LeMons 15 hour Enduro, ECR, Dec 12-18, 2011 - WDMS

Re: LeMons 15 hour Enduro, Dec 12-18, 2011 - WDMS

continued from above

So going into T1 there was some debris, from cars spinning across the gravel and slinging it on track. It happens a lot. So The T1 corner station had a debris flag out, like they had for 2 previous laps. You can pass - its not a yellow - but one of the drivers thought otherwise. I was coming up on this car, who was going slow and wide into 1, so I took the inside line. Needed to get the pass done here in T1-T2 if possible, so as not to be stuck behind them in the tighter T3-T4-T5 complex. I figured he saw this mess of a Camaro gaining on him in the straights and was going wide to let me by.

Well apparently he didn't see me or thought it was a yellow and I would NOT pass there, and as I'm about halfway inside him in T1 he cut across the front of me - I stab the brakes but the LF fender of the Camaro just clipped their RR fender. His car spun and stalled, and the Camaro came to a stop and then promptly died. I spent a few seconds restarting the car, meanwhile Amy is chatting away about my previous lap time (a 2:22), and Costas was chatting about something else, yadda yadda yadda. All tying up the radio. I figured out they didn't see the accident! I knew I'd get a black flag, but we had our "one free black flag" unused so it could be a quick stop. Or not, if the random judging became d1ck-ish like it sometimes does (and did again).

So I'm frantically sending out my "SOS" call of 3 clicks when the radio was quiet, between their random chatter that lap. Amy doesn't know what 3 clicks means, and asks somebody else on our channel in the trailer. They said... uh, start asking questions. So Amy started asking me what was wrong. She hadn't been here the day before to learn our crude click-click radio "language" protocol from the driver, so she asked if I was out of fuel, "no" (2 clicks), then if the car was OK, and I said...well I needed to come in so I replied "no" (2 clicks). She asked if I needed to come in, and I said "yes!!!" (1 click). By then I'd already passed start-finish and got the black flag I was expecting, so I acknowledged that to the starter and planned my in-lap. Amy is still asking questions and I'm trying to tell her by a freaging crude MORSE CODE that I have a black flag and HAD to come in!!!

She asks if I can make another lap or two, and I said "no!" (as loudly as you can make two clicks!!!). Do you HAVE to come in this lap? "yes!" (1 click plus a stream of profanity to nobody that can hear me!) Somebody else finally cuts in and asks if I'm coming in for a flag problem, "Yes!" right as I'm coming off the track. Not having 2-way communication SUCKS in an endurance race, by the way. So some of the team meanders over to the tech shed as I come in, and the other car I tagged is already there (they came in on the first lap after). I'm trying NOT to get out of the car, as I know how freagin long it takes to re-do these damned belts, and I try to explain to the judges as calmly and politely as I can (you have to kiss their asses or you get massively delayed) that this guy "I hit" just ran over the front of my car after leaving the door WIDE open, and giving me what I thought was an obvious cue to pass him into T1. The other guy is now ranting about "there was a waving yellow at Start/Finish and T1!", which there wasn't, and I said "No, it was a debris flag, and you can pass under that." The judges didn't seem to know the actual flag situation, or to care, and told us to get out of the car and prepare to take judgement. This means - a huge delay.

Costas told them this was our first black flag, which it was, and we were promised "one free black flag per day", which we'd seen other cars get and quickly get back on track. But the LeMons head poo-bah Jay says he doesn't care, starts giving him sh!t, and lies about an incident the day before. Costas wisely extracted himself from that brewing situation and walked away. The more I do LeMons events the LESS AND LESS I can stand the guy that runs the series. I do not care for Jam Lamm and I will likely never do another LeMons event because of him. There's more I could say, but I'll leave it at that.

So we lost some more track time and laps while we had to do a lame punishment dance for the judges wearing their little gowns, then I finally got back into the car, got the belts re-done with massive help from someone that could thread the 5 pieces of harness into the latch I couldn't see, and somebody who had never touched the radio harnesses hooked up the cables to my helmet & earbuds, so then I had no more radio commutations in either direction for the last 2 hours of my drive. I got back out on course not knowing what place I was in (still 6th), how close we were to 5th (too far back now to matter), and how close 7th place was to me (turns out they were many laps down). So I kept trying to click-click the radio, waving frantically that I had no comms, but I got nothing. I unplugged and replugged everything I could see (which is about nothing with the head restraint on, so I had adjusted the mirrors so I could see the cables), then after too many laps not paying 100% attention to my driving I finally gave up on the radio.

No clock in the car, no comms at all, no pit board, and nobody signaling me. Hmm, this is a pickle. So not being able to judge my time lost in the pits and having lost track of my lap count, I was out there pretty much flying blind. I knew I had to make it to the end of the race, but when was that? A freagin sundial on the hood would have been helpful at that moment. I assumed I was still safe in 6th place, but that was a wild guess, and I drove the car gently to try to get it to the finish in that position I hoped we still occupied. With a longer stint planned than the previous day and the fuel situation precarious from the day before, I was told to short-shift and SLOW DOWN my lap times from Day 1 to Day 2, and I did this more and and more each lap. The sun was getting lower but I had no idea how close to the 4:30 pm end time we were, and just kept pounding out laps and hoping for the best.

Eventually I pulled the radio out of its holster, unhooked all of the harnesses, and held it under my helmet and yelled "I've lost all comms!". I couldn't ear anything from the radio, with my earbuds still in and helmet on, so I didn't know if the radio itself was dead or what. Towards the end I did that a few more times and said "Car is OK but I cannot hear you!" Later they said they heard me loud and clear, so I should have thought about trying that right after I came out and maybe asked for a pit board update now and then. Hindsight.

Without any radio traffic, clock or pit board signals this stint seemed to carry on for days... I had wild visions of everyone on the team leaving the track, going out for a nice warm dinner, and leaving me out there for hours and hours. Crazy, I know, but I was dying to know what time it was (lesson learned: I will never enter an endurance race car without a watch or clock of some kind on me).

Towards the end of my stint (I figured that out later) the car started to fuel starve in right hand turns. Uh oh. I'm in real trouble here. So then I started using 5th gear on the straights, and shifting SUPER early, and using 10-15% throttle. Again, I had no idea if I had 5 more laps or 50, having lost all sense of time. I was panicking a little, trying the radio over and over, re-wiring all the radio cabling from the driver's seat while still driving as fast as I could, and my very real fear now was that I'd run out of fuel on track, nobody on the team would see me, and by the time I got towed-in they wouldn't have anyone suited up or any fuel jugs filled in the hot pits (the only place we could refuel) and it would compound our delay further. Amy was still up on the hill trying to talk to me on the radio the whole time, but I had no clue.

Then, after what seemed like 50 hours of driving, I saw the one thing I was looking for all day - the starter reaching down and holding up one finger. ONE. MORE. LAP. Halleluiah! So I knew then I had enough fuel for one more fast lap, and I was gong to re-pass some of the slower traffic that I had just let go by me, in case any of them had maybe jumped into 6th place. I had NO idea about anything at this point. But then I got caught behind 4 jackasses in SHO's driving FOUR ABREAST around the whole final lap as some sort of "parade lap". Oh boy. I was swerving, trying to pass this wall of crapcans, but the outside two cars kept swerving violently and trying to put me into the grass. They were driving super slow and determined to not let anyone past their wall of Tauruses. The racing going on behind them did not matter. Roll eyes...

So after that interminable lap the checker finally flew, and it was over. I had enough fuel to make it back around to the pits, too. I got out, they took some pictures, I thanked the team, and Amy and I GTFO.

Some of the funnier cars above. The Monza was hilarious - "Speedy Monzales", and the horn played the Speedy Gonzales cartoon theme song every time they drove out of the pits. Car was a turd, super slow, but kept making laps and was hilarious. It was the one car that always made me smile when I saw it.

The other car above was a take on the Beetle's Yellow Subarine, with an Alpha Romeo rust covered shell smashed onto a Miata chassis. The blue Mustang II was just flat out terrible, but it wouldn't break, and they were pounding out 3+ minute laps all day both days. Determined but sick individuals!

The guys from TrackDog Racing, a Miata race prep shop in Garland, gave us hell all weekend in their "Miagra" Miata (one of several "Viagra themed" cars). They won the April event here at ECR and were no strangers to LeMons, and I think they had a best lap of 2:14s? I had fun playing with their drivers during both of my stints, and on Day 1 (before I was put on 20% throttle rations) I was able to keep pace and even pass this car a couple of times. Good fun, good racing. Without our extra stops (fuel and black flag) and a bit of luck we might just have eeked out 5th place from them, but they would not give up and kept pace enough to finish ahead of us by about 2 laps. They earned that 5th place.

Thanks again to everyone on the WDMS team, and to Costas specifically who let me drive this time. Massive thanks to the volunteer crew that helped keep this car fueled, running and in once piece: Mike, Ty, Ryan, Anna, and Amy. I learned a lot and had some fun times in the car.

Cheers,

Announcement

LeMons 15 hour Enduro, ECR, Dec 12-18, 2011 - WDMS

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment: