The Longest Day is Back! 24 hours at Nelson

:eclipsee_steering: one thing we have done in the past is to tape a twenty in the rear window or pass. rear side window and the challange to all who got in was who ever scored the highest got to go up and down pit lane at impound and tear off the bills and tuck them in your pants like a stripper while parading up and down pit lane .receiving all the accolades [and boos] from your competors[ie. loosers] while you gloat[please remove helmet, danger of swelling]. so if your interested get your scotch tape ready ,stop by car 88 pits to see our $20. and sign in your in . we could really use the extra money unless you think you could beat us ,alot of people have thought so in the past .could be your year ??????..... see ya there
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Hmmm...somebody masquerading as 'us', issuing challenges based on past behavior (the old "Dash for Cash" challenge). Could be Mad Mike...or maybe Edwin/Raceshopper....or Meindl...

Folks...3jsracer3js is an impostor, as he didn't even get our team name correct. I'm going to guess it's one of those listed above....
 
Roland

9 ITB Checkered Motorsports Lake In The Hills, IL VW Golf Silver CHI 34
Csaba Bujdoso, Brad Barnhouse, William Trainer, [/b]
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The car is green and add driver "Bill Super Fast Johnson" to the driver list... :eclipsee_steering:

Now the ITB guys are in real trouble
 
36 ITS Team OMGWTFBBQ Arlington, VA, BMW 325is Black WDC 41
Tom Philip, Joseph McGroarty, John Hall
Negative Camber/Go Banana


I guess it's official. Add me to this bunch. :D My home track.
 
SO?????????? How did it go?[/b]
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It was much like the 24 Hours of LeMons - cars crashing with alarming regularity - some aided and others solo. Let's just say if you sold Miata bumper covers and provided dent removal services at the Longest Day, you'd be busy for a month of Sundays.
 
Knestis' team report, short answer ('cause I'm actually busy today!):

- Qualified second; we had some significant wiring harness probs Friday night during the qualifying session which kept us mostly off track, but Bowie got in a few hot laps to get us up into 24th overall (of roughly 34 cars).
- We started strong out of the gate. Bowie led off, passed the York car, and we never relinquished the lead.
- Had a minor "off" late in the afternoon, only cost us a few laps.
- We stayed out in the rain on slicks for the first hour, but eventually caved and installed rains. Then it quit raining. A few more laps lost.
- Early in the wee hours we started having shifting probs, but it was workable.
- At one point, roughly 8-ish AM Sunday, we were 63 laps ahead in ITB, and we even ran as high as 4th overall earlier in the event.
- Then, we did a Sunday AM (daytime) driver swap and he *immediately* called with with a lurid slide in T One with smell of trans oil. Brought the car in and trans oil was everywhere in the engine compartment. No obvious failures, but instead of squandering the lead we'd built up the Conover crew swapped out the trans. From crossing the line entering the pits to crossing the line exiting the pits was one hour, 7 minutes. We re-entered the track 25 laps up to the second-place ITB car.
- Race uneventful from there, thank Goodness. We won the race by 25 laps.

I'll let Knestis do the recognition honors, but EVERYBODY did a super job. I was ***BEAT*** last night. Got home roughly 9. Still tired.

Greg, team co-DTR...

P.S. best move of the weekend: buying the $8 "Drink and Drown" from the coffee/espresso trailer. All the coffee you can drink for EIGHT BUCKS for the whole event. I asked 'em if they had an annual membership...
 
>> - We stayed out in the rain on slicks for the first hour, but eventually caved and installed rains. Then it quit raining. A few more laps lost.

Translation - Kirk (the guy who LIKES to drive in the rain) was too skeered to continue on slicks and made exactly the wrong call at the wrong time, from the cockpit. It really looked like the clouds were settling in but that was probably just wishful thinking, in hindsight.

K
 
The race for ITB was pretty much for 2nd from the drop of the green flag. When we (Rubber Chicken Racing) were lapped after the first 20 minutes by the Conover Golf, I knew the only way we could win it was for them to break. The Conover team definitly showed that they were well organized and ready to run the entire 24 hours. Congratulations on a race well run. They definitly deserved this win.


Unfortunatly the Rubber Chicken crew had to do a little work on the our Rabbit to get it back on the track. :(
 
Your misfortune will translate into fame. There's GOT to be some video out there to put on YouTube of either...

A. The car circulating without any windows, or...

B. The frame-pulling exercise with the large truck and farm implement...

K

EDIT - spare a kind thought for Roland Hahn, by the way. He worked his butt off to make this event happen and organize the enduro series, then got poked into a tirewall and knocked his bean - reportedly hard enough to crack his helmet. They took him out on a stretcher but I was told that he was in OK shape. He's got to be a hurtin' unit today.

ROLAND - THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK!

K
 
Congratulations to the Conover team for a race well run! You guys really have your stuff together... Good job.


That race was something else to say the least,....#9 VW Golf ITB Checkered Motorsports

I was one of the drivers in the #9 VW golf we finished 3rd in ITB, not bad for 4 drivers that have never driven the car before or ran an endurance race before, and if the 24 of Nelson is an example of running endurance race's I'm not sure if I'll ever run one again...LOL....That was a bitch, I'm still sore.

We had the Porsche team on the left and the Puskar Miata team on the right, guys that really had there stuff together, with the fueling stations and fast this and quick that, all that good stuff, those guys made us look like the Rookies that we where....we could come in for fuel and a driver change and they would come in after us and change tires, fuel the car, change drivers, and be out before we had gas in the car.

Lucky for me I was with a team of the best drivers the SCCA has to offer, Csaba Bujdoso, Brad Barnhouse, Bill Trainer, these guys did a Great job, and it was an honor being on the team.

I couldn't say enough about our crew of 3 ether, the first endurance race for them as well, my son Jeremiah, and my friends Paul and OJ, equipped with 5 gallon gas cans and an assortment of new and used parts they kept us on the track for the hole 24hrs, these guys also did a Great job, Thank you very much...

If it wasn't for a A-frame that broke flush with the frame, drill, tape, replace...45 minutes or the head light switch...20 minutes, and the 1/2 inch pipe on the gas can...about 4 minutes to fill the car...lol
We would have surely been in first place in ITB.....But you live and learn....and boy was that a learning experience...lol

All in all I think we did a GREAT JOB !!! Thanks guy for letting me be a part of that race... :eclipsee_steering:

Bill Johnson
 
Kirk, great job. Great work on the transmission in that short of a time - you'll rival Audi soon enough! (Been there done that at a race weekend too when Matt and I toasted a 5th gear once at Mosport) I'm sure that Matt will fill me in on the whole deal when he gets back. Hope the pit board worked well for ya.

Again, kudos.
 
Other than getting spanked by Conover, York, and Checkered....
Yes, we did pay up by delivering the beer

When I went to sleep we were doing ok considering we had to pit about every hour due to only being able to use 7 gallons of fuel out of the tank before the car sputtered coming out of the carousel.

I woke up to see the car in our paddock;
1. w/ a smashed door and fender
2. driver strut that was popped out of the camber plate due to the top nut coming loose
3. front bumper lost in the grass outside turn 12
4. toe setting off

I definitely learned a bunch from the Hippi and Conover guys that were next to us.

Next year we will be back for some more.....

Jeremy Cesene
Hillbilly Motorsports
#13 ITB
 
I am glad the event got hosted and went off as well as it did, hope the track didn't take too big a beating by putting it on. I'd like to go back and do it again. There are only a handful of races of this length in north America that I know of.

Great work by the T&S guys to have the laps all posted on Mylaps before I even got home. Is anyone from the Summit Point 12 hour reading this?????

I was in the #3 ITE miata, if I drove like an ass, let me know. Most out there were being pretty nice, but there were a few moves I saw that left me either cursing or shaking my head. I think this sums up my thoughts on some of the driving.

It was much like the 24 Hours of LeMons - cars crashing with alarming regularity - some aided and others solo. Let's just say if you sold Miata bumper covers and provided dent removal services at the Longest Day, you'd be busy for a month of Sundays. [/b]
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Matt
 
Ditto on T&S functions - very good. Other debrief points, while my memory is fresh...

** Registration could have used some organizational help - if a full compliment of entries had shown up, they would have been in (even deeper) doo-doo.

** Tech - why is the annual inspection process fine for every other race in a season but NOT OK for this one? Am I missing something? The lines weren't long (not a ton of entries) but the processes involved were just slooooow.

** Pits - I really liked having a swath of grass behind the hot pits where people could hang out without being in the way. That's just an accident of how things are set up i know but it was great to have the non-hot-pit folks right there, and a place to cook, etc. for the people at the wall.

** Schedule - Please, please, PLEASE reconsider the 3:00 start. Just HAVING the Longest Day is enough recognition of the event's history, without having to resort to using the traditional start time. If there's anything that puts future trips to Ohio in jeopardy, it's the fact that we have to ask crew members to take yet another day off if they live more than just few hours from the track.

** Track - I think it was Walsh who called it der Nelsonring. Very appropriate! Fast, rough, unforgiving, kind of pretty in a KOA kind of way (rather than in a golf resort kind of way). The Golf was at less of a disadvantage than other places. It sticks and has gobs of torque, so aero drag was less of a factor. I have to admit that I was intimidated at first but I came in sick and pretty well off my game. By the time we were done though, I was really digging it. I had the BIGGEST spin of my life and got away with it when I lifted rather than hit a guy I caught faster than I expected, right at the kink. Freakin' WHEE, I can tell you - leaving the road driver's left and sliding backward all the way to the corner station before the straight. That was pretty stooopid and I'm NOT counting on that lucky star for next time.

** I didn't think the driving sucked very hard, as a group. I had a couple of problems to deal with. I still don't understand how someone can miss yellow lights at night and pass another car, or not read a sign that says "PITS CLOSED." And there was one dude out there driving around, and around, and around with his blinker going. I didn't have to deal with nearly the number of selfish moves than I have at other races in hte last 2 years.

K
 
Thanks from the T&S crew. Anyone wanting pdf time cards just email [email protected] and she will get them to you. They did an awesome job for a staff of 8, 2 person shifts and 1 person up for all 24. with all the feeds they were doing, wireless and icard. No one knows but this track always has a live feed of t&s to the start tower, stewards room, 2 announcer sites and race control and usually down stairs in the base of the tower.
I understand that the indiviual specialties are already planning on what to improve and all that was mentioned was mentioned already.
 
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