Tuesday, October 21, 2008
For Sale
Well, I'm back to Cali and this things gotta go. There are really no new pictures, but here how's she sat at the end of the race.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Last Ditch Efforts
Meanwhile Darnell was bargaining for a probe radiator and some hoses. None of use had the energy to solve that puzzle at the moment though. I curled up in the Hippo and awaited the rain they had been talking about all night. Where was the rain? This would be a perfect time for it to start raining!!
Between the night sweats and overall stress, I may have gotten a couple hours of sleep. Morning came and the car was in the same place.
We knew the crew wouldn't be back until 10:00am so we headed out for some breakfast and took a trip to the parts store. The girl at Autozone opened early and we got some hoses we needed. Not bad actually. We were shooting for maybe 4 hours on the track at this rate. Nice.
We went back to the track and waited for our radiators. One thing Darnell hadn't forgotten was the fact that he had hit someone and they had called a penalty. Last night we weren't able to get the car down there to serve the penalty, but they said once it got running to bring it down and do the time. We thought we would get it out of the way while we wait for our parts.
The dart landed on the Sarah Palin penalty.
Innovation at the track had lead to this new penalty. The accused had to put on Lipstick, get sprayed with racoon piss, (which they must have ran out of), go hunt a bear in the pits ans then change a baby. What do this have to do with racing? Absolutely nothing.
So with that out of the way, our new buddies showed up with two radiators out of various Volkswagens. Everything looked like it was going to be ok, but the damage was worse then we had foreseen. The coolant pipe, (which was rust now), that runs under the oil cooler and in turn cools the oil cooler had busted a hole as well. We didn't have enough tube or connectors to jimmy something up. It was getting close to 1:00pm by now and the people's curse was coming up. I said, we could get what we need from the store and maybe get on the track by 2:00. The race is over at 3:00. Who wants to watch a car get destroyed and relax? So we did the latter. It was a valiant effort and I couldn't have been more thankful from Jason and the boys from Ann Arbor for not giving up hope. There was just too much to do and our energy was so low at this point.
I do remember the next morning, waking up and thinking in my head, we just have to run a hose to bypass the heater core outlet and splice a T in there, man....oh well, still would've had to go to the store. It's really amazing how much the fatigue and emotion really swallows you up. You sit there and cannot believe how hard it is to fix something, when really it might not be that bad. Granted there wasn't much time left in the race, but I really couldn't see the car working at the moment. Our team was beat down and a shower was just around the corner. We were happy with how far we had come and pulling the plug when we did. Well, next year we know now.
Between the night sweats and overall stress, I may have gotten a couple hours of sleep. Morning came and the car was in the same place.
We knew the crew wouldn't be back until 10:00am so we headed out for some breakfast and took a trip to the parts store. The girl at Autozone opened early and we got some hoses we needed. Not bad actually. We were shooting for maybe 4 hours on the track at this rate. Nice.
We went back to the track and waited for our radiators. One thing Darnell hadn't forgotten was the fact that he had hit someone and they had called a penalty. Last night we weren't able to get the car down there to serve the penalty, but they said once it got running to bring it down and do the time. We thought we would get it out of the way while we wait for our parts.
The dart landed on the Sarah Palin penalty.
Innovation at the track had lead to this new penalty. The accused had to put on Lipstick, get sprayed with racoon piss, (which they must have ran out of), go hunt a bear in the pits ans then change a baby. What do this have to do with racing? Absolutely nothing.
So with that out of the way, our new buddies showed up with two radiators out of various Volkswagens. Everything looked like it was going to be ok, but the damage was worse then we had foreseen. The coolant pipe, (which was rust now), that runs under the oil cooler and in turn cools the oil cooler had busted a hole as well. We didn't have enough tube or connectors to jimmy something up. It was getting close to 1:00pm by now and the people's curse was coming up. I said, we could get what we need from the store and maybe get on the track by 2:00. The race is over at 3:00. Who wants to watch a car get destroyed and relax? So we did the latter. It was a valiant effort and I couldn't have been more thankful from Jason and the boys from Ann Arbor for not giving up hope. There was just too much to do and our energy was so low at this point.
I do remember the next morning, waking up and thinking in my head, we just have to run a hose to bypass the heater core outlet and splice a T in there, man....oh well, still would've had to go to the store. It's really amazing how much the fatigue and emotion really swallows you up. You sit there and cannot believe how hard it is to fix something, when really it might not be that bad. Granted there wasn't much time left in the race, but I really couldn't see the car working at the moment. Our team was beat down and a shower was just around the corner. We were happy with how far we had come and pulling the plug when we did. Well, next year we know now.
Barnyard
We lined up to roll around the track and get used to everything. I was first in the car. Followed by Curtis, Gian, then Darnell. They tested out the transpoders for about 20 laps. It was a three quarter mile oval and it was not smooth. There were basically two sweepers on either side of the oval with two chicanes breaking up the speed. An average lap time was around 35 seconds. After everyones transponders checked out, they threw down the green flag and we we're out.
It was wet, bumpy and messy. The rear end on blown shocks and 460 treadwear tires made flying out around the sweepers a joy, the front was bouncing all over the place. Super frantic racers were passing me left and right. Jesus, I thought, it's the first lap of 24 hours. The car seemed to be actually ok. Nothing was really wrong. It was just a piece of shit with shitty tires and a blown suspension. Everything checked out! I drove for about an hour, and passed it off to Curtis.
Curtis took it easy around the course first time out, feeling out the car. We all agreed that the car had to last for 24 hours and although it felt good to try and compete while we were out on the track, we really hadn't set up a competitive car. Curtis took care of business with no problems. We were somewhere around 29th place after 2 hours. Gian was next up.
Gian got behind the wheel and took on the course like a natural. Unfortunately for the car it had a huge roll cage in it blocking visibilty around the a-pillar and no passenger side mirror. On a three quarter mile track with 50 some cars, seeing your opponents is not always easy. Basically a purple gran prix came out of no where, cut Gian off, Gian stomped on the brakes and boom, under-steers into a pylon. And well in 24 hours of Lemons, hitting anything on the track results in a penalty. Time to throw the dart.
Some of the more harsh penalties included covering the driver with 50% Saro Corn Syrup 50% water mixture followed by feathers from a pillow. There was also the popular Max Mosley where two Nazi Strippers paddle your backside while you order and deliver tea to the judges.
Gian threw the dart at the, in my opinion, best possible penalty. Barnyard! The next thing we know, an arc angel is welding a pig to our roof. I was pretty excited, Gian was not.
Nonetheless, we didn't have to wait out the 30 minutes that are usally required for penalties and Gian was back out on the track with a tail light and pig on the roof. I was hoping we could just keep adding things to that roof throughout the race.
Next up Darnell took the driver's seat. We were required to have four drivers and Darnell stepped up at the last minute. He had experience racing, so I said, hey what the hell. First round out he was burning up the track. We had found our ringer. We rose to 24th place. Things were looking up.
It had been about 3 or 4 hours by now and coolant was starting to leak from the radiator around the upper rad hose. I had always turned my VWs off to let them cool down, but because we were running straight water, turning the car on and off caused spikes and expansion in the coolant system making the leaks even worse. Live and learn. We filled the expansion tank up and I hit the track.
First lap around I'm flying past people. Then i realize oh yellow flag. But it's not like a bunch of people waving yellow flags, it's just some yellow stop light on the side of the track. Either way I got black flagged with a couple others who didn't see the caution and had to wait it out. 15 minutes. I was back on the track, but shortly after the only gauge remaing low coolant level light went on. Good thing nothing else worked, we would've been pulling in all day!
At this point, I belive our VW gardian angels came out of no where to save the day. We were pretty tired and just staring at an overheating veedub engine. 4 guys from Ann Arbor rolled up to ask us some questions about participating next year and I told them it was a good idea to run a 16v if they like overheating cars. They said, eh no problem and got to work under the hood. Thanks God! They spliced the fan switch to run the fan at top speed through a relay independent of the coolant sensor. Duh! I was tired. Gian also saved the day with a little Radiator leak fix. Everyone was feeling good, we had a crew of about 6 now and I was ready to get back in the car.
I had been out on the track for maybe 45 minutes. I was trying to get a lot of laps in. The coolant issue had seemed to subside but the car was getting pretty shakey and running like crap. The engine had gotten a lot louder and the engine just wasn't liking life. The right wheel was chattering around every corner and the left front wheel was bouncing all over the place. I was redlining second thinking, how much longer can we do this. The coolant light started flashing and I thought I better bring it back in.
This is where I really start to lose track of time. All I know is that once it got dark, I don't remember much of the sequence of events until we were out at 2 in the morning. So there's a big gap in my mind from about 8 until 2 in the morning. Or maybe I was just on the track a lot longer than I had thought. Or by track, I mean pit.
The VW boys were in the pits and they went to work. I sat in the car in my harness as Gian and 4 guys jacked the car up and diagnosed the problem. Bent tie rod on one side and blow ball joint on the other. Hey let's go ask that team in first place with a huge trailer and a parts jetta if they have a ball joint! Hey guess what? The guy is a VW tech and has over $5000 in dealer parts, and well I know this sounds rediculous, but was bought an OEM Ball joint for $42.70. No joke, straight up dealer cost on the track, what are the odds. And once again, I thought this was a LeMons race??
I got out of the car while everyone cranked on the suspension. The leak on the radiator had fixed it self from the sealant we bought and everything once again was looking good. It felt good. We had a race team, I was a driver and it almost felt like real racing. It was about 10:00 and I was off again on again with these little issues for awhile. Then I hit the back of a Plymouth Furry.
Nothing bad happened to the car. Purley cosmetic. We pulled the fender a bit so it wouldn't hit the tire and I gave the keys to Curtis. Curtis started throwing the car around the track like a pigskin on Labor Day. We were gaining once again, but all the pitting had put us down in 34th. He put in about 2 hours or just under and brought the car in sounding quite loud. Uh...exhaust leak...sure that's it..just race the thing.
We were all getting pretty tired and it was maybe around 1:00 or 2:00am at this point. Darnell got in the car and took it out to the track. I got on the phone and saw the car coming back into the pits. Ok, ok I thought, no big deal. But the front end was crunched down and it didn't look good. I popped the hood and saw a shattered upper radiator flange and ripped up radiator hose torn up from the alternator. Shut it off. Damn, where's the parts store at 2:00 in the morning?
Our fighter was weak, don't know how many more rounds he could go.
We had already used our get out of Jail free card all evening, but our crew was back to look at the situation. We needed a radiator and hoses. Or that's what we thought at the time. The "VW dealarship at pit 22," had a new one for a Mk3 for $200. Eh, I think we're going to try something else. Because we still don't have hose or know if anything else was damaged from the impact. One of the new crew that we had inherited said he would drive back to Ann Arbor and get a radiator from his garage. Man I thought, that's nice, but really it'll be over 2 hours before you get back and I'm starting to see visions of piano bars and sandy beaches. They said they were coming back in the morning around 10:00 for the conclusion of the race. I decided to make the executive decision and let the team sleep until morning when the boys would be back with some radiators.
It was wet, bumpy and messy. The rear end on blown shocks and 460 treadwear tires made flying out around the sweepers a joy, the front was bouncing all over the place. Super frantic racers were passing me left and right. Jesus, I thought, it's the first lap of 24 hours. The car seemed to be actually ok. Nothing was really wrong. It was just a piece of shit with shitty tires and a blown suspension. Everything checked out! I drove for about an hour, and passed it off to Curtis.
Curtis took it easy around the course first time out, feeling out the car. We all agreed that the car had to last for 24 hours and although it felt good to try and compete while we were out on the track, we really hadn't set up a competitive car. Curtis took care of business with no problems. We were somewhere around 29th place after 2 hours. Gian was next up.
Gian got behind the wheel and took on the course like a natural. Unfortunately for the car it had a huge roll cage in it blocking visibilty around the a-pillar and no passenger side mirror. On a three quarter mile track with 50 some cars, seeing your opponents is not always easy. Basically a purple gran prix came out of no where, cut Gian off, Gian stomped on the brakes and boom, under-steers into a pylon. And well in 24 hours of Lemons, hitting anything on the track results in a penalty. Time to throw the dart.
Some of the more harsh penalties included covering the driver with 50% Saro Corn Syrup 50% water mixture followed by feathers from a pillow. There was also the popular Max Mosley where two Nazi Strippers paddle your backside while you order and deliver tea to the judges.
Gian threw the dart at the, in my opinion, best possible penalty. Barnyard! The next thing we know, an arc angel is welding a pig to our roof. I was pretty excited, Gian was not.
Nonetheless, we didn't have to wait out the 30 minutes that are usally required for penalties and Gian was back out on the track with a tail light and pig on the roof. I was hoping we could just keep adding things to that roof throughout the race.
Next up Darnell took the driver's seat. We were required to have four drivers and Darnell stepped up at the last minute. He had experience racing, so I said, hey what the hell. First round out he was burning up the track. We had found our ringer. We rose to 24th place. Things were looking up.
It had been about 3 or 4 hours by now and coolant was starting to leak from the radiator around the upper rad hose. I had always turned my VWs off to let them cool down, but because we were running straight water, turning the car on and off caused spikes and expansion in the coolant system making the leaks even worse. Live and learn. We filled the expansion tank up and I hit the track.
First lap around I'm flying past people. Then i realize oh yellow flag. But it's not like a bunch of people waving yellow flags, it's just some yellow stop light on the side of the track. Either way I got black flagged with a couple others who didn't see the caution and had to wait it out. 15 minutes. I was back on the track, but shortly after the only gauge remaing low coolant level light went on. Good thing nothing else worked, we would've been pulling in all day!
At this point, I belive our VW gardian angels came out of no where to save the day. We were pretty tired and just staring at an overheating veedub engine. 4 guys from Ann Arbor rolled up to ask us some questions about participating next year and I told them it was a good idea to run a 16v if they like overheating cars. They said, eh no problem and got to work under the hood. Thanks God! They spliced the fan switch to run the fan at top speed through a relay independent of the coolant sensor. Duh! I was tired. Gian also saved the day with a little Radiator leak fix. Everyone was feeling good, we had a crew of about 6 now and I was ready to get back in the car.
I had been out on the track for maybe 45 minutes. I was trying to get a lot of laps in. The coolant issue had seemed to subside but the car was getting pretty shakey and running like crap. The engine had gotten a lot louder and the engine just wasn't liking life. The right wheel was chattering around every corner and the left front wheel was bouncing all over the place. I was redlining second thinking, how much longer can we do this. The coolant light started flashing and I thought I better bring it back in.
This is where I really start to lose track of time. All I know is that once it got dark, I don't remember much of the sequence of events until we were out at 2 in the morning. So there's a big gap in my mind from about 8 until 2 in the morning. Or maybe I was just on the track a lot longer than I had thought. Or by track, I mean pit.
The VW boys were in the pits and they went to work. I sat in the car in my harness as Gian and 4 guys jacked the car up and diagnosed the problem. Bent tie rod on one side and blow ball joint on the other. Hey let's go ask that team in first place with a huge trailer and a parts jetta if they have a ball joint! Hey guess what? The guy is a VW tech and has over $5000 in dealer parts, and well I know this sounds rediculous, but was bought an OEM Ball joint for $42.70. No joke, straight up dealer cost on the track, what are the odds. And once again, I thought this was a LeMons race??
I got out of the car while everyone cranked on the suspension. The leak on the radiator had fixed it self from the sealant we bought and everything once again was looking good. It felt good. We had a race team, I was a driver and it almost felt like real racing. It was about 10:00 and I was off again on again with these little issues for awhile. Then I hit the back of a Plymouth Furry.
Nothing bad happened to the car. Purley cosmetic. We pulled the fender a bit so it wouldn't hit the tire and I gave the keys to Curtis. Curtis started throwing the car around the track like a pigskin on Labor Day. We were gaining once again, but all the pitting had put us down in 34th. He put in about 2 hours or just under and brought the car in sounding quite loud. Uh...exhaust leak...sure that's it..just race the thing.
We were all getting pretty tired and it was maybe around 1:00 or 2:00am at this point. Darnell got in the car and took it out to the track. I got on the phone and saw the car coming back into the pits. Ok, ok I thought, no big deal. But the front end was crunched down and it didn't look good. I popped the hood and saw a shattered upper radiator flange and ripped up radiator hose torn up from the alternator. Shut it off. Damn, where's the parts store at 2:00 in the morning?
Our fighter was weak, don't know how many more rounds he could go.
We had already used our get out of Jail free card all evening, but our crew was back to look at the situation. We needed a radiator and hoses. Or that's what we thought at the time. The "VW dealarship at pit 22," had a new one for a Mk3 for $200. Eh, I think we're going to try something else. Because we still don't have hose or know if anything else was damaged from the impact. One of the new crew that we had inherited said he would drive back to Ann Arbor and get a radiator from his garage. Man I thought, that's nice, but really it'll be over 2 hours before you get back and I'm starting to see visions of piano bars and sandy beaches. They said they were coming back in the morning around 10:00 for the conclusion of the race. I decided to make the executive decision and let the team sleep until morning when the boys would be back with some radiators.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Down River
Pink plastic on the windows, 4 inches of rain in the forecast and only two members ready to go, we hit the road.
We then proceeded to the gas station to spend $180 on gas for the car truck and tanks. We finally got on the road by 7:30 with the sound of pounding pink plastic behind us the whole way down to Toledo...Gigity. We got down to Toledo around 9am to find our pit being the puddled up area of stones and mud near the last real pit. No way. This is not really happening.
We started to set up next to the only other Mk2 VW team. They were funny guys with a mk2 golf. Thankfully the last bit of pavement freed up and we moved over to that location. See that puddle, that's where we almost were.
It might look like we have some sort of decent pit area to some, but we really didn't come with much. Gian brought everything he had down including one of the easy-up tents and we brought a generator and another easy-up tent. That's about it. Other teams had full trailers and parts cars. The team next to us brought TVs. This was Ohio.
So we set up camp and then it was off to wait in the rain for inspection.
My ass was wet, my jeans shot and obviously I chose to wear chucks in the rain, what better shoe in such a climate! I was starting to not see the humor of racing 24 hours in this. We got through inspection with no real problem. We had little to worry about compared to some other entries, and we hadn't done anything to the car other than safety. A car down the line was the supra that eneded up winning the event with a super clean motor and everything. Even at 10:00 in the morning I was saying $500?? Don't think so buddy.
We didn't have to do much for inspection besides put a bungy cord around the battery and we actually did too much compared to the other teams. Alot of people left their lights in or didn't have any taillights at all. Some teams roll cages were pretty pathetic. I felt good that we just went by the rules on the site. Nothing to worry about really. Soon after that they called for the driver's meeting, which was nothing like the driver's meetings I had been to in the past.
Jay starts off by saying, "Who hasn't driven on a race track before?" Half the people raise their hands to an uncomfortable murmur. I was like, hmm...that's settling, hillbilly bumpkin racing here we come! The rest of the meeting lasted about 15 minutes, saying green means go, yellow mean caution don't pass, and black means get off the track. That's it have fun, don't die and it is dangerous, but have fun.
The rain had settled down a bit by now to everyone's surprise. I thought it was a strange coincidence that the rain stopped right before the race in Toledo, but not in Detroit, or west of Toledo or East of Toledo. Call it fate, call it what you may, but one thing was for certain and that was that we we're going to race.
We went back to the car and attempted to understand a race harness. You might have seen this already in the video Curtis posted up today, but if you haven't, "make the jump," and scroll down to the video.
Once I got strapped in I started her off and rolled up behind the other cars getting ready to stage. The puddle in the seat was no longer the rain. I remember them saying to pull the straps down until I couldn't breath, and I really couldn't breath, but that soon went away as I rolled onto the track.
We then proceeded to the gas station to spend $180 on gas for the car truck and tanks. We finally got on the road by 7:30 with the sound of pounding pink plastic behind us the whole way down to Toledo...Gigity. We got down to Toledo around 9am to find our pit being the puddled up area of stones and mud near the last real pit. No way. This is not really happening.
We started to set up next to the only other Mk2 VW team. They were funny guys with a mk2 golf. Thankfully the last bit of pavement freed up and we moved over to that location. See that puddle, that's where we almost were.
It might look like we have some sort of decent pit area to some, but we really didn't come with much. Gian brought everything he had down including one of the easy-up tents and we brought a generator and another easy-up tent. That's about it. Other teams had full trailers and parts cars. The team next to us brought TVs. This was Ohio.
So we set up camp and then it was off to wait in the rain for inspection.
My ass was wet, my jeans shot and obviously I chose to wear chucks in the rain, what better shoe in such a climate! I was starting to not see the humor of racing 24 hours in this. We got through inspection with no real problem. We had little to worry about compared to some other entries, and we hadn't done anything to the car other than safety. A car down the line was the supra that eneded up winning the event with a super clean motor and everything. Even at 10:00 in the morning I was saying $500?? Don't think so buddy.
We didn't have to do much for inspection besides put a bungy cord around the battery and we actually did too much compared to the other teams. Alot of people left their lights in or didn't have any taillights at all. Some teams roll cages were pretty pathetic. I felt good that we just went by the rules on the site. Nothing to worry about really. Soon after that they called for the driver's meeting, which was nothing like the driver's meetings I had been to in the past.
Jay starts off by saying, "Who hasn't driven on a race track before?" Half the people raise their hands to an uncomfortable murmur. I was like, hmm...that's settling, hillbilly bumpkin racing here we come! The rest of the meeting lasted about 15 minutes, saying green means go, yellow mean caution don't pass, and black means get off the track. That's it have fun, don't die and it is dangerous, but have fun.
The rain had settled down a bit by now to everyone's surprise. I thought it was a strange coincidence that the rain stopped right before the race in Toledo, but not in Detroit, or west of Toledo or East of Toledo. Call it fate, call it what you may, but one thing was for certain and that was that we we're going to race.
We went back to the car and attempted to understand a race harness. You might have seen this already in the video Curtis posted up today, but if you haven't, "make the jump," and scroll down to the video.
Once I got strapped in I started her off and rolled up behind the other cars getting ready to stage. The puddle in the seat was no longer the rain. I remember them saying to pull the straps down until I couldn't breath, and I really couldn't breath, but that soon went away as I rolled onto the track.
First Drive (aka no idea how to get into a race car)
Allen's getting strapped in to the GLI for it's first drive on the track. Once we got him set up, he joined the rest of the lemons cruising down pit row and on to the track for a few warm up laps.
Enjoy as no one has any idea how to use a race harness. The whole time building the car we had this harness and everyone just kept asking, any idea on how to use this thing? Eh...someone at the track will know....
Edit by Pink
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Challenging Reality
Well, that's how she ended up. The other side of the car is a little worse. We ran the car from 3pm until 2 in the morning, when it was brought into the pits rendered dead from a broken radiator due to a front impact collision. We did all we could including having some guys drive back to Ann Arbor and come back in the morning with replacement VW radiators, but the system was shot. With rusted up broken coolant pipes, a fuel leak, bent tie rod and pig on the roof we reluctantly pulled the plug.
All in all, we completed 428 laps with a fastest lap of 32 seconds. At our best we in 24th place with something like 250 laps completed finishing 40th out of 54. For a car no one had ever driven, built in 2 months by three people, I'd say that's pretty fortunate. I felt it was a successful project of moving all in with an acceptance of a fearful potential failure at any moment. Everyone left with a feeling of accomplishment.
Curtis is working on some videos and I'll post a synopsis of the race in a couple days, but for now I can't think about cars, yet you can check out some photos on my flickr page. Enjoy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/prollig
Jalopnik!!!
We got our car posted in the coverage of the race this weekend, so check it out on Jalopnik.com!
I'll just leave this one on here for the time being cause Allen and I are going to be preparing a huge post with all the stories and pics/vids from the weekend. Keep your eyes on the blog for the full update!
I'll just leave this one on here for the time being cause Allen and I are going to be preparing a huge post with all the stories and pics/vids from the weekend. Keep your eyes on the blog for the full update!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
27 and orange
There she is. How she stands as of tonight. We're still waiting on some stickers and some other details, but that is the speciality high tech roll on paint job. Here's a series of how we got there.
Thanks to ArtCenter, I learned a little something about taping off models. This was probably the most fun we had with the car up until this point. And a roll on paintjob for under $50 can't be beat.
And then it rained. Gian and I were under that tarp putting the hubs with new wheel bearings back on. I was also inside the car as we bled the brakes. It was surprisingly cozy, and blue. There weren't many pictures of us painting it orange because it was about 50 degrees and raining. Guess what the forecast calls for this weekend?
And here are some more pics of the car today at the welders shop. He finished up the welding process with a tig. He also did airbrushing. There were many slutty women airbrushed on pretty much anything that one might find in a small workshop.
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