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.
Well, good news and bad news here at TARP Racing Worldwide HQ. Paul called last Friday morning and let me know that he’s now going to be unable to race with us due to a key employee quitting on him. I think that Paul was concerned that I’d be angry, but really I was just bummed for him because I know how much he was looking forward to coming down here to race with us. I was bummed for myself too because I was looking forward to picking his brain some more and sharing more ideas, but I guess that will have to wait for next time. Sorry, Paul. I guess we’ll always have the swirl pot though.
The good news is that Stevo convinced Pete Senior to come on down for the race, which puts us back at 5 drivers for the race. Senior basically built up the TARP North car but then didn’t get to drive because the engine garbooned too soon (it sounds now like there’s a crack in the block or head, as a partial disassemble yesterday revealed that the problem wasn’t a blown head gasket. The fact that half a gallon of water came out of the oil sump indicates other internal nastiness.). So it’ll be good to get him a turn in the car down here for the Houston race. Plus, he knows his way around these cars now after working up the north car, and another skilled wrench in the mix is always a good thing.
There’s still lots to do on the car, most especially involving the driver’s seat relocation to get it lower to the floor, but all is going well in terms of time and I think we’ll be ready come race day. Keep your fingers crossed.
A friend recommended that I take a look at the NASA (this NASA, not that NASA) club codes and regulations, specifically the instructions/explanations about black flags. We were instructed by Chief Perp Jay Lamm and maybe by Sam that a furled (rolled up) black flag pointed at a car means “hey, you! You’re black flagged, bring it on in!”
However, it turns out that the NASA rule is a little more subtle. An open, unfurled black flag means to bring it in, but a furled black flag means “warning, you are driving in an unsafe manner or you did something wrong. If you continue to do so, an open black flag will be shown to you.” Those furled black flags are pointed at the discretion of a corner worker but don’t mean that the car need exit the race.
In other words, the NASA rule and the LeMons instruction were precisely contrary to one another. My recollection may be inaccurate, but I’m pretty sure that on at least one of my phantom black flag incidents, I came in as a result of a furled black flag pointed at me.
I’m sure the corner workers were more familiar with the NASA standard rather than the LeMons standard. Not to whine, but in an ideal world, these rules would be identical; I suspect that’s really the intent, but Jay is erring on the side of caution. For future reference, I think we shouldn’t come in unless and until we see our car number on the black flag number board.
And we really need to figure out the frequency that race control is using at all tracks we race at so we can monitor that frequency and let our driver know when they’ve actually been black flagged.
As most everyone who follows this blog now knows, we went out of the race on Sunday when we suffered a blown half-shaft. We completed a total of 210 laps; the winner of the race completed 442 laps. We ended up in 75th place out of 96 cars due to our inability to replace the broken part and get back into the race. Initial video review indicates that the fatal blow to the half-shaft was probably when Dave took a hard hit to the driver’s rear quarter courtesy of a brown RX-7. It was a very hard hit that probably sheared several of the bolts holding the half-shaft together.
The good news is that for most of Saturday, we were quite competitive — we held first place for 20 laps, apparently including a driver change! This coincides with what somebody told Sam on Saturday, that our first false black flag was because we were in first even after the driver change.
…when I write only in generalities. But I’ll risk being specific to say on behalf of us all: Thanks, Pat, for pulling together the TARP crew for this insane project. Without you there would be no we. And we led that race for a chunk of day one, not to mention having a lot of fun up to and even past when this “half-shaft” ejected itself from the car. And even then if the junkyard would have been open or one of the other MR2 teams could have helped us out…but I digress.
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!
From looking at the coverage of past LeMons races, it’s clear that this event is half auto race, half costume contest. The teams that have well-exeuted themes (like TARP, or so we hope) seem to have more fun and evidently get better treatment from the BS judges. Which, of course, means fewer penalty laps or (sometimes) bonus laps added to the ticket.
Along those lines, I have been picking up bits of costume for our drivers and crew to wear during the BS judging portion of the event. Most of them I’ll save for the day so that you can enjoy the surprise, but I had to share this find. Punchline after the jump:
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.
Team Formula BMW ran an e30 at Thunderhill last December. One of their team members, Rahul Nair, created an entertaining and instructive mini-documentary that’s well worth watching. It’s 25 minutes long, so wait until you have some time to take it all in (I watched it during lunch). It goes all the way from car prep (wouldn’t it be nice to have a full-service Lotus shop prepping our crapcan?) to transport, tech and judging, and then some of the race itself. I found the judging part to be most instructive, but you may have other favorite parts.
Here’s the link to his blog, which also has the video, but I’ll embed the video below for your convenience. Enjoy:
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.
Recent Comments