Home of the Toxic Asset Racing Program! Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale about the misfit adventures of a derelict Toyota MR2 and the mostly ill-informed attempts to un-derelict the car in almost certainly futile attempts to run it in endurance racing.
Here’s a couple of pretty good videos of the full MSR-Houston track that were shot recently. This is the same full-track configuration that we will be running, in the same direction. The Spec Miata video gives a good feel for the track at something pretty similar to the speeds that we’ll be running in the race, while the SCCA Formula cars gives a more open view. The SCCA video starts right about the timing/scoring platform on the pit straight, so the first turn is Sugar/Spice, if you want to line it up with the track notes map a couple posts ago, and I think the Miata one starts mid-Carousel.
One thing that’s clear from looking around You Tube is that we are going to see a lot of cars going off into Diamond Edge. They might as well open an access road straight from that turn to the penalty box. Let’s make sure we’re not one of those teams.
If you’re reading our blog for the first time, it’s pretty likely that you’ve gotten here (directly or indirectly) due to the article “Lap Dogs” that was written by our own Brad Cope and published in the August issue of Spirit Magazine. Brad dropped an advance copy of the article off at my house the other night and I was entertained and thrilled with the article. I’m sure the rest of the team will be too when they read it. And obviously if you’re reading this now, it’s probably a fair bet that you found it interesting too.
Due to the limitations of space and time, Brad was only able to include a sliver of our LeMons experience in his article. Please feel free to surf around our blog, which chronicles our experience from the very start all the way through the race. I’ll post some more updates soon about what’s coming up for the team as well as some additional memories that didn’t make it into Brad’s story.
If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email. My address is patrick mulry at gmail dot com. Maybe putting it down like that will keep the spambots away. Cheers and welcome!
Also, interesting to watch someone else driving a car similar in performance to ours (thankfully, though, we didn’t have any clutch slippage). Notable that they just plain stay out of trouble: pass when possible, but generally drive conservatively.
Was looking up a few reviews of the Longest Day at Nelson Ledges, which is the non-LeMons endurance race that’s held at that track. Most of the good info is in different forum posts, like this one. One thing that becomes abundantly clear: the Carousel turn is taken at high-speed, and God help you if you get outside on it, especially at night. It gets covered with marbles, which puts you on the grass. And grass at night in the fall in Ohio is covered with dew. Which makes the grass as slick as snot. The only thing that stops your car at that point from becoming one with the trees is a tire barrier.
Lack of cornering discipline at MSR Houston led to few problems, if any. Maybe a bent door or a black flag, but that’s about it. Lack of cornering discipline at Nelson Ledges will likely cost you your ride. The Lamest Day is going to be the greatest endurance contest in LeMons history.
We’ve got an extra car for Sunday. I don’t know the make and model, but it’ll have a stick. It comes to us from the wonderful people at Motorsport Enterprises. So we’ll have the junker and this other car. Pat and I will work out how to get both there.
Now, about Sunday: We’ll start at 3:30 at the Ranch. Jack Pharr, the manager of the track, will be there, as will a professional driver. We’ll also have a couple of designers/photographers from Spirit there, Brody Price and Lauren Chesnutt. Look your best!
Here’s an interesting article about how to drive faster when racing identical (or nearly identical) cars. Pretty interesting focus on the details.
Too bad we’re not racing, really, but running LeMons, which is sort of a race and sort of Survival of the Fittest. Or Survival of the Least Un-Fittest, really.
The good people at Motorsport Ranch–just up the street from Jesse’s place–have agreed to give us track time and driving instruction gratis.
The details: 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 15th.
We’ll need to bring the MR2 and another car with a stick shift to take out on the track. Why two cars? We’ll need two vehicles to accommodate all of the drivers.
Side note: Jack Pharr, the guy who runs Motorsports Ranch, will be one of our instructors. And he just might be competing against us in Houston. Intrigue!
This also means we really have to get cracking on the car.
In today’s edition of the LeMons Video Documentary Series, we see the footage that the Group of Foolz put together starring their e30 at the Thunderhill race. As you can see, there is plenty of foolery for the entire family! That course does look like it would be fun to drive, what with the elevation changes and all. MSR Houston looks like it’s about as flat as a schoolgirl. Cue the video:
Apparently one thing to bear in mind — scratch that — to etch into your permanent memory as the driver of a mid-engined sports car is that if you are in the midst of a high-speed turn, you don’t want to lift your foot from the throttle. Lift before the turn and at the end of the turn, but not right in the turn.
This advice comes from the same guy who did that video below. He was driving his Lotus Elise at a HPDE event at the road track in Reno and spun off the track into the gravel at 95 mph. Why? He entered the turn too fast and didn’t realize it until mid-turn. He lifted his gas foot, which causes a weight transfer to the front wheels, releasing the rear wheels at a moment when they’re already wanting to slide. Thus, the car rotates and leaves the track.
We really need to practice before the race. And to read up. And to pray. Lots of praying.
From a comment by LeMons BS Judge Murilee Martin regarding the motorcyle-engined Geo Metro that won Thunderhill a couple weeks back:
It needs to be mentioned that this car was far from the fastest thing around the track; its best lap time of 1:36.298 was the 12th-quickest of the race. What the Metro Gnome guys did to win was avoid breakdowns, black flags, and contact with other cars. The car’s tiny size was a real advantage when it came to staying out of trouble in crowded corners, and the great power-to-weight gave it batshit acceleration coming out of turns.
Keep in mind that the #5 car- which finished just 11 laps back- had a best lap time of 1:44:649, which made it one of the slowest cars at Thunderhill. Had the cars in front of it caught a single black flag and/or mechanical problem, the Bigfoot Hunter Escort would have won. Staying out of trouble is way more likely to get you a LeMons win than anything else.
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