Witchdoctor Motorsports / BikiniRacer.com

Chapter 132 

28 Feb - 01 Mar 2009 - Motorsports Ranch Houston (Angleton)

The 24 Hours of LeMons GATO-RAMA 

(above: Rami at speed advertising for his placeforitalian.com!) If you are ever in Bryan/College Station you've got to sample their excellent food!!!

or...

WDMS : 0   Pen Cap : 1

or...

TWO LeMONS AND TWO TROPHIES!!

CHECK BACK AS MORE WILL BE ADDED BY THE 20th!!

Hello there race-fans! I'd love to sit back and tell you how we parlayed our vast racing experience and recent 2nd place LeMons finish into a dance at the top of the podium this time, but...well....we got screwed. Really. It's an interesting story and I'll let Wade start it out for us and (of course) I'll chime in since I can. Then we'll get Rami's thoughts and then I'll close this bad (really bad....as in 'not bueno') boy out. Get comfy and enjoy the read folks...

Laura, Rami, Anna, Todd, Costas, Hunter, Wade, Gary, Nick on our POS Camaro

In the long ago, the before time. Before the race and the shenanigans...

++++++++

Tech Inspection Follies

2009 24 Hours of LeMons Witchdoctor Motorsports/BikiniRacer.com
Recounted By: Crewman Wade Zimmer

Friday afternoon: Rami, Anna, Todd and Wade leave Todd’s shop around 12:15pm. A quick stop at Chick-Fil-A for lunch and a vehicle swap and we are on our way. Todd takes Rami's MegaCab to back to work and Rami pilots Todd’s truck with SuperTrailer™ in tow. Todd gets a laugh as Rami crawls through the Wal-Mart parking lot with agonizing slowness. Rami deftly dodges one curb, then another, and safely navigates around a de-de-dee female driver trying to make it to the gas pumps. Almost like she didn’t see us coming in our 24’+ truck and 32’+ trailer. I guess that would have required looking, and paying attention…neither of which she did. Todd was rolling with laughter! 

Out of the parking lot and on the road. Stopped and got fuel on 290. We pumped 87 or so gallons to fill up the fuel cell in the car to the rim (foreshadowing!), 55 gallon drum, generator, and a pair of back up 5 gallon fuel jugs. We take the tollway and make good time on to the track. We arrived around 3:15 and the place was packed. It took us 15 minutes to find a pit space large enough to accommodate the rig. Of course it was at lesat three times as far from tech and pit road as we had been last October. Who could have know that this would be one of the most fortunate places for us to be! By the time we unload and Anna changes, we head to tech and judging. It is now 4:45pm.

It was cold. And windy. I hate cold. Especially when it is brought about by wind. 

Rami drives, I ride shotgun, and Hunter is in the hatch. Anna scooted up on her Razor Scooter just a minute ago. She quickly changes into her “Distract and Persuade” attire and joins in the tech line. We are about 4 cars back and there is only one line open. This is good because no one is really getting scrutinized. Just a quick kick-the-tires, check the kill switch, and a “have a nice day” for everyone. Two more cars pull in line behind us. I guess the head tech inspector now sees that we are building up a long line and orders us to pull aside to form a second line. We pull around and immediately get underway. A tech inspector (Ronnie? Robby?) does a quick once over. He likes our cage, checks the kill switch as Rami starts the car, and is 90% done. Of course he moves to the back of the car and see the fuel cell. I think it looked like kryptonite because he wouldn’t get near it. It was almost like someone told him we were coming? He calls for another tech inspector and walks off. We never see him again.

Tech inspector 2 walks up. His name is Don and he proclaims to have worked at a company that builds fuel cells for over ten years. He scrutinizes the cell briefly and asks where our firewall is. I reply that the cell is metal, therefore acts as its own firewall since it is a 100% sealed system. I point out that we have rollover protection on the vent and supply lines, and that the filler neck has a flapper. Anna realizes that Don is constipated and she tries her hand. She says that we ran this setup "as-is" last year, except that this year we are much improved with a new crumple zone at the rear of the car. She adds that she has e-mailed the LeMons guys and that we should be good to go. Ron calls David over to the car. I don’t think David is a happy person. Let’s just leave it at that. Ron and David look, talk, look, talk. David leaves. (I'm really glad I was stuck in San Antonio at this point...heh heh...Costas)

(Okay folks, here is the important part :-)  ...Costas)

Ron comes back to the car and starts to ask me questions. What type of bladder is in the car? Who manufactured it? Is it baffled? What color is it? Does it have gussets on the corners? What material is it made out of? I proceed to systematically answer each of Ron’s questions as he pokes around the fuel cell. Ron looks at the vent and tube, the supply line, AN fittings, and then he goes for the fuel cap. Ron unscrews the cap and looks inside. He wants to see the bladder and make sure it is safe. Of course, the fuel cell is very full of fuel. We just topped off the car on our way to the track. Ron is not satisfied with only being able to see gasoline and a small portion of the rollover flapper valve. He has been fondling his pen for the last few minutes and decides to stick it down in the filler neck. Perhaps he can see more if he pushes down the flapper? No more than 5 seconds pass, and he realizes that his attempt is futile. He withdraws his pen to find, much to his dismay, that the 87 octane in our tank has disintegrated the barrel of the pen. Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot!? “Where is the end of your pen?” Anna asks? “Oh, it must have disintegrated.” Ron says. “What kind of fuel are you running in this thing?” I tell him that I will go get out receipt for the 87 gallons of 87 octane from Shell. He is undeterred and says that the pen cap disintegrated and will not be an issue. “That is a lot of gas, and only a small amount of plastic.”

The pen cap that screwed us (the red thing on the top of the screw-on cap)

I think he is embarrassed and realized that this is going nowhere. We are told to replace the thirty or so 1/8”machine screws that hold the two pieces of the cell together with ¼” hardware. We knew that this could potentially be an issue, and have already brought the proper hardware with us to tech. Rami shows the inspector and he agrees that we are good-to-go after a hardware swap. Ron adds that he wants to see the bladder when we disassemble the fuel cell. He wants to know when we will do the swap? I tell Ron that we simply cannot remove all of the hardware at one time, we must pull one bolt and replace with another in order to maintain the hole alignment. Ron asks if we have drifts to keep the holes lined up. Of course I tell him that we do, IN OUR SHOP THREE HOURS AWAY! I tell him that we will do that swap as soon as we get through judging and that he is welcome to swing by. We are in the last pit stall, the farthest away from tech, at the other end of the track. (Thank Gawd!)

So, to wrap this up, it is now 4:45pm. We’ve been in tech for an hour. Most other teams report tech times of 5-8 minutes. Between the interrogation and the drooling hounds snapping photos of Anna doing her best to distract and persuade we move it back to our pits and get to work. Rami and Anna have the hardware changed in less than twenty minutes and the tech inspector never comes by for a look see. Gary and Laura are now at the track and they tackle a left front strut bushing replacement as Hunter and I tend to other miscellaneous issues with the car. It’s going to be a short night which is a refreshing change from last year. It is too bad the race didn’t turn out like it did in October. The rest is history. WE GOT SCREWED!

Rami putting in the laps

Todd getting ready on Sunday to take over from Rami's first stint. Wade is putting on my helmet and Anna will (wo)man the fire extinguisher. 

Anna putting down laps during the second stint on Saturday. 

Thanks for the write-up! I really didn't feel like telling that story because I wasn't there and I was hearing about it from various folks (our team and otherwise) and I wanted it to be from a first-hand witness. I *was* getting text messages during all this and I was just shaking my head the whole time....sheeshh...

Next up is Rami, who does a very nice recap of the bigger story of the race and (again), I'll add in where I can. 

Some folks we know built a near clone of our car. Ours is the one WITHOUT the barnyard animal welded on...heh heh

Rami coming down pit road for stop #1 on Sunday.

Todd heading out for stint 2 on Sunday. Wade wearing my helmet.

Rami and Anna share a tender hand-touching moment on day 2. Awwwww....  ;-)

Anna after her 2 hour stint on Saturday

Rami running down the TiredBird

+++++++++++++++++++++

Rami Recounts the Race!

Pics here: http://www.pbase.com/ceronemotors/lemons

This race was supposed to be easy. We already had finished a strong 2nd in October and the car was still running. Change themes and we were good to go. Or so I thought.

The car had developed a knock sometime toward the end of the last race. Paul told us this, although he was the "first" person to drive (therefore, he had less chance of hearing this as Anna, Todd and I drove after his stint). Regardless, Paul lost his job so he was downsizing - we met in San Marcos (thanks for the trailer Wade) and I brought the car home.

While home, I didn't really do anything to the car. Put it on a battery tender, started it every week and spray painted it black to look like a crappy DPS car (but I left the 'bribed' stamp on the hood).

About a month before the February LeMons, I brought it to Todd's so we could start work on it. Todd realized that it was knocking and checked the oil - he added about 3 quarts to it (when I said I really didn't do anything to it at home, I wasn't kidding was I)?

The rear panhard bar was bent - someone must have hooked on to it with a winch cable instead of the axle when pulling it out of their garage backwards onto the trailer (yes, it was me). Luckily, Todd had a spare and we were going to bolt that on.

The plan was to relocate the fuel cell that was hastily installed at night at the track the previous race, pull the motor, clean up the wiring, fix the carb and be ready to go racing. Todd and Wade did about all of the work - I would clean parts, unbolt parts, etc........Todd would measure, cut, curse, measure again, curse some more, cut again (repeat)......and that was for the fuel cell cage.

The fuel cell was mounted and looked 100 times safer than the previous mount. The carb was gone over by Lester (thank you) and the motor came out. Bearings were shot, oil was leaking out of the rear main (which was new) and the crank was messed up. Todd bought a new crank and we re-installed everything on a long saturday. Motor was really tight - would not turn over by hand. Todd was worried that it would blow as soon as we started it back up. We had Eric's 305 sitting on the floor of the shop just in case, but it was getting close - we didn't want to have to do that. New spark plugs went in, Todd set the distributor and Wade and I tightened the carb (or so we thought).

As the engine went back in, we fixed the sway bar mount (was on backwards) and replaced two front shocks (they were beyond gone). Chris came and fixed the kill switch as it had stopped "killing" sometime between the last race and our removal and re-installation of the motor.

Hunter 'fuel-head' and Wade

Nick and Hunter and the Cart

Costas in the car for stint #3 on Sunday

Wade was at the shop almost every night that we were...Todd had a late-model to work on, but we had to finish the LeMons car. We brought the car to the annex to do some test runs on it - it started right up, idled fine and ran (yet smoked excessively). We "borrowed" a breather from Eric's 305, he fabbed a mount so it could vent the oil that was blowing out.

We were still confused about the bulkhead for the fuel cell - I called Jay and he explained the rules to me clearly. We really needed a metal cover, but were going to try and bluff our way through tech. I learned to use an air-rivet gun (probably the coolest tool ever) and Eric helped me fab some covers for the gaps between the body and the cell.

The car was officially ready to go. Todd swapped the tires and we met on Friday morning to load up and go to MSR with Wade and Anna to pass tech. We arrived at the track, unloaded around 3 other DPS theme cars (so much for originality huh)? We drove to tech and of course, they walked right to the fuel cell as they remembered us from last time. They liked the mount but were concerned about the lack of a bulkhead. Also, they mentioned the size of the bolts that I had installed in the top - luckily, I had bought and brought the correct size bolts with me the night before - and had them in the car to show tech - whew! Disaster #1 averted (to be fair, Wade had mentioned a few weeks prior that those bolts needed washers and needed to be larger). The tech guy was grilling Wade on the material, shape, color, texture, etc of our bladder (in the fuel cell, not us - more on that later too). He asked why it was full of fuel as he wanted to check for foam (we bought 87 gallons on the way to the track - luckily there too). He grabbed a pen to look down the cell - upon which the cap fell into the cell...oops was all he said. After 45 minutes, he told us to replace the bolts and put electrical tape over the battery terminals and we would be good to go.

Off to the BS judging part. Anna was ready - dressed in her best DPS outfit - skirt, heels, badge, handcuffs.......they remembered us there too. The first question out of their mouth was "where is the talkative one" (i.e Costas). We told them we left him at home :) (which is odd as I didn't talk hardly at all last time...Costas) They were quickly handcuffed together and to Anna to limit their walking around the car. They liked that I hand-wrote our expenses on the hood to make it easier for them - they wished I had totaled up the tally for them too (next time). We had a build-folder with one picture of us working on the car for every two pictures of Anna. They said it was "excellent documentation." They got under the car, but Anna kept tugging on them to keep them from seeing the Koni shocks (albeit well-used) that Todd had installed.....mission accomplished as we got 0 penalty laps (they were giving plenty of penalty laps out we heard).

We went back to the pits - Gary and Laura showed up and started working on the front shock mount replacement (thanks guys) while Anna, David O (Zebra Racing) and I replaced the bolts in the fuel cover (one at a time). Wade was fabbing a cover for the battery terminal out of a paint can cover - nicely done. No drama here - except when Gary started jacking up the front of the car to get the jack stands out - as I was LAYING UNDER THE REAR OF THE CAR. I yelled and kicked...and got out of there quick :)

Dinner than night was provided to us from the Los Diablos racing team in the dark (thanks to them also - very hospitable). We left the track, went to Wal-Mart to get a few supplies, got a Little Caesars $5 pizza for a snack (what a deal - I had no idea that pizza existed so cheap) and got into the hotel (much better than last year when we slept in our cars overnight). 

We got up the next morning, had breakfast and met Paul at the gates of the track. We unloaded the car, Todd showed up, we went to the tech guys to get signed off and we were good to go. Got our gear teched and just hung out and waited for the race to start. Paul was to drive first as there were 95 cars out on track (almost bumper to bumper). Two laps into the race, he is stalled on the other side of the track. He gets towed in to the pits and Todd is furious - no fuel going to the carb. He replaced the fuel filters and sent Paul back out. Two more laps - back in again. Todd has a spare electric fuel pump - replaces it and sends Paul back out. Guess who gets towed in again? Blows fuel lines out with nitrogen to check for blockage, checks all lines for kinks - nothing. Decides to open up the fuel cell to see what is going on in there - the first line that gets opened and guess what falls out? A PEN CAP!!!! The team is PISSED! We get Paul back on track and Anna goes to show the inspector, Jay Lamm and anyone that will listen the cause of our problems.

Heading out for first stint on Saturday

The car runs decently all day as that snafu took 2 hours and 45 minutes out of our racing day. We were not going to win, but at least we were going to drive. Anna got in after Paul and drove her stint (a real one this time). Then Todd got in to finish the day in 77th place. The car was running badly, so we went out to buy new spark plugs, Todd reinstalled the original fuel pump and found the loose carb (oops) that was also contributing to the car not running great. We went out for a dinner at Chili's with everyone and called it a night.

A small sampling of the quality entries...The Opel has a chevy v6!!

The next morning, it was 38 degrees on the track. I had two glasses of OJ at the hotel and two glasses of Gatorade before my stint (I was first to drive and knew I should stay hydrated - when it is hot outside). I was supposed to drive for 3 hours then swap with Todd. About an hour into my stint, I call Gary on the radio and tell him I probably need to swap drivers in about a half-hour because I have to pee. He says ok. About 3 laps later, I call in again and say I can only last another 10 minutes or so...he says "I thought you said half-an-hour?" "I lied" I said. He said he would let me know when Todd was suited up and ready. I have never had to go this bad in my entire life. IT HURT. I was trying to move around and get comfortable, wondering if the car had any drain holes, wondering what it would be like if I peed in Paul's racesuit, what Todd would think about sitting in a wet seat. After an few more laps, they were finally ready for me. I barely was able to get out of the seat, to go check the oil until Anna came over and took over those duties for me. I shuffled my way to the bathroom and went - it took about 10 minutes to recover my body and for the tightness in my stomach and back to go away. I just sat on the golf cart and relaxed. 

Todd got called in soon for contact - the BMW 2002 forced him to hit them and spin out - they called him in but let him back out soon. For some reason, he got called in again (more contact - Costas) - so I got back into the car and drove another 1.5 hours. The car was running fine - not any power - but not stuttering like last time - just smoking here and there.

Paul took over my stint and went out (I spilled LOTS of oil while pouring in the pits - oops again - should have known not to aim from the top of a hot engine). He got called in quickly for leaking - we cleaned the oil and sent him back out. He got called in again. Seems like fuel was leaking out of the vent (the fuel was overfilled). Todd re-routed the vent and out Paul went again. For some reason that nobody knows, Paul gets black-flagged again and wants to call it a day. Heck no - we paid for track time - Todd gets suited up and goes out again for the last 45 minutes of the day. 

Costas' best side...

We ended up in 51st place overall. The pen cap got us this time. Big time. We were awarded another trophy - the "I got screwed" trophy. Oh well, it happens. Glad we had Todd that was able to diagnose the issue or we would have been home with only two laps in the race (like the Alfa and the poor beat-up CRX). The car is alive and lives to race another day. Wade has it in his garage now so he can make a list of what needs to be done to it. 

Thanks Gary for relentless radio communication, Wade for your late nights at the shop, Todd for putting your other projects on hold to work on this one. Hunter and Nick for coming down for the weekend and lending a hand. Even without a win, we still had fun. And Paul still owns a clean suit

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

RANDOM REMEMBRANCES FROM COSTAS

Well, on the plus side, when we finally got actually going in the race we were 91st and we finished 51st. Without a few of the random black flags we could have easily cracked into the 40s but a win was swiped before we even got to the track by a pathetic tech inspector who obviously had more curiosity than talent or experience. 

Random things I remember: 

The best car was my buddy Pribble's Audi. They had made the back of the car look like another front complete with a stuffed-suited-helmeted driver holding a wheel! The wheel had a pendulum and so it moved in the turns like the back driver was actually doing something. I laughed every time I came up on them, and every time in the paddock, and every time...well, you get the idea. HILARITY!!  Their team: http://audi400.blogspot.com/

The TiredBird car with our cell from last year inside the big metal box. 

One team brought an Alfa Romeo Milano. Another brought a fuel-injected Jaguar. Whiskey-Tango-Fox?

That is a little too close!!

Starting a race with 95 cars on a relatively short track. Whoah. 

Coolest sticker. Ever. 

Two words: Pinto Wagon. Nuff said...

One word: MG

Other cop-themed cars top and bottom

The wing on the back of Rene's team's car was once a running board from a chevy truck. I kid you not. 

These guys had ninja tape holding the car together and pirate tape holding the ECU in. I cannot understand why they didn't win easily....

Chris Taylor's fab ride!!

Busy pit road action

The motor/trans has been pulled out and the car is falling back to earth. Heh. 

Crushed another Miata from the same guys who brought one last year. Two words: Learning Impaired?

If you hit the tire barrier that formed a chicane to keep back-stretch speeds down, then they bolted that tire to your roof. Whoah. 

Arguing with Anna over who was going to get to NOT drive on Sunday. I lost. Had we played rock-paper-scissors, she would have been driving!!!

Taped up and kept in the penalty box overnite

The frustration of fuel issues and getting too much rope-tow practice. The rescue guys DID know where our pits were tho...  ;-)

Some people had considerable issues

The usual penalty camp stuff: Welding metal shapes on cars, running crappy drivers thru the pits wearing diapers, making crappy drivers preach to the masses, 

The electric pump we used for the back half of the first day was just too much pump (unregulated) for the carb and on yellows instead of coasting around in 3rd, we had to downshift to 2nd or 1st to keep the revs up otherwise it would take half a lap to clear out the plugs to get the thing to rev when the track went green. Thankfully for the 2nd day we had the mech pump again and while it ran better, we had washed a cyl or two and the carb had been damaged. Ug. Sadly, at the beginning we had the pace of last year easily. Frustrating. 

Todd found another car out there. 

Our crack crew!! :-) (Wade, Laura, Gary, Nick)

My first black flag (Sunday afternoon) was obvious. I was smoking big time. We cleaned and went back out and got black flagged again for much smaller smoke. Cleaned more thoroughly and went back out. Black flagged for fuel being dumped. Re-routed the vent, pulled a bit of fuel back out and went back out. With 45 minutes to go in the race, black flagged again. Into the penalty box again and nobody knows why. Not smoking (much...heh) and not leaking. On the radio they call several times and finally it comes out that I've cut across pit entrance. The judge looks confused. Pit entrance is on the LEFT side of the carousel and as you take the pit road you have grass on your left and cones on your right. If you are racing, for you to cut the pit lane you'd have to hit cones. All the cones were up. Further, cutting pit lane would increase lap times because you want to be more to the right side of the track there to line up for the turn to the front straight. I was never near that grass. Two more cars came to the penalty box and the judge was thoroughly confused as nobody on the radio could tell him what actually happened. He made a snap decision and said 'no penalty, just swap drivers and go'. I didn't argue as they had had a LONG two days and he was busy, but inside I'm thinking if nobody can substantiate the black, then why force the driver change? No biggie, it isn't like we are contesting anything out there so I ask the guys if they want to keep going or have me bring it to the pits and they sent Todd suited up and he finished the race. 

Hunter: Damn I like it when Costas brings glass-bottle Cokes!!!

I was talking to a reporter who was covering the race and also driving in the event (first time driver!) and he said they had a blast, but while they were leading in the middle of the first day they got two mysterious black flags and they were re-sent back out each time, simply losing laps for no reason. After the race we commiserated and vocalized our similar frustrations of the event. On the second day they had some mechanical issues which dropped them way back, but had they not and lost the race by a few laps the sting would have been a lot more painful. 

Lastly, I've emailed the organizers and filled out their after-race survey and asked for a partial discount for the fall race. We are held strictly accountable for our actions on track and it seems to me that their officials should be held accountable for their actions in their duties. We'll see what happens. I'm not holding my breath, but we'll see if they are honorable people or not. Taking someone's money (and quite a bit of it, btw) and not giving them a fair shake is pretty shady in my opinion. Stay tuned for updates!

Tech: Passed. <gulp>

Our Trophy. The metal tag says 'We Got Screwed'. And we did.