New plumage

Lockjaw getting a new accent stripe.

Yet more prep

TetanusNeon is back with its beautiful new cage. Time to weld the back
doors shut again and ready it for its new theme. No worries, it will
still be the lovable rusty neon racecar we know and love, but the
decorations will be more seasonal and less vaccine-centric.

All done

Okay, my math was incorrect... The course was 2 miles, so we covered
1190 miles on the track. Coincidentally that's about the distance we
must travel back to Dallas now.

Done. Clutch cable snapped. 595 laps, so 1309 miles. We aren't winners but it was great fun.

Night racing

Night racing is spooky. The difference in depth perception and apex
visibility really screwed up my lap times. Brian had no issues-- in
fact he's puzzled tha I had issues-- and Doctawife has dine well too.
Joe is a night-racing veteran so hopefully he can gain some positions
for us again.

We've fallen from our earlier high position and are now 28 laps back
of the leaders. The starter has developed issues so we lost time
trying to fix that, but it seems to be a problem with the connection
on the starter itself. The connection is too buried between the block
and exhaust manifold to handle here, so we're just push-starting the
car after every pit stop.

Time for another nap. Next driver change at 6:30.

1/3 done

19th place, 15 laps back of the lead car. Our starter is acting up so
the pit stops got longer. Team captain Joe is out there now to make up
the time.

Six hours in ...

Brian has built a quick car from all those mustangs and the Capri.
Power to pass and fun. Brian has us in 7th for a bit but I lost a
bunch of spots in my stint.

Doctawife has leapt in skill and was setting really good lap times.

Only 18 hours to go! (ouch)

Delay

Budget racing sometimes bites us. Poor old tires on our tow vehicle
are having problems so we've had to stop to replace some.

Partway there

One of many fuel stops on our way to The Lamest Day at Nelson Ledges.

Ohio bound

I haven't said much about it, but Houston prep isn't all that has been
going on. Doctawife and I are joining Brian and Joe's team for the
Ohio race this weekend! Wish us luck using an unfamiliar Mustang on an
unfamiliar track for an actual 24-hour race.
Yep-- this race is the one 24 Hours of Lemons that actually lasts 24
hours. Brian swapped the Mustang's grill for a Capri front end he
found since we need headlights.
Updates here if cellular coverage permits.

As for car #2...

The Margarita neon had a pretty rough time in Louisiana during "Laissez les Crapheaps Roulez"-- our rush-job engine rebuild (top-end) after the Gator-O-Rama race wasn't up to snuff, so it spent way more time in the pits than on the track. We're hoping to change its luck by renaming and redecorating it: now the vehicle will be known as the Fancy Lawnmower. (If St. Arnold's Brewery approves of the homage to their beer, we hope to get a sticker for it. If they disapprove, it will become the Rusty Lawnmower.)

Last weekend the team finally got around to pulling out the motor to see how bad things were going to be repair-wise. Bear in mind that the sparkly goo in the green pan pictured here was the oil from the car mid-race in Louisiana, and during my final lap with the car it let out a very impressive cloud of smoke, steam, and chaos before expiring. We knew things would be bad.

Once Andy started draining the oil pan of the car we knew it would be very very bad indeed. The oil, water from the cooling system, and oil treatment (added to try to quiet the knocking con-rod for a few more laps) had been churned into a grayish, thick goo that took ages to drain from the engine. Rob dubbed it "The Sludge." With all that tasty water, oil, and metal shavings, I declared it a suitable salad dressing for robots.

I left the engine pull to others while I did my hack-job of welding on Lockjaw, but once it was done I joined in the laughter at the poor motor.

Here's a closeup of cylinder 1: it didn't move at all when the crank was moved, the piston is rotated, cracked, and the cylinder wall has been punched through completely. Needless to say, we have about six people making calls and emails to try to locate a new motor in a junkyard. We already have a junkyard block but it's from a later-model SOHC and we're not sure if it will work with the DOHC head from the car. So if anyone knows of a cheap (or even free) motor from an early Neon, please let me know.

Junkheap coverage takes to the air

Would you like to read about LeMons stuff from professional writers? Within a short interval of each other, both Southwest Airlines and American Airlines featured stories about the 24 Hours of LeMons in their in-flight magazines. Both covered the Houston race back in February, the "Gator-O-Rama" event.

• Southwest: http://www.spiritmag.com/features/article/lap_dogs/
• American: http://www.americanwaymag.com/jay-lamm-houston-typical-car-race-the-24-hours-rubber-1

Enjoy!

Gearing up for October

The team has been a busy bunch this summer, preparing things for the next Houston-area 24 Hours of LeMons race in October. Making major repairs to two rusty neon racecars wasn't challenging enough, so Ramon & his son have started building out a third car. Our unofficial motto: "Gluttons for punishment (and beer)."

As I mentioned in the post-Louisiana entry, due to some rollover incidents at other LeMons races the tech inspections have gotten very thorough about roll cages. Upon close inspection of the cage in our original TetanusNeon we found some bends that would probably not pass tech inspection again, so the cage has been removed and a new one goes in this Saturday.

In addition to needing a new cage, Lockjaw needed work to the lower radiator support. Yep, the roof of this fine motoring machine isn't the only part with rust, and the lower support was so perforated that the engine shifted several inches when we revved it.

If this happened to a normal car, one would go find a new support, or perhaps a full donor front end, and replace the poor perforated beastie with metal of the size and shape that Dodge intended. That, however, is not The LeMons Way (especially as interpreted by SNAFU Racing). Our way? Take a brief 4-hour workshop on welding, buy a reconditioned welder, and start tacking in whatever metal can be scrounged from everyone's garages and workshops. Hammer whenever needed, repeat as necessary. Here I am making my first weld that isn't part of a class. Let's just say it was not a textbook example.

We did find two metal chunks of about the right size and it's all together now, with radiator held near where it once lived, a less-shifty motor mount, and even a tow hook now (may it never be needed). P.J. got the hang of welding very quickly, so unlike my work, the side he did doesn't look like it was done by a monkey with shaky hands.

Up next for Tetanus Neon: new cage, then we try to spruce up the visuals on the car.

Another dose of LeMons Lessons

A longer re-cap will have to wait until we have pulled photos from our cameras, but here are a few things we learned at Laissez Les Crapheaps Roulez this past weekend. For other information about the teams that actually won and stuff, I recommend Jalopnik.

• LeMons tech inspectors are being much pickier about cage construction, and if not for the friendship we've developed with Brian & Marty's 4-cylinder Mustang team from Dallas, we would not have been able to race. Brian saved our weekend with some much-needed welding.
• Having radios and a headset for the driver is really nice. Far better than pit boards and hand signals. Maybe I'll send Brian a set as a thank-you.
• No Problem Raceway is a good facility, but only so-so for spectating when one has to remain near the pit areas. We needed more people with us so I could go hang out in the bleachers with the good view!
• The teams who went were really cool to talk with, helpful in cross-team cooperation to solve problems, and I hope to see lots of them in Houston in October.
• Oil leaks can really ruin your weekend.
• So can overheating.
• So can loose coil wires. Always, always, always check all the connections first.
• Finally, perhaps rebuilding an engine on Wednesday to race on Saturday was... optimistic.

Results? The Margarita Neon is just not as well sorted engine-wise as the Tetanus Neon, but it does corner and brake quite well. So, um, we did some laps. Two more than it got in Gator-o-Rama in fact, and on a longer course, but it was sadly not running at the end of the race. About 50 teams entered, 46 started the race, and we came in 40th.

Read Jalopnik for the story on the unexpected flight of the team voted Peoples' Curse. That's right, rather than watch their $500 Miata get crushed, they trailered their car right out of the racetrack.

As I see it, some folks have difficulty tamping down their own competitive spirit for the amateur-filled crapheap LeMons experience, and that leads to problems as they fly by all the novice drivers. Brian said it simply: "Nobody wins LeMons." My own version: once you enter the 24 Hours of LeMons, you are a participant, not a competitor. While LeMons wears the trappings of a competitive driving event, in reality it's a wacky circus of unreliable cars and shoddy drivers. Set aside your game face and put a smile on instead, even if you have to use clown makeup to do so.

Ugh. 36th of 46 cars that started the race. 107 laps and a noisy rod.

Crazy day

In 24 hours we've welded, patched, overheated, oiled, and sweated.
Lots of sweat.

Yet despite the toughness of the day, it's still a fun day. Some other
teams have broken and left, so we won't come in last place. :)

More action awaits us tomorrow!

Pit time!

We keep having to pit for minor tech issues, but when running Jeff was
getting good lap times. After some more fixes Mary will be heading
out. A top finish is out of the question so now it's all about fun and
practice for October.

Darn

After a long day of driving, tech issues. They no longer like the roll
cage that was ok in February. :(

We're adding a brace, but time is not our friend.

Packed up

We're almost ready to set off for Louisiana!

What? Racing again already?

Although I've been silent about it here since Junior was serving as the team captain, the Margarita Neon is going to be at "Laissez les Crapheaps Roulez," the next running of the 24 Hours of LeMons, this weekend. The beloved Lockjaw (rusty neon racecar extraordinaire) will sit this one out, since it needs a fair bit of work to address issues from the last race.

No changes to the car, other than a new head gasket and much adjustment work to the valvetrain to try to prevent a recurrence of the issues the car had back in February. It'll be a lean operation this time-- one car, 5 drivers, no extra pit crew. Hopefully our new foray into technology will make up for that: we bought walkie-talkies and even a headset for the driver! (Yes, I know: welcome to 1960, about frickin' time, yadda yadda yadda.)

Pictures and updates may arrive sporadically based on cell-phone signal strength.