Back to work!
January 15th, 2009 Posted in LemonsWell, things are slowly getting back to “normal” with Jessica and I. Normal is a very relative term, so I’ll just say normal for us. As a follow up to our last post about the snow, we ended up getting a ton of snow, literally and figuratively. When it finally stopped snowing we had about 14″ of snow, the most the city had seen in decades. The weird thing is that not only did we get a ton of snow, but it stayed cold and snowed a few more times. I think in a three week period we’ve had it snow 5 times, compared to no snow last year!
After a LOT of snow shoveling and car shuffling, we managed to get our Subaru out and finished up just in time for the 24 Hours of LeMons race down in California. It was quite a sight to behold, just having the Subaru in front of the house is funny enough, but having me installing a cage at night in the front yard with huge piles of snow surrounding the car was even funnier. I’m guessing my grinding, cutting, pounding, welding, etc. isn’t the still of night that the neighbors were hoping for on Christmas eve and Christmas day, but I HAD to get the car ready! Scott Huhn also did us a big favor by mounting our race tires in the same nasty weather in the dark of night. Thanks a bunch to Scott, with Black Sun, for helping us out!
We rented a tow vehicle this year from Enterprise Rent-A-Truck, it actually worked out awesome. It was a 2007 Ford F250 4×4 crew cab diesel, which worked out perfect for this trip since we had 3 people and the dog, we needed 4×4 to tow over the pass (by law) and I just finished some work on the Soyburban so I didn’t want to take a chance having any troubles with no time to spare before the race. The truck ended up costing about $55/day for our week long rental, we thought it was a great deal. It only got about 12-12.5 mpg (compared to 13 mpg with our Suburban last year), but it had plenty of power. The “tire pressure sensor” dinging light did get annoying, Ford and/or Enterprise need to figure that out. My friend Paul lent us his trailer, that saved us a bundle of cash too!
The trek south was interesting. There had been chain requirements in Portland until Christmas morning, and we really wanted to avoid using chains. Not only are they a pain in the butt, but it was going to cost us an extra $140 if we used them. Dante’s plane arrived Christmas night (Thursday) at 11 pm, fortunately on time, so we decided to hit the road and get out of Portland while the going was good. We drove until about 4:30 am, at that point I was getting to sleepy to drive a truck and trailer and the passes ahead were still requiring chains, so we pulled off and got some sleep at a Motel 6. For future reference, Motel 6 doesn’t charge for pets, so we’ll use them more often when we have Kinzig with us! We hit the road around 10 am on Friday morning, by that time the chain requirements had been lifted and the passes were bone dry. Hurrah!
We arrived down in Willows at Thunderhill just before dark with time to finish prepping the car, get through tech, and get through BS Judging. We literally had wet paint rolling through tech, amongst the things we had left was painting new numbers on for this year. We hadn’t been able to do it because the car hadn’t seen any dry weather above 35 degrees for a couple of weeks! After busting my butt getting the car ready and having to do some last minute items once we arrived at the track, I was RELIEVED to get through tech with flying colors, no problems to fix, and of course no BS laps. The blue turbo Miata in front of us got nailed with 1200 laps, so of course our piece of crap sailed through BS judging in comparison to that cheater car.
Saturday morning was still pretty rough; even though we got through tech already, we had some last minute stuff to do before the race. We got an early start in the pits and swapped diff, trans, and engine oil, then installed the communication system, seat heater, and transponder. Before we knew it we were getting our first driver (Dante) loaded into the car, fueling it up, and sending him out to the track. Enrique showed up late and still had to get all of his essentials in order, fortunately he’s been to a couple of LeMons races before so he knew what was going on.
Things were going pretty slow out on the track, there was already lots of yellow flags during the first hour or so and Dante was mostly just following the leader under yellow. When Dante came in we dialed in the tire pressures and it was my turn to go out. My first stint out was pretty uneventful, I was driving under a yellow flag for most of the time I was out there.
The Subie definitely had a little more power than last year with the 2.2, but it was still no barnstormer, and the field was faster than last year so we were just able to keep up with the Joneses. There were a few *really* quick cars I went up against while I was out there, but the Subie still did a great job in the corners and I could fend off would-be passers if I could hold them back during the straights until we got to the corner, where I could earn back a little breathing room. This year we ran the Falken RT615s again, last year we had 195/60R14s but this year we stepped up to 205/50R15s. It was hard to notice any improvement in ultimate traction, but I did notice that there was a bit less “transition time” when you jerked the wheel from left to right. The car still had plenty of slop in the system between all of the stock rubber bushings (300,000 miles baby!), springs, etc. but, just like last year, once it leaned over and you loaded everything up, the car was extremely predictable and easy to put where you wanted it. The engine ran pretty well, which was a relief because we never got any time to test out the engine after the swap (due to the snow). We ended up leaving the 17mm rear bar in, even though we had a 20mm bar, as the car didn’t show any understeer issues (even in the dry). With so many yellow flags, the tires were wearing much less than they had last year, so the 17mm bar worked out fine.
I ended up coming out when a yellow flag was dropped and sent Tom out. Tom was a new guy we picked up at the last minute to get a sixth man. He knew Thunderhill and had a lot of track experience, so we were interested to see what he could do with the car. He went out there and got a fair amount of green flag time and some really good laps. Similar to Wade last year, having an experienced driver in the car was a lot of fun to watch. Tom was really clipping along…until he got a black flag. We were really confused as to what was going on, but someone called him in and said he had passed under yellow. The flags had been screwy all day, so we weren’t too horribly surprised, but it was disappointing of course.
Rick went in after Tom and did his thing. Since he showed up late, he hadn’t even sat in the car before he went out onto the track. I didn’t see much of Rick’s driving, since I had gone to get some food, then I was helping Jessica get ready for her driving stint. When Rick came in he said he liked how the car handled, but that was about it. I think he was disappointed with the lack of power compared to the Achieva in Detroit (190 hp vs. 120ish with our Subie)! Oh yeah, and he got a black flag for passing under yellow also, if I recall correctly. Like I said, the flags were screwy all day.
Jessica went in after Rick. She was really nervous, just like her first time out last year. I went to the tower so I could watch her all the way around the track and talked her through the track like she wanted me to. Of course, that includes calling out flags, traffic, etc. but I was also giving her tips on different lines to take and where she could pick up some speed. She got really comfortable with the first half of the course (from the chicanes to the corkscrew) but never got very comfortable with the section from the corkscrew through the chicanes. She came in when her time was up without any issues. She was pretty nervous, but happy that she didn’t have any problems and that she was picking up speed as she got more comfortable.
Steve went in for the last stint of the day. Steve was another guy that we picked up at the last minute, he heard about our open spot through a coworker that was running a different car at the event. Steve hadn’t had any wheel to wheel experience before, so he automatically got the short straw and got to drive last. He wasn’t out on the track too long before he got black flagged. He had gone off with all four wheels, but no other cars were around him and he brought it back on the track quickly and easily (It is a Subie, after all!), so we were surprised he got a flag. When he came in the track officials told us we were parked for the day, so Steve got short changed and we missed out on the last bit of racing of the day.
It was pretty weird getting done so early on Saturday. We went out to a Mexican restaurant, ate, talked with friends, had a few drinks, and still got back to the hotel before 10 pm!!!
Sunday was pretty mellow early in the day, we didn’t have much to do. We rotated the tires from front to rear, set tire pressures, topped off the fluids, and that was about it. Dante was first out again, same order as the first day.
Dante got a black flag during his stint on the track, not a good start to the second day. It was pretty minor, he had gone off the course into the dirt coming down the corkscrew, and even though there was no other cars involved he still got flagged for getting all four wheels off the course just like Steve did. Due to a miscommunication, I had to return to the hotel to get my safety gear and by the time I got back Dante and the crew were done with their black flag punishment and it was my turn to drive!
I got a lot more green flag driving the second day. I started pushing the car harder, now that everybody got a spin behind the wheel it was time to really have fun! Lots of shifting, winding the engine out to get maximum power, and cutting it a lot closer while navigating through traffic. I actually had a pretty gnarly contact with the Saturn going into turn one. I was coming on his inside and going about 5 mph faster than he was, and either they didn’t see me coming or didn’t care, because they cut in just like nobody was there and SLAM….the car ended up facing the wrong direction with an Acura headed my way! Fortunately, the Acura made it by safely and I left the clutch in and turned the wheel to roll backwards into the dirt and avoid traffic. The Subie didn’t much care, and I continued my stint without any problems. When I came in, there was still a chunk of plastic from the bodywork of the Saturn jammed into our bodywork.
Tom was next again and he went out there and started clicking off some more fast laps. He had a radiator crack early in his stint, the car started steaming a lot and then heating up, so he pulled it off and the problem was obvious. There was about a 6″ long crack in the plastic end tank, it looked like the tank had started to get weak in that area long ago and finally gave up the ghost. That’s LeMons racing for you! We brought a spare, so we tossed it in, filled it up, and hoped for the best. By the time Tom came back, the car was out of coolant and hot enough to cook an egg on, so something wasn’t right! We found a loose hose clamp, but otherwise nothing obvious, so we filled it up again and sent Rick out.
I didn’t get to see much of Rick’s racing again, same as the first day. At this point, the Subaru was starting to leak a fair bit of oil, which wouldn’t be too big of a deal except for our cooling system issue compounding the problem. Once the block ran dry, the engine got really freakin’ hot, of course. As the engine heated up, so did the oil, which made it very thin and it leaked more oil. A few drops became a lot of drops, and as we went through hard corners the oil would fling off the bottom of the engine and onto the exhaust. Again, this normally wouldn’t be too big of a deal…except our engine was getting so hot that the oil on the exhaust pipe was smoking quite a bit. We tried to fashion up some make shift heat shields, but with our rushed fabrication they really ended up just catching the oil and holding it against the exhaust better, so we eventually ditched them.
Jessica was really nervous for her second shot behind the wheel, mostly because she thought the car was going to catch on fire. We gave her a pep talk on what the possibilities were with the car and how to handle a fire (pull off the track and bail!) and sent her on her way. I was up in the tower again and talking to her over the comm system. She had a lot of yellow flag laps, which was good because we could talk about how the engine temp was…she kept reporting back that it was fine, but afterwards we realized that she must have run out of coolant pretty early and had been running bone dry for most of her stint. She was taking it easy for the first half hour or so, but when the car didn’t seem to be exploding or anything we told her to continue picking up the pace. She was really getting quick through the first half of the track and was rarely getting passed in that section, so you could tell she’d got more comfortable with the car and the whole fire potential. When she came into the pits at the end of her stint the engine was completely out of coolant and ridiculously hot. We tried to get some water into it while Rick got into the car but it took a while to get anything except a geyser simulation from our engine bay. We cleaned as much oil from the bottom of the engine as we could and got it topped off, then sent Steve out.
Steve was much more cautious in his first few laps than the first day, but with our engine running without coolant and leaking oil onto the exhaust, that made things easier in the “drive it slow” mentality. He started to pick up a bit more speed and, in short order, was black flagged again. This time it was for contact with another car, and the track officials told us we had to stick another driver in. Dante tossed a suit on and we did the oil clean, coolant fill routine while he got ready and sent him out. After 20 minutes or so Dante came in so Steve could get some more track time. We did the oil clean, coolant fill thing while Steve climbed into the car and told him to go out there and finish the race. He ran for about 20 or 30 more minutes before we called him back into the pits. The car was smoking so bad from the oil leaking onto the hot exhaust that we were starting to get more concerned about the possibility of a fire.
We timed it just right, because they threw the checkered flag about a minute after Steve pulled the car in. Steve also had a pretty spectacular failure, the upper radiator hose had burst with a bigger tear than I’ve ever seen a hose get. We figured there must have been so much steam building up in the cooling system that even with the radiator cap only half way on, the system over pressurized and popped the hose. He said it made a big POP sound, we didn’t doubt it after we saw the hose!
The winner of the race was a Geo that had a motorcycle engine in it. Sounds fun! We ended up placing 60th out of 102 teams racing, our fastest lap was a 1:39.5. That was a top 50 lap time, so not bad considering our low horsepower, and according to the lap number (163 out of 240) I’m guessing it was Tom driving.
I was so distracted that I literally didn’t take any pictures during the race, so most of the photos are stolen from jalopnik. Check out their pictures here (and lots more coverage on the site elsewhere):
http://jalopnik.com/5126078/the-24-hours-of-lemons-arse-freeze+a+palooza-ber-gallery
Finally, thanks a bunch to the guys who helped us out with race gear and such! In case you don’t know who you are:
Scott Huhn at Black Sun
Doug Heredos
Paul Labberton
Bill Beers
Wade Warren
One Response to “Back to work!”
By Dante on Jan 21, 2009
Great write up as always, Bryce!
Dante