Stinking Success Within Our Grasp

August 2, 2010 (late evening)

We can barely believe we got this done in 9 weeks. It was a stinking mess when we got the car and now it is all snowy white under its first coat of primer, and it has been to Thunderhill twice, and nothing has broken or blown up. Granted, tracking it helped us find things that needed fixing, like oil leaking out of every seal of the transmission. But, we have a car!

We'll be bringing a few cases of spare parts to the track with us. It seems very unlikely that we'd be able to find parts at and auto parts store or bone yard.

The car will be yellow this time tomorrow, and sporting decals on Wednesday.

Looks like our t-shirt plans are bust and I'm not doing well getting Pratt&Miller to sell us crew shirts. We might have to fall back on disco/porn king Corvette sleaze for costumes, which would work for a standard Corvette, though probably not for this car.

Make sure to drop by our trailer to say hi. Thanks again for the interest and support. Seriously. THANKS.

Bernhard rollering the hood while Alan looks on in giddy amazement.

So snowy white, so clean, it has come so far in 9 weeks!

Three to Go!

Originally from August 2, 2010

It's Monday. Three more days until Thursday. Thursday at 5 PM we'll be at Thunderhill to camp and get a good spot in the paddock when the track opens Friday morning. Friday is test/inspection day, Saturday/Sunday is for racing. All that is left for us is paint and the splitter, and reassembling the dash/electronics. It looks like we're going to make it!

The car is sanded but needs a little more prep today, mostly some bondo and sanding on the nose, plus sanding in the doors and other tight spaces. I wish we had more time for this part of the project.

The archeology of the sanding reveals - blue, a thin layer of brown bondo everywhere, some white bondo in patches all over, blue, cream, then metal.

Decals are being made now and we should have them tomorrow or Wednesday.

Metal, bondo, bondo skin, blue 1, blue 2, cream... Opel archeology!

Logistics and Last Minutes

Originally from July 28, 2010

We'll be heading up to Thunderhill next Thursday afternoon so we can get a good spot near the pits where we can get electrical hookups. We'll be using Bernhard's white 24' long air conditioned trailer. My black Honda Prelude will be parked nearby. We'll have drinks and snacks and a chair for all, even a tent for relief from the August sun.

The event starts on Friday with the tech inspection, aka, BS inspection, where the "judges" listen to our BS reasons why the cars are indeed $500 cars, that they won't blow up on the first lap, that we can drive them, and that we can pass the fire drill test if one is administered.

Racing starts mid-morning Saturday, usually around 10 AM, emphasis on usually. After all 150+ cars are out on track, all of the transponders are verified and working, and some random synapse in Jay's head fires, the green flag drops. After clearing the track of cars that were unable to complete the first 2-3 laps of the race, the green flag drops again and "normal" racing resumes.

At the end of the day Saturday a bunch of teams will be packing up their heaps to leave while others will be sending team members all over Glen County and farther looking for parts, or will have engine guts spread all over the paddock, and will get it all back together in time to resume racing on Sunday morning.

Sunday racing starts at around 9 AM and continues until 4, or 5, or 6 PM. depending on how long the day is and when the track wants us out of there. The field is thinner on Sunday and once in a while you can even get a clear lap or two.

These are cheap cars, but LeMons is very different from its early Altamont days. The racing is good and clean. Good sportsmanship is valued and the spirit of competition never, or, well, rarely, descends into the nastiness you might see in the big leagues where sponsor dollars and careers are on the line. This is for fun. Genuine fun. And a creative release for frustrated gazetteers. It's the burning man of motor sports.

Alan, Zep, Brian, Bernhard, Geoff, and I hope to see you there.

Other items in our final to-do list:

• Got the decals list and image files done today. Our friend in Florida will make them for us.
• The shroud for the electric fan is in, and the original fan is out.
• The electrical connector panel is done and goes in tomorrow.
• The fire extinguisher mount and the cool-suit/seat cooler base is installed.
• Tires are mounted and on the car. We'll polish up the C4-style wheels this weekend.
• The new tie rod end has been installed. The steering is much more responsive, as best as we can tell with the car on jack stands.
• Shirts, etc. will be ordered tomorrow. We have to be in costume for this. Some of the guys were hoping for a disco or porn-king Corvette theme and had their Hawaiian shirts picked out and everything, but alas, were serious wannabe Corvette Racing guys.
• We must have done more today. It's past 11 PM and we just quit working.

Here are two pics from today.

Decal placements on the hood and nose.

Decal placements on the driver's side door.

Danika, Where are you?

Originally from July 27, 2010

Danika Patrick was part of this build, sort of. Early in all this when Alan and I would ask each other if some part needed to be removed, or cleaned, or painted, we'd ask ourselves what a real race car driver would do, or a (stereotypical) woman, and that soon became Danika. "Well, what would Danika want, do, expect?" would be our answer. So, I wrote her a very nice letter telling her about our pretty little parody of a real race car, about LeMons, and how fun it would be, and how she was already part of the team, in spirit, and I offered her a seat. I thought it was a really nice letter, and offered to keep it secret and everything, and to set up far from the main crowd to avoid creating a scene. Of course she was not exempt from the $550 we charge our arrive-and-drive people, and recommended she review the LeMons rules and regs. But, we have not heard back from her. Not even an autographed photo, so her seat has gone to a guy who once raced in the Renault Cup in Europe, back in the day. Oh, well. Maybe we'll just put one of her slinkier posters on the fuel bulkhead.

Track Retested!

Originally from Wednesday, July 27, 2010

Less than 2 weeks before race day!

I was out last week, shooting video at the national hang glider competition in Idaho (fun, beautiful, very interesting), but Alan and the guys kept working on the car.

Zep and Alan took that car back to Thunderhill on the Friday I left. They confirmed the great handling (lots of modern rubber and the sway bars) and low power, and Zep tried and finally got the tires to squeal, and the car was in the balanced-to-slight understeer range. Not enough power to really work the tires, and not enough courage to enter turn 1 without lifting. We're still learning how to drive momentum cars.

But, the car did great and except for getting black flagged for smoke due to oil leaking from the valve cover onto the manifold, and a slipping clutch, and other minor stuff, it was a successful day. Alan and Zep even got to experience some side-by-side in the corners. Also, they passed another LeMons car that day, so it looks like we won't be the slowest car out there next week.

Back at home they fixed the valve cover leak, installed a slightly-used 8.5" clutch (Thanks again,  OGTS!), replaced all of the seals on the transmission to finally keep it from leaking oil, and while they had it out replaced the torque tube bushings. Also fixed the slop in the steering column and installed an electric fan. The only things left are mounting the tires on the new wheels and replacing a tie rod end that went bad during the track day. At that point it is ready to race, except for other driver necessities.

We'll install the camera system this week, plus a DIY cool-seat, a fire extinguisher, radio, and when the tie rod arrives it will go in. There is still a little bondo-ing to do, and I simply must have that front splitter. In black. Like the real ALMS car.

Damn! I think that is it. Are we really almost done?

Oh, painting will commence soon, and maybe next Wednesday we'll have a decal party to install the final theme essentials.

The All Important Decals

Originally from July 13, 2010

While we're finishing work on the mechanicals I'm moving ahead with the theme elements. Seeing as the ALMS Corvettes are our inspiration, we need to find a suitable yellow and most of all, decals!

After looking at many of the photos on the Corvette Racing web site I decided to go with the layout from the 2005 C6.R and the pictures below show what our model is and how we will apply this to our car.

Our model for this project. This photo is from the Corvette Racing web site.

The decal layout we will use on the Tinyvette.

The paint will be Rustoleum Sunburst yellow which we will roller on using the $4 roller kit from NAPA Auto Parts. I’ve heard that roller jobs can look quite good, although I doubt we’ll have the time a patience to apply and sand 5-7 coats.

As for the decal, I have a contact in Florida, Bargain Signs, who has offered to make them for us. I just need to provide the measurements and the vector graphics files. Bob, at Bargain Signs shared a little sign makers secret with me and pointed me to the Brands of the World web site where I could search and most likely find everything we’ll need.

Some decals, such as the IMSA and ALMS decals, we purchased from IMSA and others we go free just by calling Sunoco, Mobile 1, and others, and still others were given to us by local contacts, such as Evil Genius Racing and Brain Doty’s AMSoil dealership.

Track Tested!

Originally from Friday, July 9, 2010

It STILL lives!!!!

And it runs!

We finally got to bed at 2:30 AM, and up again at 5:10 AM, made it to the track at 7:40 AM, and just now got home from Bonni's track event (T.E.A.M. Racing) at Thunderhill.

So how did it go?

Awesome! We ran the car practically all day, three different drivers, for at least half of all sessions, maybe more, and no problems at all, maybe except for one, and also learning to drive this car is taking some effort, and we made good progress on this. This car definitely does not drive like modern cars. Also, with the sway bars and 205's (and our awesome big-ass CF wing) we have on it, we have a lot of grip, more than any of us were comfortable testing the limits of. None of us got it to push, or step out. But, we just stepped onto the learning curve, so give us a little time. Like, just under a month, because that is all we have.

As for myself, I was having trouble working the small, closely spaced pedals. I definitely have to wear driving shoes for this car. I got a handle on most of that but could use a little more track time to get heel-toe right on this car.

Regarding power, just let me say that every hp is precious. Tuning should get us a few more. They will be precious, too.

But, the engine ran strong and smooth. We did notice a little pause, then surge, at full throttle, it seemed, that we think was the carburetor opening the secondary.

All of us noticed a little glitch on shifting from 3rd to 4th, so we'll watch for that. We must be nice to the little old tranny.

I have video from a lead follow session. Sorry, no in-car. It was so hot and I was so busy as an instructor and team member that I just couldn't move things from my car to the TTV car.



Should we change the team name to the one Alan suggested, Team MightyVette?

All in all, a very good day, and a very good 5 weeks, give the outcome of today's track event. We met all four of our goals - not catching fire, not getting towed, everybody drove, and the car finished the day.

And a BIG THANKS for everyone on the OpelGT.com forums who has helped and encouraged us.

Next up: carefully inspect the car for damage and wear, including an oil change, some other minor fixes, and then we concentrate on making it pretty.

Here are a few pics, taken from trackside by GotBlueMilk..