LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

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WillM
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LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by WillM » Tue May 10, 2011 12:49 pm

There were a ton of COM drivers there, which was great to see! There seemed to be at least three types of drivers:
1. The good - Drivers who were familiar with the track, knew how to drive, were professional on-course, and drove well (COM drivers & some BMW & Audi and non-local guys too).
2. The bad - Drivers who had very little or no experience, that were slow but seemed very safe (ie: too terrified to be fast).
3. The ugly - Drivers who had some previous experience but had no idea how to drive safely, let alone at NHMS (early apex at every corner, especially T1...yikes!)

Congratulations to all who finished or at least attempted to finish. I believe Dave Guertin's team won their class - cool! The Gnomes completed an engine swap overnight between day 1 & day 2, and finished the race.

The Amish rotary team had tons of fun, lots of promise, and some mechanical issues. The Amish may not know how to make a good clutch, but the newest Amish broad sure knew how to weld one solid. ;) There were so many awesome moments our team had together, but perhaps the funniest was when we received our first (and only) black-flag penalty for driving. This was in the rain on the afternoon of day 2. Fast Freddy was pulled in, and the LeMons crew weren't sure what to say or what kind of penalty to apply. They had never before black flagged someone for driving too fast. The story we heard was that the corner workers were scared, that the car was seemingly out of control but in control all at once. Fred never put a wheel off or hit anything. He was just driving too fast & loose in the rain. At the time, we'd lost the clutch (for a second time at this event), and had welded the clutch disc to the pressure plate, so the car was stuck in 3rd gear the whole time. The judges seemed ready to let us go right back out, but in the end we took an apology tour around the paddock. Fred sat in the car with a megaphone while the rest of the team pushed the car around the garages. On the megaphone was Fred:
"I'm sorry for driving too fast in the rain......in third gear.....without a clutch........I had no idea the corner workers at NHMS are a bunch of girls...."
Hilarious and all in good fun!

Also, what is the real story about the People's Curse? I've heard some disturbing rumors. I was in the car during that whole process and missed it, and my team wasn't paying much attention either. Anyway, I heard something about them calling the cops? Talk about taking things a bit too seriously!! :shock: :roll:
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by breakaway500 » Tue May 10, 2011 1:37 pm

hehehe..driving too fast on a race track...scaring the corner workers... Ha! :lol: :sunny:
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by blindsidefive0 » Tue May 10, 2011 2:47 pm

As a member of the now banned-for-life :( Flying Chickens team, I’ll try to clarify the “situation” around the People’s Curse…

First, some background – I was introduced to the team by a mutual friend a couple weeks ago. They were kind enough to let me join the team, which consisted entirely of current or former SCCA SM racers and COM members: Outzen, Kleeman, Foote, Woodle, Kubec. Our team made the terrible mistake of showing up to Lemons with a Miata. Instantly, we were assessed (unfairly, of course) 100 “BS Penalty Laps”. The car was certainly WORTH more than $500, but it didn’t COST more than $500 – whatever, that’s neither here nor there.

The driving was terrible (to the point of being borderline unsafe as Will mentioned), but we just worked through traffic. We picked up a lot of penalties for no apparent reason (Leos went a bit sideways in T1 while it was raining on Saturday, and got black flagged for “spinning”…while other cars were actually spinning lap after lap with no repercussions :? ). Anyway, given what probably seemed like aggressive driving (we lapped some cars ever 4 or 5 laps), a stupid little car (seriously, no one likes Miatas, especially ones with stickers on them), and FTD’s both days, people probably didn’t really like us. It also didn’t help that I hit (brushed gently) a Mustang in T3 as he turned into me (probably partially my fault as I wasn’t completely done passing prior to corner entry, but he had NO IDEA that I was there even though I was behind/beside him for a full lap). I had nowhere to go at the apex of 3 (wall on inside, Mustang on outside…the Mustang was softer) – but I don’t think that really mattered since the People’s Curse votes had been submitted by then. Either way, Leos was FURIOUS that we got the penalty – in his opinion the Mustang should have known I was there…it was funny to watch him argue with the Lemons guys and fail (we had to color a picture of a car before going back out because we were “driving like babies”).

The People’s Curse – 20 teams voted to have no cars crushed, 12 voted to have us crushed, and the next highest total was 2. It wasn’t enough for them to crush us, but it was enough for them to take the hard top off the Miata and dump an industrial bucket of horseshit into the cockpit. Kleeman was on track at the time, so he was black flagged at noon and directed under the “fertilizer”. He and I were talking about the run, and what was about to happen while the car. On the other side of the “audience” that had formed, the owners talked to Jay. I wasn’t nearby, so I didn’t hear the conversation. However, apparently we couldn’t touch the car, not even to get the radio out (even though in the rules you get X minutes to take whatever out of the car). I think this was probably just a misunderstanding. Either way, the next thing I know Leos drives the car out from under the dung and I hear the announcement over the PA that we are all banned for life… In between I guess the owners said no effing way, we’re taking the car out of here. No cops were called, but I wouldn’t doubt that it was mentioned by the owners – the owners weren’t pleased because they felt like the car was unfairly penalized all weekend, and we didn’t even get enough votes to fulfill the People’s Curse.

Bottom line – I’m a little bummed it ended up like that for our team. I suppose you could say our team took it too seriously. Not being able to get our stuff out of the car prior to the dumping was the tipping point. I had some fun while it lasted, although it was pretty scary out there at times. Like Will said, it was also great to see a bunch of familiar faces as COM was well represented.

If anyone has heard other details/rumors about the event, I would be happy to confirm/reject/clarify.
- Nick
nicholas.fontana@gmail.com

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FS: 1997 Green BMW M3 - T80/SC
RIP: 1994 White BMW 325i - SSB

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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by breakaway500 » Tue May 10, 2011 3:18 pm

The big downer for me with Lemons rules has always been the "crush/destroy" option they have on a teams car. Just does not sit well with me. It's their ballgame,and their rules. :cry: Bravo for driving away! What a bunch of..crap!
Last edited by breakaway500 on Tue May 10, 2011 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by bhoss » Tue May 10, 2011 3:54 pm

"The car was certainly WORTH more than $500, but it didn’t COST more than $500 – whatever, that’s neither here nor there."

WHAT?


Is Leos selling $500 Miata's now? I will get in line for one.
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by Dave_G » Tue May 10, 2011 4:27 pm

WillM wrote:Congratulations to all who finished or at least attempted to finish. I believe Dave Guertin's team won their class - cool! The Gnomes completed an engine swap overnight between day 1 & day 2, and finished the race.
Hey Will, it was great to see you guys there, and all the other COM folks too. Yes, we did indeed win Class B ("the bad"), and finished 7th overall. In five races, this was our fifth top-ten finish, and our third trophy (wins in Class B and Class C this year, and the Grassroots Motorsports Most From the Least award last year), so we must be doing something right! In all honesty, though, that's not what keeps us coming back. It's simply a boatload of fun, and we'd still keep coming back even if we never got another trophy. We have a great team who are all friends, and a car (a beat-up old Volvo 240) that isn't especially fast but is as reliable as they come and doesn't blink when we flog it for 15 hours straight. It's actually surprisingly fun to drive. We almost started to feel a little bad Saturday night as we were hanging around the garage drinking beer and probably being too loud while all around us teams were swapping engines, replacing clutches, and who knows what all else. :P

What I'll remember most about this weekend though isn't the results, but stuff like hanging out with the three other Volvo teams, the amazing Friday night BBQ hosted by the Keystone Kops and the Overengineer'd teams, the fantastic hospitality and Italian feast hosted by the Alfa teams on Saturday night, showing the Lego Volvo the rain line as we carved through slow traffic in the rain Sunday afternoon, meeting the fun Canadian team driving the white Golf (who won Class C, BTW), etc., etc.

It was huge fun all around, and I still haven't come down from the weekend! We'll be towing the cow down to Summit Point next month, and then Stafford Springs in July.
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by Dave_G » Tue May 10, 2011 4:40 pm

blindsidefive0 wrote:I suppose you could say our team took it too seriously.
Yeah, I could. Please don't take this personally, but if someone gets furious at a LeMons race, they're doing it wrong.
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by blindsidefive0 » Tue May 10, 2011 4:51 pm

@ Bill - it was actually 2 cars, a salvage miata and a flipped SM. We got the door and some body panels from the SM (the stickers made the car look faster than it was). After the cage, wheels, tires, and safety equipment, the car was probably worth a few grand.

@ Mark and Dave - I actually liked the event for the most part, including the "silly" penalties. I think we did a very "nice job" on the picture they made us draw, and it was pretty hilarious to bolt a cone to the trunk lid. Some guys were looking for something different, I guess. However, I can't say I fault the owners for withdrawing the car like that - I didn't buy or build it, so it wasn't my call.
- Nick
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by kfoote » Tue May 10, 2011 6:16 pm

A couple more comments here...

In tech, we were told that a Miata had won the last event and was quite a bit faster than everyone else...hence the penalty.

The driver's side door came off a third car whose chassis has long since departed.

The only non-stock Spec Miata parts on the car were the brake pads (free), the cage (came out of a 4th car, which had also rolled), and the shocks (timed out after they had been in a SM for 3 seasons). We were running the sway bars that came with the chassis, and the springs were 2.5" ID springs that we were running without spring locators that were returns from my work that could not be sold as new. The condition of the roof was such that Lemons Tech made us patch it op a bit with duct tape for fear of it breaking at the driver's side B-pillar. Our lap times were about 5 sec off a good SM time, quite a bit more than just the improvement in tires.

Speaking only for myself and not for the rest of the team here, I have no issues with the penalties that we were given. What I really had issues with was the sanctioning body not following their own, very limited, rule book and being straight up lied to by the organizers. That doesn't sit well with me. The best analogy I can come up to relate it to COM would be something like "Would you run with COM again if after having run all of the practice sessions with no issues, you were black flagged during the first timed lap because your car numbers were thought not to contrast enoguh to the background of the car, and you were not allowed a rerun". I had no issues with the penalties given, but when you are told to mount a cone to the trunk of the car, and you mount it, and the 250 lbish inspector stands on the rear bumper of the car and tries to rip the cone off with all his might, and can not, but still somehow determines that it's not mounted securely enough, there'es something else going on there.
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by Dave_G » Tue May 10, 2011 6:51 pm

kfoote wrote:I had no issues with the penalties given, but when you are told to mount a cone to the trunk of the car, and you mount it, and the 250 lbish inspector stands on the rear bumper of the car and tries to rip the cone off with all his might, and can not, but still somehow determines that it's not mounted securely enough, there'es something else going on there.
Of course there is. LeMons hates Miatas. It's no secret, and anyone who has spent 10 minutes reading about LeMons would learn this. The organizers hate Miatas, and the drivers hate Miatas. Hell, I OWN a Miata, and I love Miatas, and even I hate Miatas at LeMons, because in the world of $500 cars, Miatas are the fastest thing out there. Nothing can touch them. They're the totally obvious choice, and nothing is more boring than the obvious choice. (FWIW, our team didn't vote to curse you -- we voted for nobody.)

Of course some people just happen to have a $500 Miata lying around that they want to compete with. No problem, it happens all the time. So you just show up with your Miata (a theme that shows some imagination helps), accept the BS penalty laps, accept the inevitable unfair treatment from the judges with good humor, and go on driving. Hang out with the other teams so they get to know you as good guys instead of just the anonymous names with the cheaty car.

I've been in the penalty box before, and believe me, there's no profit in arguing with the judges. There is great profit in being a good sport about it. If the judge is trying to rip off the cone, so what? It's a $%^&ing LeMons race, not the FIA F1 World Championship.

Finally, read the rules, paying particular attention to Rule 2.4:
2.4 Whiner Eligibility. Whiners are not eligible to compete. If you believe that you might be a whiner, please check with a domestic partner, guardian, or health-care professional before getting the rest of your team kicked the hell out of the race.
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by WillM » Tue May 10, 2011 8:35 pm

Yikes.
I know 4 of the 6 guys, and the ones I know are nice guys and COM friends. The rumors I heard were bigger than Nick mentioned, so I'm glad to hear it wasn't as nasty as I heard.
That said, I think the (spec) Miata is a square peg in a round hole at Lemons. Stephan, in case you are reading this, you should know that Alfa Romeos make an excellent Lemons car. There were two, and they were damn fast!
The whole idea of the event is to do the best you can with as little as possible, and make fun of the whole process. Our team wore dresses, which is very unusual for all but one of us (I won't mention Haydn's name as I don't want to embarrass him).
The least celebrated trophy is the "race winner" trophy, which is awarded to the car that turns most laps.
The other trophies and the grand prize ($1,500 in nickels) are awarded for being a good lemons citizen, creativity, being a hard-charger type, and in general exceeding the expectations of the total piece of $#!& you showed up with.
The driving can be a lot of fun, and if you are a racer-type, trying for the overall "win" is fun, but not nearly as much as the camaraderie.

Square peg:
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Round holes (rusty, broken, and otherwise janky (BUT HILARIOUS!)round holes!).
Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots....Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Idiots having fun:
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by paultg » Tue May 10, 2011 9:13 pm

kfoote wrote:A couple more comments here...

In tech, we were told that a Miata had won the last event and was quite a bit faster than everyone else...hence the penalty.

The driver's side door came off a third car whose chassis has long since departed.

The only non-stock Spec Miata parts on the car were the brake pads (free), the cage (came out of a 4th car, which had also rolled), and the shocks (timed out after they had been in a SM for 3 seasons). We were running the sway bars that came with the chassis, and the springs were 2.5" ID springs that we were running without spring locators that were returns from my work that could not be sold as new. The condition of the roof was such that Lemons Tech made us patch it op a bit with duct tape for fear of it breaking at the driver's side B-pillar. Our lap times were about 5 sec off a good SM time, quite a bit more than just the improvement in tires.

Speaking only for myself and not for the rest of the team here, I have no issues with the penalties that we were given. What I really had issues with was the sanctioning body not following their own, very limited, rule book and being straight up lied to by the organizers. That doesn't sit well with me. The best analogy I can come up to relate it to COM would be something like "Would you run with COM again if after having run all of the practice sessions with no issues, you were black flagged during the first timed lap because your car numbers were thought not to contrast enoguh to the background of the car, and you were not allowed a rerun". I had no issues with the penalties given, but when you are told to mount a cone to the trunk of the car, and you mount it, and the 250 lbish inspector stands on the rear bumper of the car and tries to rip the cone off with all his might, and can not, but still somehow determines that it's not mounted securely enough, there'es something else going on there.
Man, it just isn't getting any better for you and the rest of the team :( http://murileemartin.com/wordpress/?p=1285

I was out of town this weekend but hope to make it to the next one in NH. Looks like alot of fun to participate and spectate.
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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by blindsidefive0 » Tue May 10, 2011 10:29 pm

paultg wrote:Man, it just isn't getting any better for you and the rest of the team :( http://murileemartin.com/wordpress/?p=1285

I was out of town this weekend but hope to make it to the next one in NH. Looks like alot of fun to participate and spectate.
Lol - we are pretty much Lemons villains at this point, but what are you going to do...

I think Will nailed it - that car was definitely a square peg, although our team was nothing like how it was described in that post (I'm not even a racer). Honestly, I might have done another Lemons event with my dad and Dave with another car (maybe a first gen Probe with a sci-fi theme or something). I just treated the event as a learning experience...although not sure that matters with the lifetime ban.

No one got to see the Miata filled with shit (which, admittedly, would have been amusing for the crowd), but people seem to be having some fun ripping on the Flying Chickens on facebook (milk carton is hilarious) so in a weird way at least we contributed to the humor of the event.
- Nick
nicholas.fontana@gmail.com

1999 Mazda Miata - T50
FS: 1997 Green BMW M3 - T80/SC
RIP: 1994 White BMW 325i - SSB

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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by nhsilversti » Wed May 11, 2011 3:27 pm

in the end it seems "flying chickens" was a fitting name

:lol:

imo, it seems as if you guys were a bit too serious as mentioned before
need parts for your trailer, welding repairs/fabrication (sorry cant do aluminum), tires mounted and balanced, feel free to email/pm me. i am located a little west of nashua. ted

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Re: LeMons in NH - "Loudon Annoying 2011"

Post by RyanC » Wed May 11, 2011 6:47 pm

The only thing as hated at LeMons as a Miata is perhaps an e30... and ask Carl, Joe, Paddy, Fred, Pete and I about penalty laps for cars being worth more than you 'paid'...

Did you guys bribe the judges during BS tech? Did you have at least a reasonably documented, non-whiner explanation for how a very spec-looking Miata could actually be in the event? Did you have a theme?

Face it, you tried to cheat, didn't succeed well enough, and got called out on it. Worse things have happened, so my advice is learn to cheat better (and don't take LeMons so seriously.. oh wait, you can't anymore!) :lol:

For my part, I'm just bummed that I got 15 or so laps at my home track before the motor let go.

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