Thunder Hill 09

Off to ThunderHill for the 2009 running of the ArseFreezeApolooza 24 Hours of Lemons

Wish us luck!

The Team

Thanks to:
Leo "OMG THE BACK END IS SLIPPERY" Clark
Dennis "Better late than never" Healy
Joe "Why am I still awake, and I'm not even driving" Thompson
Doug "I hate Volvo's" Updenkelder
Matt "Can I get a Liter of Cola?" Updenkelder

Not pictured:
Erik "I am too important for my own team" Torgeson
Michael "Yeah, peace out" Ericksen

I had a blast guys, congrats on 13th, and the ugliest car award.

ChumpCar aftermath

Man, what a great time! Overall, our team did very well with all things considered. We finished in 13th out of 39 cars and managed to keep our lap times very consistent. We had a couple snafoos

I will detail our failures, and what I attribute them to. Erik and I have invited a couple of the drivers from the PIR race over this weekend to get the car back together for the Thill race... while they may not be too excited about it, they have graciously offered to help.

1) Sometime throughout the night, we lost the C-clip that held the shift linkage in place. We lost 2nd and 4th midway through Erik's stint and attempted to fix it with zipties. When the first ziptie broke about 20 minutes later, we quadrupled the number of zipties and it seemed to be holding. As a precaution, we started wondering the pits for someone with an MR2. We found a donor car (someone's daily driver) to borrow the c-clip out of, and changed it out at the next driver change. We have a spare, so this shouldnt be an issue

2) We developed a pretty nasty oil leak with about 2 hours left in the race... we were losing about a qt an hour through a small hole in the oil pan. It's on the back of the pan and I'm pretty sure its right where I welded the baffle back together. I'm a welding nub, so im sure I weakened the metal enough that it finally gave way 23.5 hours into the race. We have 2 oil pans, so we will either have Dave fix this one.. or put a stock one back on.

3) Our tires were awesome! Not as grippy as the RT615's, but lasted the entire race! I'm pretty sure we could get 48 hours out of a set. They are predictable like the TOYO's, but half the cost. We had 4 mounted and balanced for about $225. We ran Dunlop DZ101's. For the money, I was very happy with them.

4) Dave, your race pads in the front are GONE... we went through the pad, went to metal and metal and finally threw the pad across the track at turn 10. This caused us to lose the piston out the back as well.. causing fluid to leak all over the inner wheel. Dennis pulled in the pits with the wheel literally on fire with 45 minutes to go. We put out the fire, got Dennis out of the car and made sure everything else was looking alright. We then pushed the car all the way back to pit-out and shoved Dennis back in the car... On the final lap, Dennis went out for one more lap with no brakes.. just to get the checkered flag. We finished!

Upon reflection, I still woudlnt have changed the pads during the break... i thought we had plenty of pad to finish the race, i was wrong.. but only by 30 minutes :)

At least we won a trophy, although it's not the best award to be known for. We pulled off the "ugliest car on the trailer BEFORE the race"

Friday down... Race day here we come!

Holy shit it's cold... and wet

Friday went off without any notable hitches. We ended up with 39 cars showing up (2 didn't show).

Highlights:

I've seen many shark themes... MANY.. and this one takes first place in my book for creativity. The whole front end of the car was custom molded!











What crap can race would be complete without a star wars theme?















What to do with that damn parts car that's gathering moss in your backyard? Make a BBQ out of it of course! Nice work guys!

And yes, that's a Fiat X/19

Off to the races!

It's 8am... and were headed to the track!

Expanded coverage of the race will be posted here! Stay tuned!

Test Drive! Wow it's loud...

Ignore the first 2 minutes.. this is the first time i've gotten our camera to work.. Turns out HDD cameras don't like being in cars. Scored 2 8 gig memory cards for my DCR-SR85. Success!

ChumpCar Portland: T-minus 10 days

The inaugural ChumpCar race at Portland International Raceway is now 10 days away... and are we ready? Yeah right...

Current items on the To-do list:

-Fix oil cooler (JB Weld?)
-Finish motor break-in
-Install radios
-Mount / balance spare tires on spare wheels (yes, we bought spare wheels for $125 on craigslist)
-Diagnose and fix water leak? (Erik fails at soldering)
-Mount lightbar
-Wire headlights
-Tape headlights
-Change oil
-Bleed brakes
-Finish windmill 2.0
-Install "boost gauge"
-FPR?
-Find another windshield wiper
-Replace wiper blades (because if we don't, its going to rain)