Greetings Pirate Ninjas. Found your thread and thought I'd add our pictures. I helped out the Black Iron Racing guys this weekend, what a blast. You can count on me prepping my own entry for next year, I'm betting the bar will be raised way over this year now that people have some clue how the event works.
Here's a link to our pictures. Just a gallery for now, I'll probably revamp it to include some back story and build details in a few days.
http://evilengineering.com/lemons/
Here are a few highlight photos. A before and after of our car...
Things started off pretty well for us. There wasn't any qualifying, so the starting order was just the order you lined up in the pits. We were 2nd by lap 10, took the lead a few laps later, and then opened up a bit of a gap until our first pit stop around lap 60. Turned out the front swaybar had ripped loose, no more bushings in sight. We wasted some time removing it carefully incase we wanted to reinstall it with some new bushings later. Back down to mid pack again they fought back up the pack, but were sidelined again after a disagreement with one of those huge 6' tractor tires out there...
Some experimenting with the new steering geometry got us pointed strait again, but we were now way off the pace. A couple of blown tires didn't help...
By the end of the first day, I think we were back up to ~7th, about 50-60 laps behind the leader. Check out the tire smoke, one wheel peel FTW...
Sunday morning started off with a nice bang, in the form of 4 burlap bags filled with nickles!
$1000 prize for the People's Choice award. Thanks everyone, this was REALLY not expected, and a great feeling! The best feeling was finding out that we weren't stuck with the People's Curse. It didn't turn out to be as crippling as it looked, the car started right up and race the entire rest of the day...
Racing on Sunday was very uneventful. We focused on just piling up the laps, trying to close on the leaders. The first driver was out for almost 3 hours, stopping only for a spin of the "wheel of misfortune". We landed on "train in vain" which equates to a pair of training wheels welded to the car...
This kind of stuff really set the event apart. Trying for the win was really only an afterthought, just getting out there and having fun was all that mattered.
We were into our 3rd and final driver for the day when disaster struck. With about 90 minutes remaining, the car inexplicably stalled out, and wouldn't even turn over. Still don't have a conclusive autopsy report, but the biggest factors were a cut auto trans cooler line, spilling all the vital fluid, and an engine that won't turn over, either with a starter or a wrench on the crank. My limited knowledge of auto transmissions tells me that even if it was seized up and shot, it shouldn't keep the engine from turning. So I suspect its something in the bottom end, probably a spun bearing or two from a low oil level and the negative G's over some of the bumps and jumps letting the oil pump suck air.
Here she is after about 10 hours of hard-fought racing...
Before it broke, we had snuck up to 5th, a lap down on 4th, and on pace for what would have been a 3rd place finish. Up from I believe a low position of 17th late on Saturday. So we were really happy with the car's performance, and can't really fault it for letting go after blasting through ~10 hours of hard racing action at this point in its life! The things friggin 20 years old!
Again, we had a great time at the event, and can't wait for next year. I started looking for prospects this morning. You guys better have some new things planned or you'll be left in the dust!
Here are some random action shots from throughout the race. I tried to take a lot of pit and on-track shots of the rest of the field, so if you don't see your car here, be sure to check the full gallery...
http://evilengineering.com/lemons/
I have about 20 pictures coming up, time for the page down button...
