24 Hours Of LeMons!!

[Champ]

Guys follow my team and I this weekend as we compete in the 24 Hours of Lemons in Toledo, OH.

www.24hoursoflemons.com

If you are unfamiliar with the race, the goal is to have a $500 car which doesn't include safety equipment (roll cage, tires, brakes etc). It is a 24 hour endurace race.

Here is the live coverage for my team, we SHOULD be getting updates on site as the race is going on so you can check in for all the latest action! The race starts at 3pm sharp on Saturday and runs for 24 hours!

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b47/campbellca/480lemons.gif (http://culturegarage.com/category/cougarbait/)


To get into the 24 Hours of LeMons, you had to write a bit of an essay and explain why you and your team were worthy enough to compete in the race.

Following is our entry and the meaning behind our name.


Team Cougar Bait: Toledo, Ohio has one of the highest cougar per capita populations in the United States. We don’t know if that is actually true or not, but it makes for a great concept… plus we just updated Toledo’s Wikipedia page with those “facts.”

Team Cougar Bait is built with a slew of young men (mid 20’s) who have spent their time wrenching on cars, doing everything from rally to track days. But their strength isn’t in car related things, but rather in attracting the attention of mid 40’s suburbanite married females with low social morals. There are many tactics we plan to take to help woo the female population of Toledo (who also happen to be fans of $500 cars racing).

Among them:

1. The car, a Saab 9000, is obviously a luxury marque that just leaves women begging for a ride (in the car).

2. The paint, the car will be shot with brown paint and then Louis Vuitton styled stencils will pattern the car in gold.

3. We will manscape.

4. We plan on taking team photos at glamor shots.

5. We will be dressed in tailored jeans, button up shirts and pointy toed shoes — underneath our fire retardant suits.

Pretty much we are just doing this (LeMons) as a way to attract older affluent women. Because, unfortunately, none of us are cut out to be tennis instructors.

[Champ]

http://culturegarage.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc_3133.jpg

[toasted]

HAHA, Cougar Bait.... LOL

[BimmerTim]

I <3 old muff.

[Topher]

I am so giddy.

;)

Picking up the RV in three hours.

[thull]

^I'm glad you guys found an alternative to the RV, I know we kinda left you hanging.

[Topher]

We got it sorted out. No worries!

[vweezly]

Yall should have my shirt as a team jersey... but we already discussed that :)

[Topher]

Yall should have my shirt as a team jersey... but we already discussed that :)

No need. :thumbup:

http://culturegarage.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/photo1.jpg

[vweezly]

Rad!

[Eveille]

Lol wow

[cooperdude]

LOL thats funny as hell.

[Champ]

Hittin the road in 45 minutes!

[hamradio]

Have a safe drive out there!

[magilson]

Be sure to rub a little paint of on the Chia Neon. My friend from college is a member of that team.

http://www.chianeon.evilengineering.com/latchkeykids/

[The_Stig]

Sounds like you guys will be having a blast! From what you told me, Jon, it sounds like a lot of work...but all worth it:thumbup:

Good luck!

[HPTDoh]

Good luck!

[Eyedeas]

OMG that sounds fuggin awesome! I love how they take it really seriously but also joke about it, perfect. Have fun guys and let us know where you finished(if you did).

[amish_geek]

They got 22nd or 23rd out of 50 something cars. They also won "most heroic fix"...

They quite possibly would have placed top 10 had a pit stop into the wall at 60mph caused a 4-hr maintenance session, eating up track time.

[sprstu]

4 hr maintenance and they lost only 10ish spots? wow.

[amish_geek]

4 hr maintenance and they lost only 10ish spots? wow.

No, they hit the wall ~150 laps into the race. After 4hrs of maintenance, they were in dead last when they got back on the track... and by morning they climbed to 23rd from 55th.

They won most the Heroic Fix award.

[amish_geek]

race is over.


we came in 23 out of 52 total cars; had the 4th fastest lap overall.

story about the "incident"

chris was coming into a turn on the outside line. guy on the inside hit him, and put him straight into the wall at 60mph. moved 2 1ton concrete blocks ~10ft with the impact. it was ridiculous.

it took us about 4 hours to "fix" the car. we replaced the radiator and oil cooler, and rigged the intake system up with no intercooler. we used hirsch's astrovan with a couple chains to pull the front bumper supports out, and used two tiestraps to put the front bumper on.

once we got it running, it ran like a fuckin champ. we were easily one of the 3 fastest cars on the track. even on 5lbs of boost, there wasnt a car that could pull away from us. we put down a total of 1434 laps, (1390 after the wreck), or about 1100 miles.

the motor in the car is basically toast. i think that, because we werent running the intercooler, we were knocking pretty bad and killed the headgasket.

overall it was amazing. worth it at twice the cost

http://www.saablink.net/forum/showthread.php?t=32485&page=5#93

[JK9K]

I just have to say that this was an AMAZING weekend.

First of all I have to thank the entire team for getting everything together, helping with the last minute car change, getting the cage together, spending many, many late nights on all sorts of last minute details, getting sponsors lined up, and so much more. There were a lot of things that we overlooked until the last minute that we were able to overcome by both dumb luck and because everyone was so flexible about getting stuff done.

Next, I have to say that pretty much everyone involved in this race was top notch. There were some either inexperienced or maybe overly aggressive or defensive drivers (pulling shit that flies in the face of normal track etiquette) but in the pits I saw no real serious animosity. Everyone that I interacted with was very helpful and enthusiastic, some people went out of their way helping our team get out car back together and keeping it out on the track. The Pratt and Miller ALMS guys (Team Sofa King - our pit neighbors) were absolutely great, they helped us with pit stops without even asking, they helped countless other teams with their issues (big and small), and they went on to WIN the race despite all their time helping others!

As others have noted, we had a bit of an incident. The car started like:

http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0104.jpg

and ended like:

http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0224.jpg

With a lot of little stuff in between!

After getting the car going I dropped like a brick. When we got the car running I was able to drive several laps, the car was clearly fucked in many ways, but DAMN it was fast. I drove very conservatively at first because I wanted to be sure that everyone on the team would be able to drive the car. We did not have a 3rd radiator with us, and there was NOTHING on the front of the car to protect us if we were to rear-end anyone again.

I woke up in the morning and Andrew (Saab Exile), Champ, Mike S (BMW guy, not on here), and I think Ben, another of our drivers, took us through the night with phenomenal driving. They got us from 2nd to last place up into a mid-20 place...I was floored! I took the wheel in the morning and got to see how fast the car really was. It was a blast. Topher took over after we with an epic 250+ lap session and gained us several more places. I was able to put more laps in, as did Champ and Andrew.

The car then began to suffer a pressurized crankcase and was down on power, we decided that rather than blowing up the motor we would let Topher finish the race with the checkered flag. It was totally worth it.

It ended up that we has clearly one of the fastest cars in the race. We had the 3rd or 4th fastest lap times, and clearly were able to pull from damn near dead last place and nearly into the top 20 cars after being down hundreds of laps from the lead car.

Here are some of my photos...

After the fix
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0138.jpg

Champ after a great session:
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0146.jpg

Switching up..
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0147.jpg

Our trophy - most heroic fix:
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0153.jpg

we were not eligible for this one ;)
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0162.jpg

An SVO (Topher tagged this one real good before the "race alignment" incident) and an Integra...and the pits:
http://s525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/?action=view&current=IMG_0171.jpg

More of the pits
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0172.jpg

http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0173.jpg

Team First Blood - People's Choice and People's Curse
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0183.jpg

http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0187.jpg

Team Cougar Bait + pit helper - minus Champ (no idea what he was up to at the time)
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0195.jpg

http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0196.jpg

Many thanks to our sponsors:

Track Time Motorsports - http://www.tracktimemotorsports.net/

Jeff Fross, The Alignment Guy - http://www.thealignmentguy.com/

Frozen Rotors - http://www.frozenrotors.com/

Iowa City Saab & Meyer Garage Saab - http://www.meyersaab.com/

Thanks again to the various people in the pits who offered their expertise and advice to get us back on the track to pull out more than 1200 laps after out wreck that was only 48 laps into the race! Also, thanks to the ESPN guys who hung out with us and took lots of photos, I don't think they ever took us up on our offer of Hot Pockets though :(


We'll be back next year, with a few fresh ideas to help prevent incidents like ours from taking so long to fix!

More photos from our live updates here: http://culturegarage.com/category/cougarbait/

And I will try to link to more photos when possible!

[The_Stig]

Looks like you had a blast!



Champ after a great session:
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc334/TeamCougarBait/JKs%20photos/IMG_0146.jpg

Badass pic Jon!

[Topher]

Also, thanks to the ESPN guys who hung out with us and took lots of photos

Win!

http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-snc1/v318/62/69/20704051/n20704051_37238360_6167.jpg

http://photos-e.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-snc1/v318/62/69/20704051/n20704051_37238356_4886.jpg

Hopefully they do a story on us!

[hamradio]

haha, sunglasses on a rainy day?

good work, guys. :beer:

[Topher]

The glasses are green tinted, they help with driving. They also fit inside my helmet, whereas my standard glasses didn't fit.

[vweezly]

Wow yall. Congrats on finishing. That car looked freakin badass. What exactly happened? Some douche push you out of the way... bad racing etiquette?

When are they covering it on espn?

[JK9K]

Funny thing, nobody was really watching when he hit the wall.

From the footage and the marks on the car that we saw right afterward someone tagged the inside rear corner of the bumper just enough to nudge us around.

Combine the wet racing surface and (I can only assume) lifting up on the gas with a car that was so light in the rear, it spun pretty quick, then glanced off the inside wall and shot into the outside wall.

[Champ]

Wow yall. Congrats on finishing. That car looked freakin badass. What exactly happened? Some douche push you out of the way... bad racing etiquette?
50/50 fault...Chris was the faster car, but he changed lines into a guy that was there. BUT it was close enough, that if the guy slowed JUST A TAD there would have been no contact. Chris changed lines slowly so usually when someone is coming down onto you like that you slow a tad to yield way.

When are they covering it on espn?
Not sure yet, said they would email us!

[vweezly]

50/50 fault...Chris was the faster car, but he changed lines into a guy that was there. BUT it was close enough, that if the guy slowed JUST A TAD there would have been no contact. Chris changed lines slowly so usually when someone is coming down onto you like that you slow a tad to yield way.

Not sure yet, said they would email us!

Cool. Glad he is ok. I watch that happen alot in BTCC... but they usually mean to nudge :)