TARP Blog

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.

Driving Tips, Team Strategy Author: Pat

Free Range Racing, another MR-2 LeMons team, advises on their website that their radio setup was crappy; I’m trying to confirm that they were using a FRS/GMRS setup, and if that’s the case, that confirms our other intel that the cheap walkie-talkie method is insufficient.

Other sources confirm that a rock solid radio setup is the best way to avoid getting black flagged, as passing under the yellow is a black-flag offense but is often very difficult to know as a driver unless you have solid radio contact from a spotter telling you about the yellow flag.

Advice from Other Teams, Knowing Is Half of the Battle!, MR2, Race Prep, Team Strategy Author: Pat

Being New Year’s Day and all, now’s the time to make those pesky resolutions. As most gyms know, peak attendance for the year is from about January 2 through mid-January, at which point all those “get in shape this year” resolutions start to fall through.

As TARPers, we have a better reason than illusory and abstract concepts like “heart disease” or “obesity” or “early onset of racing-car-based-demensia” to keep to our workout resolutions. Research shows that a race car driver’s heart rate gets as much of a workout while racing as if the driver were on the exercise bike, but the entire body gets an even harder workout due to coping with the mental stresses that are present, for example, when driving junkheap cars in a mass of other semi-suicidal junkheap car drivers. On the other hand, prolonged auto racing shows the same physical benefits that come from other high-activity athletic endeavors, such as better cardiovascular fitness and reduced atherosclerosis.

In other words, it would behoove all of us to be in good fitness for the race. Or at least better fitness than most of us are in now (Dave and his running habit are probably fine). So I’m going to use that to motivate better (and hopefully more) swimming sessions between now and the race.

Knowing Is Half of the Battle!, Team Strategy Author: Pat

It might not be a bad idea to make sure we’re all rowing together. Dave and Matt surely have a better handle on all the proactive business management talk, but I thought I’d take a crack at a prioritized list of our goals for this race.

1. Have fun;
2. Be competitive yet display good sportsmanship;
3. Still be running at the end of the race, completing as many laps as possible;
4. For budgetary concerns, be value-conscious — get the biggest bang for the buck;
5. Win.
6. Return home alive, preferably in one piece. This one is true both for drivers and car.

Please discuss.

Team Strategy Author: Pat

So I wondered if Google Maps had a good close-up of MSR Houston.  Turns out they do.  I decided to try to match the YT videos of people doing laps at past YEE-HAW Lemons with the map image.  As I thought, the entire race track is not used for Lemons–they cut out the 2 longest straights.  I’m sure MSR Houston required that, as they aren’t too keen to have their tarmac gouged by a handful of driveshafts busting out of their transmissions.  And if not a wrecked tranny in that ‘88 Crown Vic, there would probably some stupid number of blown engines brought on by that extra 4000′ of straight track.

Also interesting is that Lemons races backwards/clockwise.  Here is the MSR track layout.  You’ll notice that the “standard” Turn 1 is our (last) Turn 11.  But, on the MSRH Videos Page, click the “SCCA SM 1 of 3″ link and you’ll see some “real” racers in Miatas run the track, in the same direction that we will (although they run the front and back straights).  I’ve found it helpful to write down the course (T1-hard right, S-curves, hairpin, etc.) on a piece of paper then follow along as you watch someone’s driving video.  I figure if I do this enough before the race rolls around, I’ll not be seeing/learning the track the first time I’m behind the wheel.

Back to Google maps: I’ve made my own map (first time) of the track, and put my best guess at the racing line on there.  Thoughts?  Don’t know if others can edit/add to it or not; I added as “collaborators” those of you whose email addresses I know.  Last thing–you’ll see that the Google image doesn’t show the larger turn-out of Turn 11 onto the Pit straight.

Driving Tips, Knowing Is Half of the Battle!, Team Strategy Author: Matt