Lemons Experience

[Tin Bui]

As some of you know, I competed in my first Lemons race at Buttonwillow in early December. I was part of Spirit of Toyota F1 v13.b6 #33. Our team concept is attached below. We basically started real late ton build a car. We formed around late September with a non running 1986Toyota MR2 non supercharged. Using Toyota efficiency....we built a really nice car for the race.

We had no where near the fastest laptimes, but pretty decent. We had too much front wing reducing our top speed by 5 mph.
Saturday (CW no hill): 2:16.XX secs
Sunday (CCW w/hill): 2:26.XX secs

We ran into some problems during the race that costed us alot of time:
- Clutch overheating - Overnight Saturday we swapped out the clutch in 4 hours in the dark.
- Shifter cable came undone twice losing the ability to keep the car in gear
- Windshield wipers stopped working - Yes, there was rain on both days.
- Broke a wheel stud/loose wheel - Nut and bolted it back together to finish the race
- Getting t-boned hard by a Z
- Last 2 hours, lost 3rd and 5th gear

We finished 39th out of 173 registered cars. We started about 150~160 with a 8 lap penalty, then were picking up position at a rate of ~10/hour. We learned some things:
- Don't buy cheap NAPA clutches
- If it looks like it will fail, it will (shifter cable)
- Check the lugnuts each pit more carefully, have spares
- Rubbing is racing
- Winning the race is about minimizing your pit times. When we were on track, we maintained gap with the leaders, however we pitted too many times due to not having a strategy and poor fuel range. I think the winners only pitted 4 times the whole race. We first pitted every hour, then stretched it to 1.5 hours (full tank to empty) after talking to Tom and Aaron about their much longer long stints. My general manager, who was also on the team, was jabbing at me about the poor fuel range because I do manage and develop our US car's fuel economy.

We will be back next year with hopefully a bigger fuel tank, more aero, and hopefully a supercharger... . It was by far most fun racing I have experienced because of the team I was on, building the car, the whole concept/spirit of the series+people, the diversity, and endurance.

Well here are some of the photos:
http://public.fotki.com/Kaizen81/lemons ... llow-2010/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And here is one video of many more to upload:
http://www.vimeo.com/17552699" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Team Concept: We are going to find a series that Toyota can compete in effectively and maybe have a chance at winning a race! We are a bunch of Toyota US employees looking for some fun and car abuse, and since we are all cheapskates, this seemed like the way to go. We are all employed by Toyota Motor Sales or Toyota Technical Center and are in desperate need of something to take our mind off the current sucky state of affairs. This of course, is done without any knowledge (we hope) or support (we are certain) of any official Toyota entity. We got ourselves an ’86 (we think) MR2 and are rarin’ to go mix it up with the other misfits. We are certain it complies with the spirit of the rules, because it’s got 250K+ miles and currently refuses to run! We are in desperate search of some of that sudden acceleration we keep hearing about, but so far have not been successful finding any. We hope not to be banned for exploding engines depositing oil on the track like in F1. Rest assured, in the spirit of F1, we plan on exploiting loopholes in the rules to employ lots of funny looking but ineffective aero fins, wings, diffusers, under-trays, splitters and assorted do-dads.

[Theo O.]

Great write up Tin! 39th out of that many cars is not bad at all for your first attempt. Also, sounds like you learned a lot to make you even more competitive next time.

[Mako Koiwai]

Very cool ... hoping Tom B. and/or Aaron tell us about their experience

[Aaron Goldsmith]

Very cool ... hoping Tom B. and/or Aaron tell us about their experience

In my experience, Tom is very fast and the one to send out if it's raining,

My girlfriend took a bunch of Pics that weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/aufaber/24H ... directlink#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Passing was by far the hardest thing to get used to, how aggressive you need to be, but with 173 cars I certainly got a lot of practice. The one huge benefit I feel I had from autocross was knowing the size of my car, how close I could get to someone without touching them.

[Tin Bui]

I hear you about the passing Aaron. Generally it was very clean on the track surprisingly. Couple cars didn't check their mirrors much. The only open passing experience I have had was at one kart race.

Luckily the MR2 was very small so we can get passes done, even on the curbs. And yes, autocrossing definitely gave us an advantage in some aspects.

Nice pics Aaron, looking snazy! Boy was that BMYOTA loud! Sounded mean in a good way. It was what I would imagine some Iraqi trucks would sound like running to battle (or even running away).

[Mako Koiwai]

How many of the cars finished the race ?

[Tin Bui]

How many of the cars finished the race ?

Not sure. Attrition didn't seem that bad. We counted over 120 cars started on Sunday.

[Tom Berry]

Very cool ... hoping Tom B. and/or Aaron tell us about their experience

Thanks for asking Mako!
Not only did I have a great time... but learned amost as much as my first Lemons race back in May.
The team did great! Finished 18th out of 137. Nothing broke, and our pit stops were getting very quick by the end of the race.
Aaron is being too modest! He did VERY well his first time out, getting faster almost every lap. That big grin didnt leave his grill all weekend.
We were passing 8 to 10 cars every lap whick was great for gaining needed experience in that area. We were being passed by several cars each
lap which was also helpfull to get good at.
Pictures dont do the event justice and the party atmosphere was incredible.
Glad you had a good time and did so well for your first time out Tin.
Give it a try folks!!
Tom