24 Hours of Lemons Colorado Race Recap

[Bizwacky]

Hey guys,

We had a great race in Colorado a few weeks ago. It was a long tow up to the middle of nowhere. Deer Trail’s amenities are limited, the nearest gas station was 20 minutes from the track, and the local diner was not nearly as good as the one at the Ozarks race.

BS inspection started Friday afternoon. We knew judge Mental from many previous races and he’s familiar with our unique brand of incompetence. With our history, our charm, and our generous deployment of cold hard bills (Dominican Republic Pesos, courtesy of Paul) we landed in class C with 10 penalty laps. This gave us an actual shot at winning. Class C cars are generally much slower and less reliable than our beautiful Nissan, if we could keep it on the track for 24 hours we’d have a real shot (Foreshadowing).

The test and tune proceeded smoothly, with everyone having a chance to learn the track, and we even had enough time to mount our critically important RGB LEDs. It was open to the public so we also had an opportunity to see how the 240 fares on the back straight relative to a Model S Plaid. Not well, it turns out. We finished the test and tune and swapped over to our race tires with everything holding up pretty well, with the exception of some mangled wheel stud thread and an uncooperative rounded off brake bleeder.

[Bizwacky]

The green flag dropped over a cold and rainy track. Despite that, the first stint went well. I started off and carved up the field, as everyone was quite tentative on a wet track with cold tires. I handed it off to Cooper and he put down some fast times, and (mostly) kept it on the track. Unfortunately a car catching fire red flagged the race, and that’s when our trouble started.

Our muffler began to drag the ground and we were meatball flagged. Our quick repair consisted of ripping the muffler off the car and swapping over to Paul. Unfortunately, after we fueled, Paul missed the stop to check gear at the end of the pit straight, and we had neglected to return to the judges after “repairing” our car.

The judges weren’t happy when we pulled back in, and we were parked and given our first real lemons penalty. We had to assemble a necklace out of 3 types of ziptie, 2 types of ducktape, and a broken car part from another team. We of course chose to use a phallic wooden cutout from our neighbor’s “Moosetang” which we accessorized quickly and beautifully. Having lost a ton of time, we sent Paul back out.

[Bizwacky]

The rest of the day proceeded well. Mike and Wes took their stints and put down good clean laps. As the sun set, we were gaining back time, we had made up our penalty laps and we still had a shot.

But the night is dark, and full of terrors. As Adam began his night stint, the track descended into chaos. Once the corner workers lose the ability to see what’s going on, impeded particularly by every team’s flagrant violation of the no unfocused light bar rule, it becomes a bit of a free-for-all on track. But with @Adam_Oas’s centuries of experience, he handled it beautifully, putting down our team’s fastest lap, in the dark!

As he handed it off to @michaelb, we were starting to feel a little fatigue. Without the back half of the exhaust, the cabin air had a distinct gasoline note and we were coming up on 12 hours of racing. Michael had a few too many energy drinks in preparation and was blinded by the need to pass our NEMESIS and took a couple of black flags for four-offs. He cleaned it up though and got into a rhythm. Then it was back to me to drive and to deal with some radio issues which hampered our pit calls for the rest of the race.

[Bizwacky]

Expert race strategists that we are, we split our pit crew duties into shifts, allowing our teammates with early morning driving shifts to get some sleep while the the overnight shift kept an eye on things. This was foiled somewhat by the weather. Temperatures dropped to 39 degrees overnight, and we were mostly unprepared. Adam’s buddy heater sputtered and died as he shivered in the trailer and we tried to keep warm grilling steaks outside.

We may have been tired, but we made it through the night and early morning without major issues. @cooper_cihak really shined in his first race, setting the fastest lap in our class by a few hundreths. And people say you shouldn’t hand an 18 year old guy the keys to your racecar. (Jokes on them, we don’t have keys.)

Unfortunately, the 24 hours of continuous racing began to take a toll on the car. More of the exhaust came loose and we had to come in to cable tie it back into place. It also turns out that we may have cut some corners with our finished-at-the-last-minute transmission rebuild, and we slowly lost the ability to keep the car in 4th. 23 hours in, our finishing position was secured, so we chose to park the car rather than risk further damage. We’d send Adam back out for the final laps to take the checkered flag. Which was better than the black Honda civic, which died trying to drive uphill on the penultimate corner and took the checker on a wrecker.

[dryad2b]

Yeah – we Texans are usually surprised by colder weather in more northern climes. I remember scrambling to find warm clothes when my team had to go to Kansas City, and they had snow!

[Bizwacky]

Altogether, it was an awesome weekend. We ended up 5th in class and 22nd overall I believe, and had a great time doing it. Our next race is Houston is 5 short weeks away, just enough time for another transmission rebuild… I hope.

If you’re interested in driving or crewing with us, or if you just want to shoot the shit about cars, we’re at the space most Thursday evenings around 7. Drop on by. We’re also pretty active in the DMS discord.

Thanks to the team for all the hard work on prep, particularly you guys that didn’t get to make it! And thanks to my brother for coming down from Denver and taking these great photos!

[Bizwacky]

Oh and here’s some video from the in-car gopro (Thanks digital media!). 19:33 is the best moment.

24 Hours of High Pains

[TBJK]

Lol. Your profile pic on YouTube looks like your 12.

[Adam_Oas]

@Bizwacky

But the night is dark, and full of terrors. As Adam began his night stint, the track descended into chaos.

Not sure if I’m supposed to be worried about the terrors or if I WAS the terror.

@Bizwacky

centuries of experience

I did have more grey hair after nearly freezing to death.