We are IN for Infineon in October'11

...and I am not even going to try to regurgitate the full name for that race. Having graced Concours d'Lemons 2011 with our presence, we are now armed with not one, but two "Get Out of Penalty Box" certificates that we are totally planning to counterfeit and re-sell at the track! :-)

Searpointless'11 results

Here’s how this story ended - we finished 28^th out of some 150 cars…

Here’s how this story began…

   We decided that we’ll be one of the first team on the track to start circling (or circulating… whatever makes you happy). With that in mind, we had actually finished all the car prep on Fri night in time to have a relaxing dinner at a reasonable hour (something completely unheard of in the previous races). Friday morning, following the mandatory Driver’s Meeting (that we oughtta have skipped, but attended anyway), yours truly got strapped into the driver seat. When the rest of the team was done with tire kicking, window washing, and other ritualistic crap, they gave me a clear and concise instruction: “Go!” The only problem? The car had stalled…

- Val, GO! 

- The car has just died...

- Well, start it up again!..What? It won't start!? Hmmm....

As other, “less” organized team were pouring on track en masse, a quick session of frantic methodical troubleshooting revealed an alternator that had died long ago, enough to drop the voltage in our battery to something like 7.3V. By some strange coincidence, we had actually bothered to bring a spare alternator. Another .5 hr later I was happily limping onto the track in a car that idled as it it was running on half the cylinders, and producing a quarter of the power at that. “Don’t worry”, said one of my teammates. “I have had the same thing happen to my e30 recently. It’ll run like crap for half an hour, but then it’ll get better. Thanks for sticking it out!” Ah, OK, no problem,half an hour is only a quarter of my stint thought I to myself, simultaneously pondering if I’ll be able to make it uphill from the pit lane. As if to give me false hope (and a shot of adrenaline), the car would kick in the full power for a second or two, long enough to make me look even more of an idiot in a turn than I normally am. The looks I was getting from the flag workers were inescapable.  As I was feeling more and more embarrassed, the radio came alive: 

- Is the car feeling any better?

- Marginally (which was entirely wishful thinking on my part)

- OK, keep driving.

- Yessir...

   Another 10 minutes, marked by increasing, whiplash-induced nausea, had passed, and the team checked in on me again:

-          - Is the car feeling any better?

-          - No

-          -  Hm… Keep driving? 

-          Sure. Another 10 minutes had passed before my brain got tired of this ridiculousness, and decided to chime in:

-          - Guys, have you connected the MAF?

-          - Not sure, come in for check.

-          - ..!

The rest is history. We were in 143^d place when the first results were posted 1hr into the race. We finished 28^th, 27 laps off the leader. We ran a clean race, and posted our team’s fastest lap (2:21.138) on the last lap of the race.

Absolute Lemon, Up On Blocks

Like many 500 dollar cars, the Absolute Lemon #40 car has spent much of it's life up on blocks. The team sees no reason to change that truly trashy tradition, and so it is that #40 is raised again.

Maybe when the Sears Pointless '11 event is over, we can put this baby on craigslist. I have looked at cars like this on CL before... Usually the ad reads something like:

"Recent oil change. New brake pads, and recent brake fluid flush. Never wrecked, clean, classic BMW."

Okay, maybe not. But we DID flush the fluids!

We're IN for Searspointless'11!

   With less than 3 weeks before the actual race, we have decided to get our respective butts off of oh-so-comfortable-couches exit the stealth mode, and announce to the world (as if it really cared) that we will be gracing Infineon Raceway with our presence yet again. Not only are we in for Searspointless’11, but we have also announced (mostly - to each other) the driver line up for the upcoming races, much like the big shots at ALMS proper did for Sebring.
   Inspired by this important development, no doubt, we pushed back at better halves, families, other commitments and protracted procrastination, and worked on the car. We changed the oil, and bled the brakes. Amazingly, the car still starts, and even brakes a little. Hell, if we continue at this rate, we have a chance of actually racing in 3 weeks…

   As far as the actual driver line up, it’s starting to look pretty good – all 4 people have raced/tracked/auto-xed e30’s as well as have wrenched on them a bit. What’s more important, all four are willing to wrench on this car, which is a first. We’ll miss our fast drivers from the past – “The Stig Next Door” and Laz... Ex Formula Ford drivers - hmmm, probably not so much..!