I’ve been told that a slight right drift is good, as it keeps you from drifting into oncoming traffic.
That said, my truck has a rather pronounced right drift which is tiring over time and it needs to be adjusted. Also need to rotate tires and check air now that the weather has changed. Both of these can affect perceived alignment.
If there is any oncoming traffic, anywhere the Lemons car is driven, there are bigger issues going on…
I’ve encountered oncoming traffic at all 12 Lemons races I’ve driven in at some point or other. ( even if it has been me going backwards once or twice )
The race is this weekend! We will be heading out friday morning for the practice day, and then the actual race is saturday and sunday. It is open to spectators, but it is an hour from DMS, there is an entrance fee, and hopefully it will be very boring to watch as we drive in a circle hundreds of times.
Boring? No way! Not when there’s cars decorated in fun themes, drivers spinning out, and crazy repair jobs going on in the pits! Fingers crossed those last two are happening to the DMS team though 
So if anyone wants to spectate I can attest to it being a good time! And you might also get the honorary title of “spotter” with me and radio to the drivers about fuel levels 
I only have one question. Is it BYOB?
Yep! Or we’ll share from our cooler
And bonus points for anyone who comes dressed on theme! I’ll be Princess Peach 
Yeah … I don’t do costumes.
Aww come on… I’ve got a Luigi hat and mustache with your name on it!
Car is ready, just need to screw on the cones (this year they wont be falling off) and hood ornament the morning of the race (they prevent car cover from going on)
Already at the racetrac(k) 
Car and drivers made it through check in and safety/tech inspections today and got some practice laps in. Little bit of fun with costumes and bribery may have helped things along 
Now to rest up for racing!
For anyone wanting to spectate, all the info’s on the website or here’s a quick summary…
Location: Eagles Canyon Raceway, 7629 FM 51, Decatur, TX (approx. 1 hr drive from DMS)
Race Time: Saturday 10am-6:30pm, Sunday 9am-3pm
Entry Cost: $30 (CASH ONLY) weekend entry pass
We had a successful weekend, we both started and finished the race, but for an unknown reason we blew the head gasket about 6 hours into the 14.5 hour race, so we were out of action while we replaced the head gasket in the pits.
While on track I noticed occasional white smoke from under the left side of the hood, we brought it in to find out that there was no more coolant, only steam in the radiator. The smoke was steam coming out of the overflow bottle. (The temp gauge on the cluster wasn’t even at H yet… Having an actual temp gauge would be good) After carefully refilling the cooling system we did more tests, and saw steam out the tail pipe and foaming out of the radiator cap indicating a blown head gasket.
6 hours later:
We were able to cross the finish line with a running car*
The team that impressively went to great lengths to get the car running again:
*While the car was running again, when we were taking the camshafts and upper timing chain off, we had the engine at TDC, and then marked on the chain and sprockets to be to align it all when reassembling. But I only used sharpie on oily metal, and the alignment marks got rubbed off the idler sprocket (connects lower and upper timing chain) during handling.
When reassembling I think I got the chain one link off on the idler sprocket, so the camshafts are not correctly aligned with the crankshaft. Surprisingly the engine would still run (not off enough for valves to hit pistons), but it wont idle and is way down on power. We also destroyed the starter somehow, either from the overheating or the coolant and went everywhere as we were taking the head off.
We were able to push start the car and make some laps in the last 15 minutes of the race so that we drove under the checkered flag.
Great job, guys and gals (didn’t see any, but just in case)!
You likely warped the head running out of coolant, which then resulted in a blown head gasket. Did you check for flatness after removal?
We didn’t check it for warpage other than a quick eyeball as the goal was to throw it back together as quickly as possible and see what happened. We will have work to do to improve things before the next race.
First off thanks to all that helped during this prep leading up to and during the race. In particular
@merissa for being an outstanding spotter, time keeper, pit organizer, cup cake chef, and a million other things
Allen for the logistics, hauling, wrenching, feeding the whole pit with hot dogs etc
Chuck Graft (@dallasmagna ) for support, tech help, wrenching and diagnoising the starter/solenoid problem. He always makes it out on his bike to come out and support us.
We couldn’t have done it without them, THANK YOU
DMS gets plenty of publicity with these events, there’s a steady stream of racers and guests that always come by and say “yeah, I heard someone mention DMS, can you tell me a little bit about it…”
The other way around, you blow the head gasket first which either starts seeping coolant into other ports (we had vapor coming out of our tailpipe, foamy water in radiator) but the oil was clear without trace of coolant. Without coolant the engine overheats…
I’ve seen the flip side where you get oil in the radiator as well, and ran 4 sprint races on the engine with a flush each time. 
got progressively worse but held up with catastrophe
