We survived 24 hours without any major issues and came in third out of seventy-eight cars. This puts us in a 2-way tie for second place in the championship points.
Series 24 hours of LeMons
Race: Goin' For Broken
24 hour race at Fernley Racetrack in beautiful (if you like windblown desert in the middle of nowhere) Fernley, Nevada
Team Cajun Coonasses (it's a stupid name, we're going to change it, in fact we're going to change our whole theme)
Car #11, 1991 "Deaf Leopard" Nissan Sentra
Drivers: Gary Sheehan, Tony Partida, Kert Miller, Dean Cofer, Eric O'Brien, Billy Brooks
The race started at 10AM on Saturday. There were six team drivers present at this event and I was fourth in the driver line up and was on track from about 2:30 to 4:30 pm. I managed to post a fast lap of 2:43.372. Our, ahem, pro driver managed a 2:34.773. I can live with that differential.
After my driving stint Kert and I rushed into Sparks, 30 miles away, to get more tires. It had already become apparent that the 8 used and 4 new tires we had brought to the track were not going to be enough. Fernley Racetrack is extremely abrasive. Thank goodness Summit Racing stays open until 9 on Saturday nights. We returned and I made dinner for the team and then served as crew for a few hours.
I managed to take a short nap before going back on the track from 3:00 to 4:30 Sunday morning. Let me tell you, driving at speed on a highly technical track like Fernley in the dark with a low budget, ill handling, POS race car, racing wheel to wheel with a bunch of other amateur drivers is the most entertaining, most terrifying, stupidest, and, by far, the most fun thing I've ever done in a race car. It's a near religious experience when you actually find the apex of a corner on a pitch black track; unfortunately, you'll probably miss the next one so the rapture is short lived.
We did something a little different for this race; we put a horn on the race car. Let me tell you, when you're passing in the dark and you blow your horn at an opposing driver, well, its hilarious how often they move quickly out of the way and leave a clear track ahead. We thought a horn was a nice touch, to warn drivers that you were coming around; now we're wondering how long before horns are banned in the rules.
The drive home was awful. It was snowing and Donner Pass kept being opened and closed. We hung out in Fernley waiting for the pass to open. We hit the road when we received the good news that it was open and ended up stopping at Boomtown and waiting again. We finally made it through even though it was snowing pretty hard. It took us over 8 hours to make the 4.5 hour drive. Thank goodness I scheduled Monday as vacation to recover and unpack.
Lessons learned: 1) black flags will cost you a win; we spent over 40 minutes in the penalty area being punished for violations. One driver passed under a yellow flag and the other hit the Killer Bee (see picture of Kert signing his paint marks on the Killer Bee). Kert didn't actually get penalized, but he did have to come in for us to pull the fender away from the tire. When we asked him what he hit he said, "Nothing." He finally admitted he'd hit the Bee. Gary swears he didn't pass under yellow, but he got black flagged for it (the video will tell the truth, but won't change the results). He spent 20 minutes in the penalty box listening to Judge Phil explain all the financial problems being suffered by the State of California. 40 minutes equates to a 16 1/2 penalty. 16 1/2 laps would have made us the race winners; we only lost by 9 laps. We will focus on running clean in the future.
2) Febreeze works to deodorize people who don't have time to shower. Gary got in late Thursday night and went straight to bed in the back of the car trailer. He smelled pretty ripe, so he tried Febreeze. It worked. We do not recommend trying this yourself, but Gary is a convert.
3) Racing in the snow is even scarier than racing in the rain. Yep, it snowed on Eric when he was out from 4:30 to 6:00 Sunday morning.
4) don't throw away the headlights and cut out the wiring for them on the next car we make into the race car. Also, lights that work great on the highway don't reach out nearly far enough on a race track.
Here are a few pictures from the event. You can see even more pictures by clicking here.
CLICK HERE
