The LAISSEZ LES CRAPHEAPS ROULEZ NEW ORLEANS race recap...
After arriving late on Friday, we went through Tech inspection and only needed to replace the tires to pass. Randy purchased some 17" track wheels for his Mini that he offered to donate them to the cause, but he arrived well after Tech was done for the day. Once we arrived at the track Saturday morning, we put the wheels on and completed Tech, and sailed through the BS Inspection.
Clearance on the front end was a little tight since I cut the springs a few inches to lessen the body roll, so we decided to replace the front springs with a set of stock springs that we brought just in case we had this problem - Randy lives in Austin, so we weren't able to figure this out before getting to the track. The swap took us a little longer than we would have liked, but we got that done and everything else ready before the start of the race - just barely as Randy was only able to get one warmup lap in before the green flag dropped. The rest of the day was a lot less exciting, as we just drove the car at a comfortable pace, made two pit stops to change drivers and fill the fuel tank.
The pit stops went pretty smoothly and one of our competitors timed us at @ 4 minutes each time, which seemed pretty good. Mark drove the second stint, and I drove the third and with no black flags, mechanical issues, or off road excursions and we found out that we were in the lead by 5 laps at the end of the day.
We did a quick check of everything that night, rotated the tires and went back to the hotel. Sunday started out nicely with the cars lined up behind a beautiful Shelby Mustang that was performing Pace Car duties for the race. Brad took the first stint and drove flawlessly before handing the car off to me again. Other than the brakes getting a little soft and the clutch slipping a little, the Wag-O-Van kept plugging along.
After Jason got in for our final driver change, we found that we were three laps behind the GT$500 Shelby Celica Team which still needed to make a pit stop. With less than an hour to go, they made their pit stop and came back on track with a lap and a half lead, so things didn't look too good for the Dirty Some Beaches... After a couple of laps on the track, the GT$500 car got a black flag and came into the pits to see what they had done wrong.
They had a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card since they had participated in the LeMons Vs. BABE Drag race Saturday night, so they were back on track pretty quickly and still had the lead by less than half a lap. It was unclear at the time why they had to come in, but when they were black flagged a second time, they were told that they were leaking fuel on track. They retightened their fuel cap and were sent back on track, this time down a lap.
With 30 minutes left in the race, it would be very hard for them to catch us, so Jason continued on his pace. With less than 15 minutes to go, Jason called on the radio that the car had died in one of the corners with no warning - fortunately he was two turns from the pit entrance, so he coasted in and we searched the car for any clue of why it quit. We reset the ECU and put in a gallon or two of gas and the car restarted, so we sent him back out, unsure of where we were in relation to our closest competitors.
Since we were in the general area of the paddock and refueling during the race was restricted to a certain area, there was a possibility that we would be black flagged and brought in again, but some how the decision to let us race was made and no black flag was thrown at us. I never got the name of the person who helped us out with this, but I will thank him each time I see him in the future. With less than 5 minutes to go, most people thought that we were one lap behind the GT$500 car, but no one was certain. We were able to pass him,
but we couldn't get that lap back and the checkered flag flew for the Shelby Celica just after we passed the Start/Finish line. The GT$500 driver made an additional cool down lap just to be certain. Within 5 minutes, the finish was Official with the GT$500 car winning and we placed second. We were still happy to finish the race, especially ahead of much faster, better handling cars and improve on our previous race results, and this gives us something to shoot for for the next race.
Some other Race highlights included the disappearance of a Miata that was voted for the People's Curse - it was the third time that this team was voted for the Curse, and we guessed that they didn't want to have a third car crushed, so they loaded up and left before the crushing. One of the BABE rally cars that destroyed it's transmission in the Saturday night drag races was offered, so there was still a crushing. The Barbie Miata ended up on one of the concrete walls entering the main straight on Saturday,
which caused a full course caution for a little while, but no one was hurt - over all it was a pretty carnage-free race - only 48 or so cars started the race - I have no idea how many finished but there were a lot of slow running slugs out there for the finish.
We did get a trophy for First In Class of the Good Division - the had three Classes - The Good which included the fast BMW's, Miata's, and Mustang's. The Bad - which we were classified in originally and included other Honda's, Toyota's, and the like. and the Ugly- which included all of the 'hopeless' cars, like FIAT's, Fiero's and anything that didn't have much hope of finishing. Since we finished so well, they decided to put us in with the fast guys - either way, it was a nice consolation.
At the Houston race we started well, but soon discovered that the engine would cut out during left hand turns
when the tank was less than 3/4 full. As more fuel was used, the engine lost power for longer periods or time, and
how we escaped any contact is beyond me, it was certainly challenging to adapt to. After running as high as third place, we finished
Saturday's drive in sixth place and felt pretty good about it. Sunday started with a flat tire which caused a spin and a black flag, another black flag dropped us down to 25th or so, but we managed to work our way back to finish 15th.
Info on the Houston Gator-O-Rama event:
Lemoncello Racing has some updates and pictures.
Results, and other info about the race can also be found at these sites:
SpeedSportLife
(scroll down, we're on the front page)
Randy's Pics
Video
(Randy's video of a very cool Art Car)
Jalopnik - search for gator o rama
Click on "Dirty Some Beaches" above for the results and some more pics.
Click on the the other links for the stories behind those cars.
History on the car is short - the previous owner had the car for a few years and used it for his
courier business - he also had an 89 model Civic that had A/C and a few other extras that he
used during that time as well.
After he got a new Ford Escape, he let the Hondas sit for a year or two (looks to be more likely three or four), occasionally starting
them and moving them around. He gave the other Honda to a sister-in-law who needed one for her son and had to get rid of
this one because the city started harassing him.
When I went to look at it, he had already had it running earlier in the day,
but we still had to jump start it since the battery had been dead for "a long time" and was completely dead. It actually ran fairly
well, but obviously needed some help. It also needed air in two tires to move it at all and all four to go any distance.
The interior was kinda what one would expect for a courier car, papers, receipts, invoices, bank statements, food wrappers, straws, and all sorts of
mean nasty, ugly stuff were tucked in any place they could find in order to avoid being sucked out the window since the lack of A/C
meant that the windows were open all of the time. There were also the usual stains and spilled goo covering the dash, seats, and floor.
The outside had a few years of dried up leaves and dirt accumulated anywhere the wind wouldn't blow them away, with a bit of mold on various
body panels. There were suprisingly few dents and very little visible rust, so it had that going for it, which was nice.
The engine compartment didn't look too bad - a few oil leaks, corrosion around the battery and the usual grunginess - looks like we have a LeMons racer...
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