin Motorwerke, ChaseCam, Livermore Performance and Autopower – for helping us prep the car. All of us had a great time and we are already planning what we need to improve in time for the December race at Thunderhill

Tags: 24 Hours of Lemons, Altamont, Altamont Motorsports Park, Arse-Freeze-Apalooza, race review
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Race review – Saturday

Friday, November 9th, 2007

Our tactics for the race were to run 45 minute stints at a healthy pace and to avoid any unnecessary contact. Guy was our first driver and got to experience the Lemons start procedure. All the teams are asked to lineup in the pits and are slowly let out onto the track for yellow flag laps. Once the whole grid is on the track, race control randomly picks a team and throws the green flag the next time that team crosses the start/finish. At this point the race is on and its every man for himself. This is a short video of the start of the race – Guy enters the frame from the left at the 40 second mark.

Race start from rnair on Vimeo.

We were keeping up an excellent pace and were among the faster cars out there. Our pitstops, while not spectacular, were decent enough and saw Rob and Jyri taking stints 2 and 3 respectively. About 2 hours into the race, Jyri pitted and I got into the car for stint #4.

I started out pretty tentatively, this was after all my very first race in a real car. On lap 2 I started to feel really brave and tried to pass a couple of cars around the outside of the banking. While I did end up going around the cars, I was unsighted going into the esses and found that someone had dragged quite bit of gravel right at my braking/turn-in point. This being Lemons there was no debris flag and I basically had two choices: a) squeeze the car on my left and attempt to avoid the gravel with the possibility of getting broadsided if it doesn’t work out and b) hit the freestanding tire barrier and hope for the best. Having seen other cars hit similar barriers without too much drama, I decided on option b and hit the brakes which locked the second I hit the gravel.

Debris flag anyone? from rnair on Vimeo.

As you can see I hit the barrier with a glancing blow and knocked them over. You probably also saw that there was a third option available – turn right, avoid the barrier and skip the esses. Unfortunately I didn’t think of it at the time so that route really didn’t come into play. After the it the car seemed to be working fine and after slowing for a few corners I continued on my merry way. The following clip should give you a good idea of the action we encountered on track. Watch the grey Subaru wagon (Team Scooby) as it tries to pass me, it was one of the fastest cars on the track but I kept getting him stuck behind slower cars until he finally passes me two laps later

On track action from rnair on Vimeo.

About 30 minutes into the session I came around the banking and was about to pass another car when the back end of the car suddenly let go and spun me around. Luckily the car missed the tire barriers and ended up facing the wrong way on the inside of the first S. I tried putting it in neutral to start the engine but the gearshift had sunk about 6 inches lowers and I could not change gears. I tried starting it with the clutch in but only got an loud banging noise from the transmission with no forward movement. I then sat around waiting for the tow truck and watched cars coming head-on towards me at race speed – I even had one guy blow the turn and drive across the front of my car. After a few minutes the race was yellow flagged and the tow truck pushed me into the pits with the transmission making loud banging noises all the way.

Spin out from rnair on Vimeo.

When I came into the pits, we got down to diagnosing what was wrong with the car – the transmission was obviously busted but we didn’t know how or why. When we opened the hood we saw a most interesting sight, the radiator was bent outwards rather than inwards. It appeared that when our car had any forward contact (such as the tire barrier I hit), the engine was actually flexing the engine mounts and moving far enough forward in the engine bay for the distributor to hit the back of the radiator. This motion kept pulling the transmission forward until the transmission mounts finally snapped. At this point the transmission stressed the driveshaft enough that the two piece driveshaft just separated at the joint. /the driveshaft snapping was most likely the cause of the spin – it was equivalent to lifting mid corner which produced lift-off oversteer with no drive to allow recovery. Our car was now officially dead and we did not have any spare parts to fix it.

Enter our in-team mechanic: Rob Dietsch of Dietsch Werks. Now Rob usually spends his days doing high quality repair work on his customers cars, this obviously was NOT the time for quality work so he settled for quick and dirty fixes (emphasis on quick ). He started out by removing the two pieces of the driveshaft and used a hacksaw to clean out the joint between the two pieces before mating them together once again. We did not have any spare transmission mounts so he fixed the transmission in place using straps and bolts passing through holes drilled in the car floor. The final piece was to anchor the engine in place using chains so that it would no longer move forward if there was any impact.

The repairs took about 2.5 hours and dropped us to 62 place in the standings. Rob took the car out first to see how it would hold up. He put in some good times before handing it over to Jyri for the final stint. By the end of the day the car had suffered only minor body damage and was still putting in some excellent times. We were just glad to be running at the end of the day despite having such potentially race ending damage to our drivetrain.

P.S.: If you have nothing better to do and want to kill a full 30 minutes you should watch this video of my entire stint.

Saturday stint from rnair on Vimeo.

Tags: 24 Hours of Lemons, Altamont, Altamont Motorsports Park, Arse-Freeze-Apalooza, chasecam, in-car, race, racetrack, video
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