Back 40 Racing at 24 Hours of LeMons

Thanks to a friend of a friend, we came up with a bolt-in rollbar for not too much money at all.  The good thing is that half of our cage work is complete for about the price of the steel we’d have had to buy to complete that half!  The downside is that we still have to complete the other half ;).  We plan to add onto this rollbar to build our complete roll cage.  This will consist of two downtubes forward, two transverse braces, and one door bar at the minimum. 

 We’ve also installed our seat.  This is an old circle track seat that I purchased from a friend out of an IMCA modified car.  With a little padding, I think we’ll be all set!  The seat is mounted to the stock seat slider/adjusters to make it comfortable for all drivers as well as facilitate easier driver changes. 

Well…throughout the course of the last couple of weeks, it was decided that a July race date was not realistic for all members of the team.  So we decided to set our sights on the Otcober race near Houston, TX.  Though I can’t imagine the weather in Houston in October will be much more pleasant than July in South Carolina…we’re excited, none-the-less!

 I mentioned in the last post that I had a line on a parts car.  Funny things happen with cheap cars.  The one that I planned to get ended up being sold to someone else who offered more than we did.  Oh well…the seller let me know of another similar platform Honda that might be for sale.  A couple of weeks and a few phone calls later and we have a deal on the beauty below.

Granted…we haven’t officially purchased or taken possession of the vehicle, we do plan to obtain it for use as a parts vehicle for the hatchback.  It looks nice, but under the hood is an engine which has allegedly had it’s crankcase ventilated by one or more connecting rods.  The oil stain under the car would seem to support this.

 The car will provide us with many vital spares such as shocks, control arms, tie rods, fuel pumps, wheels, bodywork, cv axles, and the list goes on. 

There has been a lot of discussion about choosing a theme for the car and team.  It seems this is highly scrutinized and a team must have a pretty outrageous and/or funny theme to be granted entry into the secret club that is 24 Hours of LeMons Racing.

 While we were “working” on the car most recently, we discovered a striking conincidence.  Behold:

A sponsorship from the Heileman Brewing Company might be in order given the striking similarity between the Civic’s color and the labels of a Stag bottle!

Thanks Chris for the “inspirational elixir!” 

Here’s an “Action Shot” of some of our car preparation session!

Chris, left.  Zac, Right.  Stag, all around. 

One exciting development is that we’ve found a parts vehicle to compliment this one.  A similar vintage Civic DX hatchback.  We should be acquiring this in the near future…photos to follow.  It’s funny how “parts cars” can be worth more than the primary sometimes…But seriously, there will be a spare radiator and fans, shocks/struts, wheels, fuel pump, calipers and rotors, and the list goes on.

The car we have seems surprisingly solid to this point.  One of the problems we feel the need to fix can be seen in the photo below.  The thermostat housing is cracked and in need of replacement.  Will this hold up for 24 hours, as is?  Oh probably.  However, we can’t leave “broke enough” alone.  Score another point for the parts car! 

It’s getting closer to “go time,” so check back often as we’ll certainly be doing more prep on the car.  Whether or not it gets documented is another question altogether…

It’s been very quiet here on the blog indeed.  You see, we’ve been busy not doing a whole lot about the LeMons car lately.  Just to fill you in on a few of the things we HAVE been doing:

• Thinking of outrageous themes, paintjobs, slogans, sponsors, etc. for the team
• Removing Air Conditioning equipment from the car
• Attempting to commit to using this particular car
• Gathering at the bar on a weekly basis to forget we were there to talk about this effort
• Wishing we actually had more time and money to spend on this effort
• Harrassing others, telling them how glorious this is all going to be

So here we are, approaching the deadline for our entry.  We have a line on a roll cage that we think we can make work.  This will save us lots of time and money.  We’re looking for money too…so if you or someone you know has a product or service and would like to sponsor our car, please put us in touch.  That said, we don’t have to be sponsored by products or services.  It could be that we’re sponsored by benevolent folks with twenty dollar bills.  We have been waiting to approach the subject of paint job until we either have a sponsor, or are sure we won’t have one.

Thanks for checking in…we’ll give you more progress and photos as the work parties allow!

Now that things are coming into place, it’s time to get to work!

 The next step in the process was to actually get the car to a suitable work space in which to prepare it for track duty.  Fortunately, Zac recently purchased a property with a 30 x 50 foot workshop.  He graciously offered space for the duration of the build!

 With the help of a friend and his F250, we transported the Civic across the county on Superbowl Sunday afternoon, in the rain, with a tow rope.  The biggest stress-inducing factor in this activity was the fact that the car had no electrical power, and thus, no windshield wipers.   While being towed a mere 15′ behind an F250 at 40+ miles per hour on wet roads…the winshield tends to get somewhat, shall we say, less than perfectly clear.  Realistically, this wasn’t a big factor, as my job in the towed car was to simply keep tension on the tow rope, and try real hard not to rear-end the tow vehicle.  At one point, when I couldn’t see the tow rope so well, we stopped and I got out and removed a winshield wiper from the car to manually squeegee the winshield clean.  Mission Accomplishied!

 However, if there was ever any hope of using the brakes pads that are currently installed on the Civic for racing purposes, those hopes can officially be put to rest at this time!  Keeping tension in the rope on the long downhills certainly resulted in some olfactory evidence of what one might expect of a ~2,500 lb car trying to stop a ~4,500 three quarter ton truck.

 Right about now is where I’ll shift gears from past tense to present tense-ish type writing…mainly.  Thus far, my entries have been of the happenings of the last couple weeks which were prior to the start of the blog.  Now we’re going to be documenting on a more as-it-happens basis.

 With the car neslted snugly in “Zac’s 50/50 Race shop,” it’s time to get to work.  We don’t have aspirations of a quick or particularly professional build, but we do expect to get it done steadily and in time for the Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw, South Carolina, entry deadline of May 17, 2008.

 Since the car hasn’t run in 1.5 years or more, I decided that before trying to start the engine we would pull the sparkplugs and put a little bit of oil down in the cylinders to soak for a few days.  In removing the sparkplugs, I confirmed, first-hand, what the service records from the previous owner had told me:  The valve cover gasket is shot and letting oil leak down into the spark plug ports on the head.  I suppose it’s time to price a valve cover gasket vs. a tube of RTV silicone.  Hmmm, it seems that the set for the valve cover gaskets is on the order of $26.00!  Yikes…that’s like what, 5% of the budget!?

While the rings and such soak up the oil, we proceeded by performing an initial hose-down to remove the majority of the protective layer of organic materials from the exterior of the car. 

Then it was time to start on the interior.  This is an aesthetically pleasing portion of the process, as you see lots of progress in relatively little time.  We went from this:

To This:

In about an hour and a half.  Not bad for a couple of guys with screwdrivers and a 12mm socket.

I feel compelled to take this moment to say that this car is WAY nicer than my daily driver ‘82 Corolla Wagon (http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o313/clemsparks/1982%20Corolla%20Station%20Wagon/DSCF0752.jpg).

From the first time I heard about 24 Hours of LeMons, I realized that this was the kind of activity that I would appreciate to its fullest.  The problem was that in ‘06 and ‘07 the only events were in California…a 24 hour tow from Missouri.  I was lacking resources of a tow rig, ample vacation time, and financial backing.

I did make some feeble attempts to get interest from my racing friends in the area.  However, it seems that my friends who were actually racers were too busy to be able to spend much time or money for such a one-time event. 

 When the 2008 Schedule came out and showed events as close to my location as 10 hours, I was determined.  The current effort started with a conversation with my colleague, friend, and fellow Back 40 racer Zac.  I had mentioned the race to him many times before.  Now, however, with the new schedule, he was very interested in partaking in the fun.  Shortly thereafter, I contacted my good friend Chris, who mentioned that he was quite excited about being a part of the team, as was his friend Todd.  The 4 of us met for drinks that evening, and we made a decision:  We are going to build a car for 24 Hours of LeMons!

Chris has a great tow rig:  a retired Missouri Department of Transportation, one-ton, powerstroke diesel Van.  He also has our choice of enclosed or open trailers for use during the trip.  This will certainly make for a comfortable cruise to and from the event(s).

The teams must consist of 4 to 6 drivers.  So, we’ve met the minumum requirements, and are all in concensus that 4 drivers, as opposed to 6, will maximize our seat time and thus learning potential and FUN!  We will certainly employ the help of anybody who would like to help with the effort, both locally, and on the actual race trip(s).  Of course, we may have more drivers too…who knows?

We decided on a team name based on our common tie of participating in the ridiculousness that is Back 40 Racing (local field racing for fun).  With the similarity between Back 40 Racing and 24 Hours of LeMons racing, we found ”Back 40 Racing” to be an appropriate team name.  As a side note, I like “Captain Clem and the Back 40 Bruisers”…but that would really be best if we were going to form a rockabilly band or the like.  Still, it’s got a good ring to it.  But I digress.

Or early plans were to compete in the event that is closest to us, the Toledo, Ohio, event.  We have unanimously decided, however, that the course layout at Ohio is less than desirable, and therefore we will plan to attend the event at Carolina Motorsports Park near Kershaw, South Carolina (http://www.carolinamotorsportspark.com/), and/or MSR near Houston, Texas (http://www.na-motorsports.com/Tracks/TX/MSR.html).  Either of these events is about 14 hours from us, and should be able to be managed in a long day of driving.  These are both true roadcourse circuits and we feel that they will be more conducive to learning and racecar longevity.

Selecting a car for such a race is really a curious subject.  There are lots of factors…but only one is really fixed.  That’s the price.  The rules dictate that the car must be purchased and prepared for the race for a grand total of not more than $500.  This does exclude safety related items (most of which are mandatory) as well as brakes and tires/wheels. 

In general, the cars that seem to do well are lightweight imports.  A standard transmission seems, to me, to be all but mandatory.  Rear drive would be a definite asset, though is certainly the exeption, rather than the rule, in the type of cars that would be most available to us.

I just so happens that I have become the go-to guy in my circles for anyone who needs to get rid of a car that is beyond repair.  When someone decides, “This car has been sitting in my driveway too long.  I don’t want to pay $500 to fix a car that won’t be worth that when I’m done.”  That’s when they call me.  Broken winshields, blown headgaskets, lost or invalid titles, worn out transmissions, doors that don’t open (or close), inoperable fuel pumps…these are the things that make my project cars mine.

The timing was just about perfect.  I had looked over the 2008 24 Hours of LeMons schedule and decided that there were enough venues within a close enough proximity to us that it would be worthwhile to put a team and car together…and I had actually said this outloud to my friend, colleague, and now-teammate, Zac.  It wasn’t 2 days later that I was contacted, by a friend of a friend, through a series of forwarded email messages, about a nuisance car that could use a good dose of “gone.”

 It wasn’t until I actually showed up to look at the car that I deemed it a very good candidate for use in 24 Hours of LeMons.  The car is a 1988 Honda Civic Hatchback.  It had been sitting for a year-and-a-half due to a battery and/or charging problem, but otherwise “ran when parked.”  The little Honda looked great.  Sitting under a tree covered in bird droppings and fallen branches with tires still holding air.  Its lack of power steering, power locks, and power windows certainly helped.  The ratty interior, though to be expected, also gave us a good feeling about the car.  But the 5 speed transmission sealed the deal.

And so, the car is selected!  Unless a better candidate comes along, we will be preparing this ‘88 Civic for competition.  The car is a beater, to be sure.  However, that’s what 24 Hours of LeMons is all about.  Still…we’ll have to do a bit of prepwork to get the car into shape!

Once at the competition, all cars are judged by a panel which attempts to arbitrarily validate each team’s financial details.  The burden of proof, it seems, is on the team. 

In our case, the reason we wish to compete in this event is because it can be done for low investment.  I see no reason to cheat in this respect, and therefore will be completely open, with all who are interested, about the budget of our effort.  We’ll start the tally with the purchase price of the car.  Zero Dollars.

 It is a well known fact that free cars are often more expensive than their paid-for counterparts.  I’m hoping to fly in the face of the conventional wisdom with this one.

 It is, of course, a generally accepted rule that automotive racing is inherently expensive.  “You have to pay if you want to play.”  This is what keeps so many of us from actually persuing our dream. 

 There is a new phenomenon, however, that takes the edge off the financial impact of auto racing in a significant way.  24 Hours of LeMons has entered the scene  (www.24hoursoflemons.com,  a wonderful read) and is a briliant concept that challenges competitors to purchase and prepare their racecar for $500 or less, and then proceed to compete in a 24 hour endurance race with a lineup of 4 to 6 drivers.

 So, I find myself compelled exploit this race as a rationalization that “It’s the cheapest ‘real racing’ that I’ll ever have the chance to compete in!”  What’s more?  I’ve conned at least three of my good friends into rationalizing right along with me. 

 A similar, though much less organized, phenomenon began years ago in a friend’s ”Back 40″ acres in Central Missouri.  Cheap cars and 40 acres of pasture truly do make for an unreasonably good time!  Over the years, I have honed my skills at obtaining cars suitable only for eminent destruction in a pseudo-competetive automotive event.

 In the Back 40, we get the cars cheap (and generally, torn up to the point that they’re no longer safe or practical for road transportation) and then go racing, door-to-door on a dirt “roadcourse.”  The course is likely similar to a RallyCross course.  The difference is that we don’t have timers and we’re not racing the clock.  We run as many cars as we can on the course at one time. 

This experience leads me to believe that we can find a car and prep’ it for 24 Hours of LeMons racing.  I approach all prospective “beaters” now with a unique perspective!   And so…the search is on.  Where can I come up with a suitable candidate for a 24 Hours of LeMons contender?

Howdy!  I’m Clem Sparks, Grease Monkey Extraordinaire.  I’m going to attempt to keep this blog to document the buildup of our racecar for competition in one or more events for 24 Hours of LeMons. 

Hang on tight…and be wary of flying drivel!