Team Resignation

Happy Fun Video Times!

2011-11-03T13:07:00.007-05:00

Enjoy some video footage of the 2011 24 Hours of LeMons race at Autobahn Country Club!

Timelapse video of Tech/BS Inspection (Shot by Murilee Martin):

Racing 4 Nickels visits the Penalty Box (R4N basically has the entire race on video from their vantage point. Check out their YouTube channel):

The Jetta team enjoying their Class B trophy while their car's Eurotrash techno arms pump away (and Jay Lamm announces the Metro as the Class C winner):

The SHObocop Taurus participates in the bikini-top car wash penalty, apparently the invention of Keith from Byte Marks Racing (who shot the video):

Video shot from the Smokey Saturn team while they chased the MetSHO/Gaguar; includes a minute or so of video of Kiko driving the Escort:

I may post more video if I can find some, but there is quite a bit on the youtubes.

A LeMons BS Primer: Lessons in bribing and smugness

2011-10-28T17:29:00.001-05:00

Most who read this blog will be at least passingly familiar with the concept of the 24 Hours of LeMons: Buy [and fix] a car for $500 or less and bring it to the race. But the casual reader may question how the budget limit is enforced, so this post is intended for those inquisitive types and to explain Team Resignation's approach to the fuzzy math of budgets.

The budget enforcement team is better known as the LeMons Supreme Court, which in the Midwest consists primarily of Gonzo automotive journalist and smut writer Murilee Martin (known as Judge Phil in LeMons circles) and his cousin, Judge Sam¹. They process each team's budget through a scientific process known as "BS Inspection," during which they inspect the car and sort through the obviously cooked books which will almost certainly show a budget of $500 to the penny. They then assess penalty laps to those who have obviously violated the $500 budget; 1 penalty lap is assessed for each $10 spent overbudget.

However, there are methods to deflect the scrutiny of the Supreme Court's harsh interrogation methods. Judge Phil/Murilee Martin himself wrote the definitive guide, which can be found here. But let's explore Team Resignation's methods:

1) Pick a terrible car (or at least an unassuming one). Ford Escorts aren't really known for their racing pedigree². Or for much else besides there being a whole bunch of them anywhere. Alternately, pick a car you know and have worked on before. In our case, we killed two birds with one grille cover and chose a model that was closely related to Alan's daily driver at the time (and his two previous daily drivers).

2) Choose an awesome theme. This can be related in some ways to your car of choice, or it can be something awesome. The main point is this: Be original. Classic race car liveries (Gulf Oil anyone?) have mostly been done, and they're boring. But if you're going to do one, make it a parody. Observe the Charnal House MetSHO:
And the car they parodied:

In our case, we chose our theme from a LeMons Supreme Court request made on the forum for a Nixon/Agnew theme. The Agnew part got largely pushed to the background, but it showed up in a few places. Which leads us to...

3) The devil is in the details. When you're theming the car, pay attention to little things. Like a Ford emblem that says "Agnew" on it. The judges appreciate the effort. (The "Escape to Milwaukee" sticker came with the car. It's not related to the theme but is too good to remove.)

4) Dress like fools. It helps deliver the theme and looks great in photos. If you're willing to humiliate yourself [further; you're already racing a crapheap, remember] for the entertainment of those at the track and the Supreme Court, the gesture may spare you a few penalty laps. We dressed like Nixon volunteers, complete with campaign pins and name tags.

5) Bring some documentation. We at Team Resignation are terrible about keeping track of all the damn receipts for all the crap that goes into the car. But we make sure to have a closely estimated budget that is actually semi-realistic. And if we can, we print out part prices and emails in which we've bought or traded for parts. But it helps to make your paperwork part of the theme.

6) Update your theme in subsequent races. If you have a winner of a theme, make some adjustments to entertain the judges. In our case, we took our full-body mannequin that had been in the back of the car and mounted the torso of it to the roof. And we gave Nixon eyes. Then we had our graphics partner Phil Rood design an amazing stencil, which is loosely based on the old Thrush Mufflers bird. We have plans for our next two races in the works now.

7) Bribe, bribe, bribe. This is so important that we'll now discuss it at length.

We ran our first race in 2010 at Autobahn Country Club, and our bribe and theme was good enough to get a post of its own on Judge Phil's blog. The key to bribing is the same as the key to a good theme: Be original. Sure, everyone loves to bribe the judges with booze and/or food, but the judges and organizers are writers and creative types who love their bribes to be unique.

So our 2010 bribe included:

- A homebrewed American Pale Ale. Alan and Eric made labels to dub it "Nixon/Agnew Nattering Nabob Nuclear Beer." It was brewed by Eric's brother-in-law, Dan Meyer. The team also drank it in the post-race hours and traded it for other homebrew. Additional benefit: Homebrew (and any beer, really) can be a bartering item in the pit.

- A copy of the definitive Nixon biography by Roger Morris. Eric hollowed it out like some kind of LeMony movie and put a small bottle of Johnny Walker in there (well, booze is always a decent idea). The book itself was an incredible thrift-store find, having at some time been a Valentine's Day gift to a man's [soon-to-be-ex-]wife. Note the underlined words, which suggest that a 500+ page biography of the only impeached president should be synonymous with "real quality" time. Yikes.

- An iron-on Team Resignation T-shirt (Logo, again, designed by the great Phil Rood). These have since [BUY OUR STUFF] been supplanted by [BUY OUR STUFF] our wide variety[BUY OUR STUFF] of choices at the Team Resignation Cafe Press shop. Buy our stuff.

- A poster-sized copy of the famous Nixon-Elvis Oval Office photo. On the back, this poster had the entire handwritten manuscript (on American Airlines stationery) of Elvis' hippie-bustin' note to the Head Honcho.

In 2011, Eric added in some items that he felt fit the bill after reading Judge Phil's excellent Project Impala Hell series. We also decided to forego the booze bribes, since the judges have typically received more booze than they know what to do with:

- Several copies of Watergate-era Newsweek magazine, which were found in the same thrift store at the same time as the above-mentioned Valentine's Day biography. These feature some amazing old car ads and a sweet picture of Gerald Ford in commencement-speech garb, smoking a stogie and probably writing about how awesome it will be to have his own presidential jet when Nixon gets skewered by those vengeful liberal media types.

- A re-elect Nixon in '72 sticker, which Judge Phil promptly placed on his laptop. Also, a Nixon-Lodge volunteer postcard and a Nixon-Lodge campaign postcard.

- A Bricklin SV-1 watch, which keeps in line with Judge Phil's love of terrible, terrible cars. This was purchased on Ebay from a seller in Hong Kong, who has them in all manner of bizarre car brands. The Chrysler TC by Maserati watch that was purchased at the same time failed to arrive in time, so Eric wears it on occasion and laughs at it whenever he checks the time. If you opt to purchase a watch from the seller for these ends (or for your own), allow at least three weeks' shipping time.

- A mixtape of LeMons-related songs. This one stems from several Murilee Martin posts about his old mixtapes. The tracklist was compiled by mixing bands listed in these posts with bands of the same ilk, which basically led to it being the strangest (but pretty decent, really) mixtape ever compiled. Also, the titles and/or band names more or less create a half-assed narrative of a typical LeMons weekend. Track list:

SIDE A
"My Hooptie" - Sir Mix-A-Lot
"Waitin' for a Train" - Beck
"D's Car Jam/Anxious MoFo" - Minutemen
"Sweet Willy Rollbar" - Melvins
"Rodeo in Joliet" - The Jesus Lizard
"Trust Your Mechanic" - Dead Kennedys
"Ulcer Breakout" - Butthole Surfers
"Race Car Ya-Yas" - Cake
"Third Gear Scratch" - Shiner
"The Good Humor Mustard Gas Truck" - Murilee Arraiac
"Everything Falls Apart" - Husker Du
"Corvette Bummer" - Beck
"It's Gonna Be a Long Night" - Ween
"4,738 Regrets" - Trans Am
"The Race is On Again" - Yo La Tengo
"BMW Man" - Local H

SIDE B
"Rubber Car" - Enon
"Bump" - Mucca Pazza
"Everything Crash" - The Ethiopians
"Spoke" - Shellac
"Motor City Melanoma" - Murilee Arraiac
"Knucklehead" - The Bar-Kays
"Behave Yourself" - Booker T. & the MGs
"Yakety Axe" - Chet Atkins
"Super-Charger Heaven" - White Zombie
"Go To Bruises" - U.S. Maple
"Motion Sickness" - Eleventh Dream Day
"One More Mile" - Muddy Waters
"Sometimes Our Dreams Float Like Anchors" - William Elliott Whitmore
"The Easy Winners" - Scott Joplin

- Upon request, a copy of the Nixon stencil was provided to Judge Phil. The judges then liberally applied Nixon to "cars that needed it."

To date, our car (which is actually within the budget constraints, we swear) has barely been sweated at BS Inspection. In two races, we've accumulated 0 penalty laps and 2 Class B placements. Which is fitting, since the car has yet to be reliable for a full race.

So the long-winded advice is pretty much broken down like this: Don't be afraid to kiss some ass and be original.

¹ The LeMons Supreme Court varies by region. Automotive journalist Johnny Lieberman is one of the original judges who has since semi-retired though he carries a big stick at the California races still. In addition to BS judging, they also dole out punishments to drivers who do stupid things on track. Additionally, the title of "smut writer" was an edit by Alan. Just sayin'.

² At least not in America. In Europe, of course, Ford Escorts of a different ilk were big in rallying and touring car racing. Do want.

Little MoFo FoMoCup: The Hardware

2011-10-26T13:47:00.021-05:00

This serious piece of hardware is the 2011 FoMoCup prize! Greg has completed the trophy and will be shipping it to the glorious and triumphant winners, Byte Marks (Marx?) Racing¹.

I'll let Greg's words speak for themselves, as he is the trophy's designer and fabricator²:

"The base is a 40hp/1200cc VW camshaft topped off with a piston and connecting rod out of a 1098cc Morris Minor engine. The intake valves are out of a Ford Fiesta and the [Ford] emblem and car were affixed using super glue."

The car affixed to the top is a glittertastic Hot Wheels Cosworth Escort.

Is it not a work of beauty?

¹ If you're in a spendin' mood, buy a Byte Marks shirt. It will crush your will in a most comradely way!

² I'm glad that Greg came through, because my idea was to cut the head off a thrift-store tennis trophy and super-glue the Hot Wheels Escort in the head's place.

Little MoFo FoMoCup Winners: Byte Marks Racing

2011-10-24T13:10:00.001-05:00

Congratulations to the Byte Marks Racing Ford Escort GT for winning the inaugural Little MoFo FoMoCup! Byte Marks finished 19th overall and second in class B, which was by far the best finish for four-cylinder Fords in the whole field. Enjoy your [unfinished] trophy and 12 bottles of ~~loathsome~~ drinkable Schlitz for your efforts!

The origins of this [unofficial] award come from several "Sometimes-I-can't-believe-how-totally-awesome-we-are" conversations between Alan and myself [Eric]. The genesis for this, specifically, was Alan and Eric mirroring Ford engineers of the late 1970s in suggesting that Ford could make a compact car competitive with anything the Japanese could build. Of course, that hasn't parsed out exactly in LeMons (or real life), so they opted to create a separate competition to help Ford Escort team owners feel better about their terrible, terrible car. The original name was proposed as the Escort Cup with the winner getting a repurposed bowling trophy and some nasty beer.

Enter Greg from the Skid Steer Racing Mercury Bobcat team, who sent Eric a message via the LeMons forum to let him know that he was building an actual trophy for the Escort Cup (which only had two known entrants at the time). Since Greg didn't drive an Escort, Eric suggested that the competition be expanded to all small-displacement , normally-aspirated¹ ("Little Mofos") Ford Motor Company ("FoMoCo") entries. And so was born the Little MoFo FoMoCup.

Greg brought the unfinished trophy to Autobahn to complete, but some, uh, difficulties arose² and the trophy was unfinished due to time constraints (It will be mailed shortly, though).

Byte Marks did graciously accept the case of Schlitz, labeled by the Nixon campaign as "Unfit for human consumption," but that was mostly because Byte Marks are a bunch of Commies³.

In any event, here are the full Little MoFo FoMoCup results:

#101 Byte Marks Racing - Ford Escort GT - 351 Laps (19th overall)
#79 Dos Limons - Ford Fiesta - 314 Laps (35th overall)
#29 TSI/LemonSqueezer/Barbie - Mercury Capri - 291 Laps (44th overall)
#78 Dos Limons - Ford Fiesta - 269 Laps (50th overall)
#74 Team Resignation - Ford Escort LX/ZX2 - 246 Laps (57th overall)
#863 Team Skid Steer Bobcat - Mercury Bobcat - 235 Laps* (63rd overall)

* Team Skid Steer ran at least part of one stint with the transponder off. They likely would have finished in fifth place if the laps had counted.

Fastest Laps:

#74 Team Resignation - 1:49.866
#78 Dos Limons - 1:50.705
#79 Dos Limons - 1:51.694
#101 Byte Marks - 1:51.898
#29 TSI/Barbie - 1:52.721
#862 Skid Steer - 2:07.803

Congratulations to all FoMoCo teams for being dumb enough to run Ford metal! Each Ford entry ran more than 500 miles on the track!

We'll hopefully see all of these teams again at next year's Autobahn race(s).

¹ Astute car people out there will note that the third-generation Mercury Capri actually runs a turbo 1.6L motor. The car was included as an executive decision by the FoMoCup's [self-appointed] executive directors (Greg and Eric). The normally aspirated tag was designed to keep Turbo Coupes, Turbostangs and the occasional Merkur XR4Ti out of the running, as they are much, much faster cars.

² Not having a functioning engine at the start of a race weekend has a way of making people overlook trivial things like an unfinished trophy. They can clearly be forgiven, as they have an awesome theme, a sweet old car, and awesome orange wheels on it. Also, I forgot to get a picture of the trophy, so I don't have that. But it's awesome and made of engine parts from an old VW and a Morris Minor (!).

³ They're actually incredibly awesome guys and the Team Resignation guys were enjoying the Byte Marks Escorts' success vicariously. Also, their car's graphics are fantastic!

A LeMons BS Primer: Lessons in bribing and smugness

2011-10-21T11:49:00.195-05:00

Showroom-Schlock Shootout: Schunday

2011-10-21T11:07:00.004-05:00

This is a recollection of Team Resignation's experiences at the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill., from October 7-9. It will be published in three parts and probably be very boring. But pictures!

SUNDAY

As with last year's race, Sunday was probably the least-exciting day, which was actually a good thing. There were no major issues that kept the car off the track, driver changes came quicker (thanks to not also having to fix things), and the car pretty much ran like clockwork for the majority of the day.

The team started the day off correctly with a LeMons racer breakfast and a very brief drivers meeting at the tech shed. Kiko took the first stint in the car because his only stint Saturday had been cut short by a broken half-shaft and he'd spent only about 20 minutes in the car. He racked up a solid 30 laps in 75 minutes, though he brought the car back in missing a headlight and with a large dent in the driver's side front fender.
While he couldn't recall who'd tagged him, Kiko said he'd been broadsided entering Turn 11 by an aggressive driver who apparently thought his (or her) car was about four feet shorter than it actually was. The damage was insignificant (and mostly limited to the driver's door being slightly more difficult to open), though Kiko told anyone remotely affiliated with the track or the race that there was a headlight on track. Judge Phil shrugged it off with something to the effect of "I'm sure your car is hardly the only one that's left pieces out on the track."
Dave hopped in the car for the day's second stint and gradually worked his lap times down until he became the second TR driver to break the 2:00 barrier. Dave's pushing came at a cost, as he got the car's back end loose exiting turn 10. This would normally be correctable, but he found himself on the curbing and unable to correct it. He spun out and the car stalled and wouldn't start again.

The team met him and the non-running car at the pit entrance, and the team was baffled by the car not starting again. The tow truck was just about to hook up to take the car to Team Resignation Track Headquarters when Eric noticed that the inertial fuel pump shutoff switch (the thing that cuts your fuel supply in an accident) had been tripped. He reset the switch and the car started right up. Luckily, the judges were lenient for the team's first flag of the day, and Dave, a little nervous perhaps, returned to the track to put in another 30 minutes or so of careful driving and fuel conservation.

Johnny hopped in the car for the middle stint and racked up several sub-2:00 laps while knocking a half second off the weekend's fastest lap (set by Norbert on Saturday). The rest of the stint was largely uneventful, and Johnny brought it in with Team Resignation having worked up seven places in the standings to 65th place. Eric took the next stint and grannied the car around the track for an hour (through a lot of yellow flags, including one that involved a Ford Fiesta with three wheels) while the rest of the team ran to the gas station to pick up enough fuel to finish the race. Eric returned to the pit at literally the same moment as Johnny and Andrea, who had gone out for the fuel. His very-sl0w-and-kind-of-steady driving had picked up another spot in the standings as other teams desperately thrashed on their broken rides.

Norbert then took the wheel with 150 minutes of race time remaining. He proceeded to clock dozens of extremely fast laps, knocking almost 6 (!) seconds off Johnny's fastest lap. His lap times were consistent as long as the flag stayed green, and he had worked up another few spots in the standings.

Eric selected Johnny to take the next short (about 45 minutes) so that Kiko could take the checkered flag. But Johnny only completed three laps before getting black flagged and having to undergo the "embarrass yourself" penalty of "Mime Your Crime." Frustrated, he reported that the car was hard to get going and that it seemed like a clutch issue. With about 50 minutes of race time left, Kiko hopped in the car to take it home to the checkered flag.

Over the radio, Eric warned him about the clutch issue and to put it in 4th gear and leave it there to limp to the finish. But Kiko quickly found out that the clutch wasn't the problem, but there was an odd throttle issue that did indeed make it hard to get going from a stop. On track, this wasn't much of an issue, as whatever the issue was basically rendered the gas pedal an On/Off switch (Full throttle or no throttle, no real in-between). So Kiko took advantage of the still-good clutch and flogged the car, becoming the fourth TR driver to break 2:00.

He brought the car around at 4:00 p.m. to the checkered flag with his fist pumping all the way down the main straight, and Team Resignation's race was over with 246 laps completed, good for 57th place and less than a lap behind the 56th place #9 Geo Metro. On pit road, Kiko got a much-deserved high-five from the LeMons judges and parked the car.

The team cracked open some much-deserved Cold Ones and headed to the awards ceremony. The total awards results can be found here and here with the full stories, but it's worth mentioning that Team Resignation's good friends Racing 4 Nickels (see photo below of the R4N guys in their monkey suits) took home the Index of Effluency trophy (LeMons' highest honor) for their 48th place finish in a truly terrible Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, which had also finished mid-pack in the 2010 Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500.

After the awards ceremony, Team Resignation captain designee Eric handed out the honorary case of Schlitz (the trophy wasn't done due to unforeseen engine swappage) to Byte Marks Racing, the winner of the inaugural Little MoFo FoMoCup (more on this in a later post).

Team Resignation then packed it in for a team photo and a handshake with Nixon before throwing everything in the rented trailer. And as the sun set and the trailer returned to Team Resignation World Headquarters in [LOCATION REDACTED], the co-conspirators noticed that the volume appeared turned down on life. At least until next spring...

See all of Team Resignation's photos here (Eric's photos) and here (Dave's photos).

Showroom Schlock Shootout: Schaturday

2011-10-20T13:45:00.001-05:00

This is a recollection of Team Resignation's experiences at the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill., from October 7-9. It will be published in three parts and probably be very boring. But pictures!

SATURDAY

Saturday morning brought a wicked chill that persisted for a couple of hours but burned off shortly after sunrise. As the team warmed up, they held an informal meeting (where Eric basically said "Bring the car and yourself back in as few pieces as possible") and a quick track overview.

The obligatory LeMons driver's meeting followed, which was standard stuff: guys wearing underwear as shirts, Jay Lamm calling an obnoxious driver at the meeting an asswipe, and the track manager mentioning that they wanted to do more than one race at Autobahn in 2012. (Wait, what? Well, the schedule is not yet released for 2012, but it should be soon.)

Johnny suited up to take the green flag and got on track with only a few major hassles. The green flag was delayed by about 10 minutes when multiple cars died on the parade laps. But within about 40 minutes of the green flag, Johnny was black flagged for bumping the Latch Key Kids' Neon. The honorable judges did not hand out a penalty, but they did make us alter our should harness mounting to accommodate Johnny's HANS device before he could return to the track.

With the harness mount altered, Johnny returned to the track but came back after a handful of laps. The motor was misfiring at and above 4500 RPM and he thought it might have to with inadequate airflow through our exposed K&N air filter. Eric threw the air box on it to concentrate the air flow and Johnny headed out again. However, he only turned a few laps before coming back in. The problem remained and he felt it was electrical in nature. Out of ideas, they contacted their offsite technical advisor, who said it could be: spark plugs, spark plug wires, fuel filter, or fuel pump.

With that in mind, Eric headed out for new plugs, wires, and a fuel filter while Johnny headed back to the track to nurse it around a bit. While Eric was stuck at a railroad crossing and in the parts' stores glacially moving line, the rest of the team made a driver change and put Dave in the car. Halfway through the stint, Eric returned but Dave stayed out to keep turning laps while the rest of the team prepared to change parts.

As Dave pulled into the pit space, Kiko and Eric discussed that the problem could very well be the swapped-in OEM computer from a later-model year ZX2. In the end, the team opted to switch back to the ZX2's original computer and change the plugs and wires. They were done in short order and had Kiko in the car and on track in less than 30 minutes. Whatever they'd done had worked; the engine ran beautifully up and down the powerband and didn't misfire.

Naturally, it wouldn't last. While pushing the car hard, Kiko heard a thump followed by loud clicking noise. He brought the car in to investigate, and the team puzzled over it for a bit before eventually noticing that the driver's side halfshaft had broken. Luckily, they had brought a spare transmission and shafts, which they swapped in probably about 20 minutes (no one was looking at a watch). After adding fuel and strapping Norbert in the car, the total time lost was just short of an hour.

But with the car at its best for the weekend, Norbert took the wheel and set the team's fastest lap of the day with a 1:55.716 when no one else on the team had broken 2:00. Norbert continued his hot-shoeing, ticking off 5 sub-two minute laps. But in Turn 13 on the car's 72nd lap of the day, the exhaust mounting bracket snapped. The pipe dragged momentarily, then snagged on the right-rear tire, puncturing it. Norbert managed to get the car into the pits and about 100 feet from the TR paddock space. Eric grabbed a spare wheel and, after several minutes of finagling with the red-hot lugnuts and wheel (Thanks to the Dos Limons Fiesta guys for their help!), they swapped on a spare race tire just to push it back to their space.

Johnny quickly set to work welding [with a welder borrowed from Team Flaming Fiero. Thanks again you guys are awesome pit neighbors] the exhaust back in place. In about 30 minutes, the exhaust was good as...well...not new, but it was OK. Kiko tied it up with braided steel wire so that if it broke again, it wouldn't snap back and puncture another tire. Eric and Norbert threw the spare tires on the rear. Unfortunately, they were a slightly different compound from the fronts, meaning the car became more tail-happy.

With about an hour left of race time, Eric hopped in the car for his first stint, which started under caution from the Alfa that found the tire barrier on the outside of turn 1. After a couple of green laps, he started to push and find his limits, knocking a few seconds off his green-flag laps. But then something went terribly wrong, and he overcooked it into Turn 1, spinning out. Luckily, the car was alone and no contact came of it.

Photo by Barb Trzop Novereini

He headed to the Penalty Box for his inevitable black flag discussion:

Judge Phil: "What happened out there?"

Eric: "Well, I went into Turn 1, then I went out of Turn 1. Somewhere in between, I ran out of talent."

Phil: "Wait, what? Isn't the Nixon team supposed to deny, deny, deny?!"

Jay Lamm: "Hold on, hold on. They're admitting to being terrible; we don't want to send the wrong message here."

Phil: "OK."

Jay: "Why don't you turn your driving down from about 3/10 to 2/10?"

Eric: "Well, I would, but I think I've only got 1.5/10 in me."

Jay: "That'll do."

The judges let Eric off without a penalty, provided he could make it the remaining 40 minutes without returning on another black flag. Meanwhile, the car had developed an extremely rough idle, which was quickly attributed to a vacuum leak. Eric returned the car to the pit, where the PCV valve was identified as the culprit and quickly fixed. The remainder of the day went without incident, as Eric regained the masterful point-by that had served him so well in the 2010 race.

The checkered flag at 5:30 on Saturday marked Team Resignation's 93rd lap of the weekend, leaving them far from the leader in 72nd place.

Sometime during the day, the LeMons judges had begun applying the Nixon stencil to cars passing through the penalty box that "looked like they needed Nixon on the car."

The team put the car up for the night and focused on food, which included steaks and hot dogs. A few dozen people from different teams streamed in and out of the pits, retelling their day's experiences, discussing previous failures at LeMons, and talking of all things racing and otherwise. The company was fantastic¹, and the team went to bed tired but looking forward to Sunday.

See all of Team Resignation's photos here (Eric's photos) and here (Dave's photos).

¹ A million thanks to Team Flaming Fiero, Smokey Saturn and the Bandits, the #22 Saab guys, Greg from Skid Steer Racing and, of course, Racing 4 Nickels for the homebrew and cookies. There were probably a dozen or so other people who came and went, but we didn't catch which car you were driving.

Showroom-Schlock Shootout 2011: Thursday and Friday

2011-10-18T13:33:00.001-05:00

This is a recollection of Team Resignation's experiences at the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill., from October 7-9. It will be published in three parts and probably be very boring. But pictures!

THURSDAY & FRIDAY

After months of thrashing on their Ford Escort (albeit with less flailing on it than last year), Team Resignation found themselves ready to put the car on a [rented] trailer and tow it [with a borrowed truck] to Autobahn for another grimy weekend of self-loathing, humiliation, fear, speed, good company, more humiliation, on-the-spot repairs, thrills, and all-around awesomeness.

Eric arrived at Team Resignation World Headquarters in the afternoon the day before the race. Kiko and Johnny had previously taken the borrowed truck to pick up our enclosed trailer and borrowed generator. At this point, the car had only made three very short test drives and another where Kiko had nearly driven the wheels right off, so they weren't really sure how intact the car really was. While Kiko ran to collect some extra tie straps, Eric took the car for a spin. The car felt good and loud, but he didn't ratchet the motor up too high for fear of terrifying the locals with the loud, booming-fart voice of the Nixonmobile. They were already on edge from seeing a rhinoceros-Escort with a mannequin strapped to the roof, so any attempts to blast down the road in broad daylight on a weekday were surely ill-advised.

With at least a little confidence in the car, Eric and Kiko put the car and most of Kiko's garage into the trailer, which was tall enough to bear Nixon at his full height. The packing came and went smoothly, so they locked up the trailer around 5 and retired early for the next day.

FRIDAY

Friday morning found Kiko and Eric at the gates about 15 minutes before they were supposed to open. However, a brief 105-minute delay kept Team Resignation and several other teams in the parking lot while the teams signed up for test-and-tune were allowed to trickle through the gates. They killed time by catching up with a some teams they hadn't seen since last year's race and talking with some teams they had seen last year but hadn't met. When the gates opened, Eric and Kiko staked out a spot on the paved part of the paddock near the North Course while they waited for Johnny to show up with the trailer.

The time in between was spent eating food, scowling at other teams who looked envious of their sweet paddock space, and gawking at the Star Mazdas and old Le Mans prototypes running on the North Course's open track day. They also helped next-door team Team Flaming Fiero, who turned out to be excellent pit neighbors, set up their paddock space a bit.

Johnny showed up with the car around 11:00, and the team quickly unloaded the trailer and finished preparing it for Tech and BS inspections. When they had pulled out the car and all of the necessary paperwork, they dressed up like Nixon volunteers and threw the bribe together. They rolled up to pit inspection behind the Eurotrash Jetta, which was blasting terrible techno music while arms rigged up on wiper motors pumped to the beat out the passenger windows. Team Free Candy pulled up behind the Nixon car and much swapping of laughter occurred between teams as they admired each others' liveries.

When an inspection lane opened up, the co-conspirators pushed Nixon into the tech shed. After a pretty thorough lookover of the car, the inspector pointed out two small problem areas: some sharp edges where they'd cut out the inside of the driver's door to fit the cage and the exposed positive terminal on the battery. Each just required a spot of tape and the Escort would be ready for racing.

BS Inspection with the skeptical and honorable LeMons Supreme Court followed. As with last year, Judge Phil was enamored with the Nixon theme and scarcely glanced at the car. It probably could have been a Sierra Cosworth touring car and he would have waved it through. He took a few pictures and asked for a copy of the Nixon stencil that Eric's talented brother Phil Rood had designed. Eric, lacking a copy with him, promised to bring one back later. Eric made the gracious judges take a cursory glance at their budget, which Judge Phil photographed for posterity. After handing Judge Sam this year's bribes, he sprayed the "Justice" stencil on Nixon's back. It didn't turn out particularly well, but it looks good when the light hits it just right.

The end result of BS Inspection was the same as last year: Class B, zero penalty laps.

Johnny, Kiko and Eric got their safety gear tech'd with no major issues and headed back to the pit space. The Fiero team, having failed tech for a minor cage detail, asked to borrow the [borrowed] generator to run their welder. Team Resignation graciously agreed and would end up trading tools, insults, beer, stories, and food for the rest of the weekend.

The rest of the afternoon was mostly spent finishing the small tasks left to do on the car: Tape over the sharp edges and battery terminals, mount the radios, finish mounting Nixon to the roof so he wouldn't fly off and crush someone's radiator, align the car with a bit of toe out, and change the tires to our "A" set.

The team wrapped that all up by about 4 p.m., when Eric returned to the tech shed with a copy of the Nixon stencil he'd found. When Judge Phil showed LeMons Chief Perpetrator Jay Lamm, Jay wondered why in the hell the Nixon team had given out a stencil of Bob Hope.

With nothing much left to do, the team hung out in front of our pit space and socialized with any teams that happened by, most notably the Racing 4 Nickels guys, with whom TR had become friendly last year. Johnny headed back to Woodstock for the night, while Norbert arrived after dark, when he got his first glimpses of the car by flashlight. Dave showed up later still, and the team caught some sleep in the trailer, which turned out to be as cold and uncomfortable as it looks.

See all of Team Resignation's photos here.

Showroom-Schlock Shootout Results

2011-10-11T09:23:00.034-05:00

Team Resignation overcame several mechanical problems and a few black flags to finish 57th overall (out of 98 entries) at the 24 Hours of LeMons at Autobahn Country Club. TR driver Norbert threw down a 1:49.866 on Sunday, which made ours the 23rd fastest car around the circuit that weekend.

Expect some photos and more detailed day-by-day write-ups later this week.

Until then, we got picked up again in Judge Phil's coverage of the race.

Click here for the full results.

Click here for the BS Inspection story.

Click here for a shot of Nixon after a few hours of racing.

Click here for a story in Norse (!) from last year that recently surfaced. Team Resignation has gone international!

Click here for several hundred photos from the race, including several of Team Resignation.

Team Resignation also would like to take this time to thank everyone who helped us in any way or just showed up at our paddock to BS or laugh at our futility. This includes (but is not limited to): Team Flaming Fiero (You guys are awesome pit neighbors and your car is mega-sweet), the #22 Saab team, Sean and Vic and the #8 Gray Poopon Civic, Phil and the #100 Swiss Racing E30, Greg and the #863 Skid Steer Bobcat (The chili dogs! My god, the chili dogs!!!), Keith and the #101 Byte Marks Escort, Ron and the #45 Smokey Saturn and the Bandit, Bob and Peter and Jonathan and the #4 Racing 4 Nickels Cutlass Ciera (Congrats on Index of Effluency!!!), the Charnal House MetSHrO, anybody who ate some of our massive food cache, Nine Lives Racing, Phil Rood and Phil Rood Illustration, Grassroots Motorsports (unofficially), Team Resignation Head Chef Amy Cesar, and probably 500 other people who we are unable to recall at the moment.

Team Resignation sends a very special thanks to Team Captain Emeritus Alan Cesar, who really founded the team in 2010 but was unable to make the race this year. We missed him and hope he'll make it for a race or three during the 2012 season.

An invitation to LeMons Chicago 2011

2011-10-03T12:26:00.001-05:00

Clear your schedules, folks, for Team Resignation is taking it to the track again! That's right, we're just stupid enough to try our collective hand at the 24 Hours of LeMons again. We'll be rolling our tastelessly modified 1991 Ford Escort on the tarmac of the grandiose and fine Autobahn Country Club for the Showroom-Schlock Shootout. In attendance, among other find dignitaries, will be our mascot, master, and mannequin Richard Nixon.

At LeMons, you will come to truly expect the unexpected:

- Watch as Nixon's hands become un-epoxied and fittingly lodge themselves in the radiator of the Grateful Dead-themed Honda Civic behind our car.

- Laugh as Team Resignation is chained together in penance and forced to dance to The Village People's "In the Navy."

- Marvel as dozens of truly terrible cars refuse to die on the track.

- Cry as our incompetent drivers run over your feet in the paddock (to which you'll have full access).

Here are the real details:

Who? Team Resignation, along with several dozen other teams. Team Resignation is: Dave, Eric, Johnny, Kiko and Norbert. The "who" should also include you, as spectators are welcome. Pit passes for spectators run $20 per day or $30 for the weekend.

What? Ah, such a question. The 24 Hours of LeMons is an endurance race for cars that have been purchased and "fixed" or modified for less than $500. The overall winner takes home $1500 in nickels for completing the most laps in the alotted time. The Index of Effluency is also handed out, with the worst car that does the best (judged through an entirely subjective system) taking home $1501 in nickels.

Our entry is the #74 1991 Ford Escort that has had its engine, transmission, wiring, and suspension all replaced from those parts on a 1999 Ford Escort ZX2. Richard
Nixon will be mounted on the car's roof to "improve downforce." Other entrants may include a flaming (figuratively and literally) Pontiac Fiero, a Dodge Neon decorated as the Dumb & Dumber Mutt Cutts van, and a hacked-and-modified Geo Metro with a Ford Taurus SHO drivetrain.

Additionally, Team Resignation will co-sponsor the inaugural "Little MoFo FoMocup," which will award a trophy and an additional super-secret prize to the highest finishing Ford Motor Company compact car.

Where? This nonsense will take place at Autobahn Country Club south of Joliet, IL. The 24 Hours of Lemons will run on the longer and faster South Course, while stuffy club members hurl their Porsche 911s and open-wheeled racers around the North Course. The track's address:

3795 South Patterson Rd.
Joliet, IL 60436

When? The race is October 8 and 9, with one race session each day:

Saturday session: 10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Sunday session: 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

The awards ceremony will occur directly after Sunday's checkered flag.

Why? I don't understand the question. The real answer is, 'Why not?' I mean, look at this. And this. And this. I think my point is clear.

Some additional helpful information:

- To reiterate: The cost to get in is $20 for one day, $30 for Saturday AND Sunday. This gives spectators access to all spectator areas, the penalty box (You can see stuff like this), and the paddock area, where you can watch real teams put out real fires in their real race cars' engine bays. Please note that you will have to sign a waiver when you arrive that says that any injuries and/or deaths caused by renegade wheels or flaming pieces of a Richard Nixon mannequin are not the race organizers' fault. Pretty standard stuff.

- The race continues, regardless of weather. Last year's race was held in torrential downpour in 45-degree temperatures for several hours. If you plan on coming out, check the weather forecast so you know what to expect. It is the Midwest in autumn, so who knows what will happen?

- If you're coming to race, what better way to show your support for the morons of Team Resignation than by purchasing a TR T-shirt here. It was designed by honorary Team Resignation member Phil Rood. Go here to see and buy all of his other work.

- See below for a list of helpful Web sites that have more information. Also, feel free to email/comment/send a carrier pigeon for more information.

Showroom-Schlock Shootout offical page
Autobahn Country Club official page
Team Resignation Blog
Team Resignation Facebook Page

Thanks for your support and please feel free to send us any mental health referrals.

Sincerely,

Alan, Eric, Kiko, Dave, Johnny, and Norbert
Team Resignation

Chopped Livery

2011-09-26T14:57:00.035-05:00

(Author's Note: Apologies in advance for poor picture quality; Eric's actual camera had a dead battery, so he had to resort to using his lo-res camera phone.)

With some most generous help from Phil Rood, Friend of Nixon and Brother of Proxy Captain¹ Eric, Team Resignation will sport a really sweet stenciled image for the October race that is loosely based on the Thrush Mufflers logo.

So after a quick test, Kiko and Eric sprayed it on the car. Observe:

Since this is the car's second running, Eric thought some stenciled writing might fit the bill, also. A word will probably be added under "RE-ELECT." Anyone have thoughts? "Dick?" "Nixon?" "Checkers?" There is probably not enough room for more than one word or so.

Additionally, Nixon's eyeless stare last year was not nearly disturbing enough for our purposes. But a permanent marker and two ping pong balls created a hairpin turn toward The Fear. Take heed, ye, for Nixon is come.

But it wasn't all livery work yesterday. Kiko and Eric also completed the exhaust system. The car still has no actual muffler and it may actually be a touch louder. Team member Dave showed up a bit later to help tie up some more of the wiring and add roll bar padding.

Kiko added some high-tech panache by installing the OBDII-reading computer in the passenger side footwell. It should be visible to the driver there and will give real-time feedback and confirmation of the instrument cluster gauges. Having run once without functioning gauges to a disastrous end, the Team's Old Fart decided that redundancy is a wiser characteristic than recklessness.

Having completed all of our mechanical tasks, we finally took Nixon for a spin down to the cul-de-sac.

Breathtaking, isn't it?

¹ Our official captain remains Alan, intrepid and important automotive journalist. Alan was recently up for Eric's wedding and spent some time working on the Escort as well. What a captain.

Updates and such

2011-09-02T11:11:00.006-05:00

Well, I've been exceedingly busy with life and some such nonsense, but I've worked on the car a couple times in the last month. Accomplished:

- The clutch was bled but didn't disengage properly. Kiko and I worked to replace the slave with one from the donor transmission. It worked like a charm, and the clutch functions as it should.

- The tachometer and temperature gauges both work.

- Windshield wipers work (without any ridiculous devices even).

- Steering wheel put back on. We've opted not to use the aftermarket wheel, which will require us to buy a hub adapter. In the interest of time and simplicity, we've decided to use the current one.

- Nixon is prepared for a new mounting method on the car. It should be interesting, and it looks pretty amazing.

- New dark-matter power source installed.

- Instrument cluster is mounted, though I haven't seen it. Kiko removed the plastic covers and just mounted the black box somewhere near the dash bar.

- 2 spare Falken Azenis RT-615Ks obtained for about $135 all-in, including gas to get them from a long and arduous journey. I call this a victory, though some disagree. Since they retail for $120 each (or so) and these have good tread depth yet, I think I win.

- Preparations made for competition-within-a-competition.

TO DO (from memory, because the actual to-do list is in the garage an hour from here):

- Replace exhaust system/install new header

- Fix fuel gauge, which doesn't appear to work. Not sure what the problem is, but this would sure be helpful.

- Add brake ducting. This will be dryer hose, likely.

- Replace timing belt pulley (maybe).

- Check water pump (with pulley off). Check radiator overflow.

- Finish mounting Nixon to roof.

- Possibly add additional tubing over driver's head.

- Finish roll-bar padding.

- Work on two-way comms for car.

- Obtain bribe(s).

- Find a tow vehicle. This one's kind of important.

Naturally, I'll be gone for the next 3+ weeks, as I'm getting hitched and then honeymooning in the big country. Alan will be around for a week with plans to at least attend to the exhaust system.

Address to Kickoff the Campaign to Re-Embarrass the President

2011-08-02T08:19:00.004-05:00

2010 saw the rise, fall and second coming of the Richard Nixon propaganda machine. With the campaigners soaring on the high praise of the LeMons Supreme Court, the Nixonmobile took to a rainy track to win the hearts and minds of the LeMons electorate. For 75 strong minutes, the Ford Escort chugged on like champion, hanging with LeMons veterans and staying in the good graces of the LeMons gods.

Until Nixon blew a gasket. And the great Dick fell to earth, surrounded by a cloud of smoke, soot and shame. All appeared lost. But one brave member of the Nixon campaign threw caution to the wind and gave the propaganda machine new life: the heart of his sketchy daily driver. After the transplant was complete, Nixon made his triumphant return to the track. The rain cleared off, and Dick's Escort tricks were kept under wraps [though a few minutes are curiously missing from the official version of the events]. And while Nixon didn't earn top honors, he did not return home empty-handed.

2011 finds the Nixon machine running for re-election. This year's entry in the great race will no longer be preoccupied with the past and looking back (literally). Instead, he will be twice as efficient, trimmed at the waist (again, literally) and constantly looking forward (also literal) to the next challenge.

With the permission of the great and wise LeMons Supreme Court and the LeMons House of Citrus, Richard Nixon will return to Joliet to campaign in October 2011. Nixon stands for the common driver. For the cessation of hostilities when talent runs out. For the resolute and deserved punishment of cheaters of all makes and models. For a return to American-manufactured values. And for the righteous and eternal crushing of hippie skulls.

God Bless America's Crapcans.

Things that are being fixed (with pictures!!!)

2011-07-25T20:37:00.016-05:00

Dave and I worked on the car for a bit this weekend. We did some minor work, such as plugging firewalls and filling the radiator. We also changed the broken front strut mount.

Here's what an intact strut mount would look like.

Here's what ours looked like:

So we trucked on over to Auto Zone to rent a spring compressor. An hour or so later, we'd replaced the strut mount on the strut and thrown it back on the car.

Since I haven't posted actual images in forever, here's a brief overview of what else we've done this year (in part):

Dave and I plugged the firewalls with 3/8" bolts and 1-1/2"-2" washers.

However, two of the holes in the firewall were behind our pedal assembly and unreachable from inside the car. So I had to improvise.

I also installed the ZX2 radiator and the motor mount from last year's Autobahn donor car:

The ZX2 radiator had an extra out for heater hose, so I had to plug that.

Johnny and I also put the seat back in and mounted the harness.

Finally, one of the problems we've run into when swapping harnesses is the difference between the light assemblies and the related connectors. The solution? Sheet metal screws and ZX2 taillights. I'm pretty sure these are JDM, right¹?

Finally finally, I finished painting the rollcage. It looks pretty great from at least 10 feet away.

And here's a picture of the car I like looking at:

¹ Is joke, yes?

Blah blah blah fixed stuff blah blah blah

2011-07-19T13:22:00.015-05:00

Since I didn't take any pictures while working, here's a summary of the last two weekends working on the car:

- Finished painting the roll cage with a coat of white paint. Looks great from 30+ feet.

- Replaced the destroyed front motor mount with one from last year's donor car (a.k.a. Alan's old daily driver)

- Swapped LX radiator/fan out with ZX2 radiator and fan to accommodate ZX2 wiring harness easily. The quicker fix would have been to just swap fans, but the bolts that hold the ZX2 fan on are stripped or something.

- Tied up the wiring some more inside the cabin. This is clearly a never-ending process.

- Put rotors and mounted pads on the car. Super stopping power again!

- Mounted seat and harness

- Mounted wink mirror higher than last year, improving visibility by probably 10% or so.

- Swapped in new ECU to make a couple more horses at the crank.

- Wired up main brake lights and rear turn signals.

Naturally, in doing these things, we found more things to do/more broken things:

- The ZX2 radiator has an outlet for the heater core that the LX radiator did not have. This hose outlet will have to be stopped up and clamped. We'll have to flush the system of antifreeze and check the water pump before we can fill it with H20 for testing and racing.

- The wiring could be a little tidier, and we still need to find some way to mount the instrument cluster. A 5-inch tachometer and shift light may be in the works.

- We will want to flush the brake system and use DOT 3 & 4 fluid. We'll need to bleed the brakes anyway, so this shouldn't be much more additional work.

- We'll still have to wire up the high-mount brake light. And the brake lights currently stay on when the battery is hooked up. And there's the gauges, which don't work. But hey, who needs them anyway? Oh, right. We're pretty confident these electrical quirks are the product of poorly or completely ungrounded wires.

- What we initially thought might have been a bad front left wheel bearing appears to actually be a blown left front strut mount. We bought a replacement for $32, which is considerably cheaper than a new bearing. Still have to put it on, though, which should be exciting.

There are a handful of other tasks to take care of, but the engine runs and the car could probably move on its own, though we won't try too hard to do that until the radiator is hooked up and fully functional. As a point of reference, the car didn't drive on its own until mid-September last year. Yay us!

The Escort Strikes Back

2011-06-16T20:57:00.014-05:00

Hmm...it seems the blog has gathered some dust, which is natural, as the car has largely been doing the same. Since we've been away, Team Resignation co-founder Alan has moved to the Sunshine State to take a writing and editing gig at some magazine or something. Which means that the team has been left in the (in)capable hands of co-founder Eric with massive help from (actually capable) team members Kiko and Johnny.

With the gorgeous weather last weekend, Eric headed to Team Resignation team headquarters to pick up where the team left off in April. The wiring harness was largely in the car but just needed to be plugged into the proper places. As it had been sitting two months, Eric and Kiko had completely forgotten what most of the notes on the connectors meant. After much trial and error and a few accidentally hacked wires, the important plugs had found their equally important homes and the car seemed ready to start:

Almost.

After a bit of troubleshooting, Eric and Kiko figured out that the engine wasn't getting any fuel. A bit of backtracking led them to figure out that some integral parts weren't grounded, including the Fuel Pump Driver Module (the little bastard pictured below), which one might figure helps drive the fuel pump.

Alas, the problem was solved¹:

Johnny showed up a bit later, and he and Eric schemed some secret plans for the car. Expect more on this soon.

¹ It's important to note that the differences between a 99 ZX2 and a 91 LX are significant enough that the car doesn't have a working radiator fan or a low brake level indicator at the moment. But those should be easy enough to splice. Also the headlights, taillights, and turn signals will probably be one huge kludge. Meh.

Suspenders!

2011-04-21T23:55:00.001-05:00

This little bastard is all that was keeping us from completing our spring swap. It's what was left of a bolt that had seized inside the rear upright. It's the one that holds the strut on. We broke no less than 4 drill bits in it over many hours of work.

On our last wrench day a couple of weekends ago, the team's most experienced (read: oldest) member cursed and hammered and drilled at it for a few more hours and finally got it out. Then we drank beer.

Now we have complete suspension! The brakes? We still haven't found the leak. add another item to the "projects for another day" list.

One of our other projects that weekend was to swap the Escort LX's clutch and brake pedal assembly for the one from the ZX2. This was so we could properly mount the steering wheel at a decent angle. Before this, it was mounted at an angle worthy of a school bus. There were some compatibility issues between the different Escort generations, but we made it work.

We also finished pulling the wiring harness from my old car (the donor of the Lemon's current engine).

So Eric and Dave got to work putting it in.

Here you can also see the half-painted roll cage. We still haven't finished that job.

There they go!

I helped too.

My dad and I worked on the engine bay and fender side while Dave and Eric took care of the interior. That's not all done either, so the car is still not in running condition. But hey, when it's done, we'll have fully functional turn signals, brake lights, headlights, and most importantly, instruments! We can't wait!

We HAD pretty excellent brakes

2011-04-07T21:49:00.005-05:00

It might be hard for the uninitiated to tell, but that engine is pretty far forward. Look how close that exhaust manifold is to the radiator.

Notice that the manifold is actually melting the fan shroud. It turns out that our front engine mount completely collapsed under the heroic forces our brakes put on it. I can't fault Ford for this. Rubber that's 10-20 years old really shouldn't be asked to handle race duty. We'll have to come up with a solution for the next race.

Also, we somehow lost ALL our brake fluid while the car was parked this winter. That's bad. We'll have to track that down, or the only heroic part about our brakes will be how we sail it (heroically) into an embankment and burst (heroically) into flames.

In other news, we're fighting with this stubborn bolt in one of the rear struts. We got a good better set of springs to put in, but this bottom bolt here was 100% seized in place. We tried all kinds of things, eventually breaking off a drill bit inside it. The team's self-proclaimed Old Fart got out a grinder and ground off what was still sticking out so we could at least finish the spring swap, but this piece still remains. After last weekend's work we put the strut back on with just one spindle bolt (the upper one you see here), and had so much negative camber as we rolled the car to its parking spot that the tire was rubbing on the strut body.

These are just two of many, many things we have still to tackle before the next race: American Irony at Gingerman this July!

More engine surprise!

2011-03-13T22:35:00.000-05:00

We took the cylinder head off today to have a look at the engine. The cylinder bores are near pristine (for an engine with this many miles). The head gasket, of course, was damaged, and there was burn-through on the aluminum head. We'll either have to mill the head or figure out some appropriate Lemony repair involving JB Weld, but the bottom end is certainly still usable. Picture of the head damage below. Look between cylinders 1 and 2.

Wait, he says he's not dead!

2011-03-06T23:03:00.000-06:00

The engine that died such an awful, horrible death in October of last year may not be entirely dead after all! It's been sitting in the trunk of my former daily driver since the race, and it had definitely seized on race day. But it seems to have come free! The bearings aren't in great shape, but they might serve, according to the team's resident old fart. We hope to install this back in the former DD and see if it fires up sometime next weekend. With some fresh oil in it, of course.

^^^ Hey, Look Up There!!!

2011-02-23T13:07:00.002-06:00

That's a fancy new header for the blog, eh¹? That photo was taken by the esteemed Murilee Martin, Chief Justice of the LeMons Supreme Court.

¹ Please disregard once this blog post is old and moldy.

Team Resignation nabs (kind of) coveted Ununhexium Medal

2011-01-25T11:03:00.015-06:00

Judge Phil released his award winners from the 2010 24 Hours of LeMons season. We are in some esteemed company, which includes the POS Racing/F'ed Up Express E30, the Corsa Nostra Alfa GTV6, the Double Jeopardy Fiero, the one-lap wonder Hoonatic Racing guy, the epic Team Schnitzel Merkur XR4Ti, a guy who exposed himself to Judge Phil's camera on the back of a car, and a number of other amazing teams.

Read about it here!

If you're wondering what an Ununhexium Medal¹ is, it's like winning a bronze medal in Olympic handball. Judge Phil also nominated Unununium ("Gold") and Ununquadium ("Silver") medals. You can read about those teams here and here, respectively.

Eric and Alan are already making arrangements for an improved, faster, and explodier Escort for 2011.

¹ We enjoyed having our medal, but the 60 millisecond half-life of Ununhexium kind of precluded placing it on the mantle for more than about 300 milliseconds. Maybe we'll aim for an Unununium award next year, so we can have it for a full minute or two.

Team Resignation is kind of famous?

2010-11-20T11:29:00.003-06:00

We were featured on the NPR sports program "Only a Game" this morning. Listen here¹.

¹ This link will change next week, probably, when the story is archived. I'll update that link at that time.²
²Done. -Alan

Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500: Sunday

2010-11-03T13:33:00.047-05:00

Several months ago, Alan and Eric endeavored to begin a 24 Hours of LeMons quest, a Ford Escort dream that at times closely resembled a nightmare. Despite stubborn engine and and suspension swaps, wiring fit for torture, and last-minute scrambling to meet safety requirements, we finally made it to the race and even had the car on the track for a bit over the three days of race events. Here is our story:

SUNDAY

Team Resignation's Sunday began as its Saturday had: early and with a handful of things to accomplish. Racing began an hour earlier, however, so we had less time to finish our final tasks. We finished wiring up the killswitch and a handful of other tasks by 8:00 a.m. And then the rains came (again).

The last we'd heard, there had been a significant chance of rain. We walked back up to the tech shed for Sunday's driver meeting, and we again stood just outside the building, getting soaked. It was another uneventful meeting, although Jay Lamm acknowledged the Track Pillagerz! Buick LeSabre Dragonboat for leading the race for a brief time Saturday.

We again returned to our pit, confident that we'd at last get the temperature gauge working. While we worked to get Dave strapped in for his first race session, Kiko worked his Brazilian engineering magic and the gauge finally began working as it should. With just a few minutes before race time, Dave backed out of the pit space and onto the level road, where we checked the fluids. When we were confident it was ready, we sent him on his way.

As the cars circled the track waiting for the 9:00 green flag, the rain slowed and then quit altogether for the rest of the day. Dave came around a couple of times, and the team collectively rejoiced that we'd brought the Escort back to life, although we started Day 2 in 78th place (out of 87 teams).

After the green flag dropped, Dave familiarized himself with the track and the car. From Turn 8, we noticed that the Escort had enough straight-line power to stay with most cars into the Turn 1 braking zone.

We brought Dave in after 30 minutes to check over the car and make sure nothing major was wrong. We'd learned our lesson; at every pit stop, we made sure to check fluid levels and torque the lugnuts. At this stop, Alan also plugged the diagnostic computer into the OBD sensor, and we were pleasantly surprised. The coolant temp was perfect, and the air temperature at the intake was reading ambient temperature. As he stepped out of the car, Dave reported that the car handled perfectly in the dry. No understeer on corner exits, no lift-throttle oversteer, no tire spin when applying liberal throttle. Everything looked rosy.

Kiko, our self-appointed "Resident Old Fart," headed out for his turn behind the wheel. Maybe racing is inherent in Brazilian blood, because Kiko worked the team's best lap down to a 1:26.884. This was better than the previous best lap by nearly 8 seconds. We again brought him in after 30 minutes to check over the car and change drivers. Kiko praised the car's brakes, which he said easily outbraked everyone else in Turn 1. We also noticed that the car chugged along at idle and backfired excessively when the driver let off the throttle. It may have made the car sound even better.

We then turned Johnny loose with the Escort. He chopped another 1.5 seconds off our best lap, and the car continued turning laps without issue. Alan's 210,000-mile motor was running strong and taking the abuse. Johnny collected paint on our driver's door¹ from the #61 Honda CRX² as they entered a corner side-by-side, but we weren't issued a black flag. As his stint carried on, it also appeared we might lose Nixon's face. But the screw in it (barely) held, and we reinforced Nixon's face with duct tape when Johnny pitted.

Alan took the next stint, staying out for more than an hour and racking up almost 40 laps. Although stuck in traffic for long stretches of his stint, Alan managed to rack up a 1:25.820 best lap and dozens of sub-1:30 laps. He also cracked the 100-lap mark for the weekend before noon. Alan also drew some contact, getting bumped by the Merkur, which luckily only left a scrape on the back bumper³.

At around 12:30, Eric hopped in for his second stint of the weekend. As by far the slowest driver on the team, he had perfected the wave-by to the actual competitors of the race. But after a few laps, he battled with the #308 Nissan for a few laps. He noticed that, even through his terrible corner exits, the car kept up with or passed most cars on the main straightaway. For the most part, he stayed out of everybody's way, although he did nearly run the race-leading Skid Marks Neon off the track in Turn 7. Whoops.

After a full round of stints, the car had held up perfectly and was much faster than anticipated. Dave took the car out next, racking up several laps in the 1:25-1:26 range. He'd noticed nothing particularly odd about the car during his stint, although when he brought the car in, a check under the hood revealed oil splattered all over the driver's side of the engine compartment. After some searching, the team could find no evident cause of it. Alan suggested it was possibly leaking from valve cover gasket that had been replaced, so the team pulled the valve cover and resealed the gasket. While it cost the team 20-25 minutes on track, it turned out to be only a minor issue that would not arise again during the race⁴.

Kiko took the car for a spin around the track and, after a few caution laps, he put up three very fast lap times in succession: 1:26.388, 1:25.184, and 1:24.774, the last of which was the team's fastest lap at that point. While Kiko was out on the track, Alan headed out for fuel to survive the last couple hours of race time. Johnny and Eric decided that Alan would be the driver to take the checkered flag, if the car was still running at that point⁵.

At around 2:45 p.m., with 75 minutes racing left, Johnny hopped in the car. He ran a short stint so that he could turn the seat over to Alan for the checkered. But in his stint, Johnny chased the rusty ol' (but extremely quick) Alfa⁶ around the track for several laps. As he noted, he learned a lot about the racing line from following that car. It must have helped, because he pulled out a 1:23.828 with less than an hour of race time left⁷. It would be our fastest lap of the weekend, and it was probably as close to the limit as we could push that car.

After a fuel stop, Alan hopped in and babied the car around the track for the final 35 minutes. The team headed down to the finish line to watch Alan bring home the checkered flag. We began the hour in 70th place, but Alan racked up 25 laps in the stint, vaulting us up to 66th place with 217 laps completed. He took the checkered flag at 4:01, his fist raised out the window.

We cheered at having resurrected a car from the dead and having it run all day with no major mechanical breakdowns. We also had not been black flagged once, which was remarkable as later there was much discussion about excessive contact on the track and Sunday allegedly broke a LeMons record with 101 black flags.

After a victory lap, Alan (and the rest of the drivers/cars) crept down pit lane. He was greeted at the pit-in entrance by Jay Lamm and Judge Phil. As Alan pulled through, Phil gave the "Double-Victory" signs and Alan responded in kind. It was a glorious day of redemption to cap off a weekend of stupidy and ridiculousness.

Alan's mom (and Kiko's wife) brought food for us when she showed up right at 4. This was important, as several team members had lived off trail mix and Coca Cola for the weekend. We shoveled down as much pizza as we could and Alan finished up a brief interview with the NPR reporter⁸. We figured that the awards ceremony would take a few minutes to come to fruition.

We were wrong, and we entirely missed Jay Lamm's presentation to us of the Heroic Fix trophy. We also missed him calling us (justifiably) stupid and we missed 300 people's collective gasps when he announced that Alan no longer had a daily driver. While we missed the trophy presentation, we eventually got the trophy⁹. And we BS'd with Jay Lamm, who asked us how we were getting home. When Alan told him he was driving the LeMon home, Jay chuckled and said it was "awesome," but we're pretty sure he meant "moronic."

We pushed Alan's mid-engined ZX2 onto the car dolly and headed home. Pat, Dave, Duncan, and Johnny all headed out first and went their separate ways. Alan, Eric, and Kiko made a bizarre (and slow and loud) three-car caravan back to Woodstock.

One of the poignant questions the reporter asked Alan was, "Why are you doing this? It seems like it's almost more about fixing the car than it is driving it. What's the point?" It's a pretty easy question to answer for Team Resignation: Our struggle with the car mimicked life¹⁰. Sometimes everything's perfect and smooth and natural; a little wiggle here or there is easily handled with some countersteer. But sometimes it won't go where you want it to or the back slides out and you're not ready for it. And sometimes a couple of tiny problems create a spectacular failure. There is always a way out, but it typically involves a lot of hard work, some good help, and sacrifice. And in the end, we find redemption and self-fulfillment.

¹ You can get a pretty good look at the mark it left here.
² This CRX won the race at Gingerman in the spring, as well as the Midwest region LeMons title.
³ The Merkur left its mark here. It may also be noted that this Merkur, when it downshifts, occasionally shoots fire out the exhaust. Eric saw this as he followed the Merkur into the Turn 6 entrance. It made him smile.
⁴ Johnny later pointed out that Alan was running 0W synthetic oil in the engine because it improved gas mileage when Alan daily drove that engine. However, 0W is probably a little thin for racing purposes, and its thinness could have contributed to the leakage. We added some 5W to the motor to thicken the oil a little. For subsequent races, we plan on using much thicker oil.
⁵ This really was a no-brainer. Alan had spearheaded the entire project from Day One, and he had even scrapped his daily driver to keep our team on the track.
⁶ That little Alfa ran 501 laps for the weekend (minus 2 penalty laps). It finished 3rd place after the Skid Marks Neon and the Bucksnort E30.
⁷ The fastest lap of the weekend was a 1:18.002 by the Save the Ta-Tas Camaro. Only five teams managed to crack 1:20 for best laps.
⁸ Alan looked like this at the end of the weekend.
⁹ Luckily, Amanda, Alan's ever-patient girlfriend, had gone to the tech shed for the awards ahead of everyone. She accepted the trophy in our absence.
¹⁰ If this metaphor was any heavier-handed, I would be unable to type it. ~Eric

Photos by Alan Cesar and Dave Belland. Video by Dave Belland.

Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500: Saturday Pt. 2

2010-11-02T13:03:00.033-05:00

Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500: Saturday Pt. 1

2010-11-01T13:54:00.047-05:00

(Photo by Seth Graham. Thanks!)

Several months ago, Alan and Eric endeavored to begin a 24 Hours of LeMons quest, a Ford Escort dream that at times closely resembled a nightmare. Despite stubborn engine and and suspension swaps, wiring fit for torture, and last-minute scrambling to meet safety requirements, we finally made it to the race and even had the car on the track for a bit over the three days of race events. Here is our story:

SATURDAY

We awoke around 6 a.m. Saturday, knowing we had a lot left to accomplish. Weather forecasts indicated that it was supposed to rain all Saturday, beginning some time around 3 a.m. As best as anyone could tell, rain had actually fallen for about 5 minutes. We felt encouraged by this omen, thinking that as long as the rain held off, our car could run with the best of the field.

We spent an hour or so mounting Nixon to the car in the most solid way we could figure out. This involved tie-down straps through his jacket, bungee cords around the legs, and mounting wire around his waist and tied through holes left from the long-since-discarded hatch. As the mannequin was a four-piece dummy, we drilled holes through the arms and attached very long cable ties through both arms. Our rationale for this was that if one arm goes, then the whole damn thing does. A whole Nixon flying at a pursuing/passing LeMons competitor has a higher entertainment value than just an arm, really. And the mannequin weighs about 5 pounds total, so it wouldn't have done too much damage¹. We think anyway...

We cruised up to the tech shed around 8 a.m. to have the roll cage weld and harness mounting re-inspected. The inspector looked at it for about two minutes before signing off on the repairs; we were in business to race. During that brief inspection, we'd noticed a middle-aged man walking around with a microphone, following the inspector and some of the other teams. He soon sidled up to Alan and Eric and asked a bevy of questions about the car, the theme, and our sanity. After a bit, he introduced himself as a reporter for "Only a Game," which is NPR's radio show².

Somewhere during all of this, Johnny showed up at the track ready to drive, although his patchwork and bedliner-paint-job Del Sol got some unwanted notice from people in the paddock³. The team collected their LeMons licenses for the race and headed back to the pit for some last-minute prep before the drivers' meeting.

It was in this spell of time, somewhere around 9 a.m., that Alan and Eric had a fateful (and incredibly stupid conversation):

Alan: "Hmm...we still don't have a working temp gauge."
Eric: "How big of a problem is that?"
Alan: "Well, if the car overheats, we'll have no way of knowing, other than smoke and/or steam."
Eric: "Oh. Well, do you think overheating will be a problem?"
Alan: [Shrug] "It'd be nice to have a temperature gauge."

And that's where that conversation ended, because we were about to run late for the driver's meeting. Please note that the fault, if it lies with anyone, probably lies with Eric's ignorance⁴.

The driver's meeting was uneventful, and Jay Lamm's pervasive message was, "Don't drive like a jack ass, and you probably won't get any black flags." We got the point and so again returned to our paddock space.

By this time, the rain was falling in earnest, and it was clear that there was enough water on the track to make it good and terrifying. So the team sent Alan out first. We had brought two sets of tires: a set of cheap all-weather radials with good tread left and a set of sportier and stickier Falken Azenis. Because of the Azenis' alleged poor wet weather performance, we opted to go with the all-weathers⁵.

Alan headed out to the track around 9:50; we expected the green flag at 10:00, although it didn't drop until a little after. Of Team Resignation's initial 30-minute stint, Alan spent about 20 of it under full-course caution. Puddles formed in the 7-8-9 turn complex, as well as on parts of the main straightaway. It made the rainy racing ridiculously perilous (and slow).

24 Hours of LeMoNs - 8 from Daniel Meyer on Vimeo.

Alan pitted and when he'd rolled to a stop in the paddock space, he reported that the car was an absolute nightmare to handle in the wet. It, in fact, did the exact opposite of what you told it to do. Basic notes on driving the front-heavy car in the rain:

-Entering a corner? Brake only in a straight line. Braking with the wheel turned = instant sliding.

-Exiting a corner? Don't give it any throttle until you're aimed straight and you've unwound the wheel. If you gas it before then, the car will just keep going straight^6A.

-Have you already experienced the car going straight with the wheel turned, as mentioned above? Don't lift the throttle, or else the back end slides out instantly^6B. Drifting is fun, but not when there's a 3500-pound Crown Vic with a stripper pole on it going around the corner next to you.

-Accelerating on a straight? Don't give it more than about 50% throttle, or else the tires will spin. Also don't downshift, as that will also break the tires loose.

Other than that, next driver Eric reported the car handled just like you'd expect: terrifying and noisy, but extraordinarily fun. He put in his 30-minute stint, only getting sideways 9 or 10 times. However, as he returned to Team Resignation's paddock space after pitting, he stalled the car at a stop sign and discovered that the starter had suddenly stopped working. With the help of some courteous strangers in the pit, the car found its way back to the paddock space.

24 Hours of LeMoNs - 11 from Daniel Meyer on Vimeo.

The team pored over the car, investigating the starter and the electrical system. The diagnosis was a broken starter, and the team opted to push start the car for the next driver, Johnny. However, the team had neglected to check any other systems on the car, like, say, coolant level.

The team push-started the car without incident, and Johnny headed out for his short stint. It was uneventful for about 15 minutes. And then, as we watched from the exit of Turn 9, Johnny passed by, a single puff of smoke lingering behind from where he'd put the power back on for the main straight. We waited anxiously for him to return, and he did indeed a minute or two later, followed by an enormous dark gray smoke. We told him to pit in, but he was already on pit road headed in.

(Photo by Seth Graham. Thanks!)

What followed was a bizarre series of events that are still unclear to all team members. While Johnny tried to pit out, the pit entrance worker apparently waved a car onto the track immediately behind Johnny. As this car was picking up speed to exit into Turn 1, Johnny said somebody was giving him the thumbs up but blocking pit out. As he was about to be run over by the car behind, Johnny had no option but to go around the course again. He never made it. The car died somewhere around Turn 6. In the meantime, the rest of the team had seen him on pit road but hadn't seen him go around again. As a result, team members scattered all over the paddock looking for a car that wasn't there. After about 10 minutes, Johnny radioed in that the car was dead and he was being towed in⁷.

We saw him being brought in, and we pushed the car the length of the pit lane. When we reached our pit, the initial impression was that the motor was completely blown. There was an incredible amount of heat everywhere under the hood. We decided to fill the radiator, which crew member Duncan had noticed was empty. A few seconds after dumping water into the fill cap, it came dumping out at our feet; a hose had broken and spilled all of our fluid. Because our temp gauge wasn't working, the only way we'd figured it out was from the huge clouds of smoke from our exhaust⁸.

We entertained the notion that perhaps the engine had just overheated and would be OK. Alan changed the spark plugs; one from the overheated engine was covered in thick, black grime. After swapping in the spark plugs from his daily driver's Zetec engine, Alan told us to wait and let the engine cool. We took a little time to eat some chili and watch some of the race, which had opened up some as the rain subsided.

After letting the engine cool, we tried to push start the car, to no avail. The engine chugged a little, trying to turn over. Johnny pointed out that it sounded like there was absolutely no compression. We then tried tow-starting it behind Duncan's E30. The car would start, but would only chug along at about 400 RPM with the throttle completely open. Kiko pointed out that it sounded very much like a blown cylinder, which meant a totaled motor. With the car parked, Eric noticed that the inside of the bright-red cherry bomb was coated with black soot, which was thick like a paste.

We had been on track for 30 laps.

¹ There's almost certainly a parallel here with Nixon's presidency, but I can't quite voice it. Anybody have some help with that? Also, I secretly wanted one of Nixon's hands or arms to fall off and smack a car, preferably one with in-car video, on the windshield. ~Eric
² It's worth noting that this show is not syndicated in Chicago that we know of. However, it will be broadcast in mid-November and will be available online in whole.
³ For those who haven't seen it, Johnny's daily driver is a Honda Del Sol with an Acura front-end fastened to it. It's spray-painted with bedliner. Some people remarked as he passed, "Look at that piece of crap." Sad Johnny was sad.
⁴ This is self-deprecating humor. Sad Eric was also sad.
⁵ It's hard to say if this was a good decision or not. We didn't get a chance to use the Azenis in the wet, but the all-weathers were godawful.
^6A AKA "Shit-your-pants" understeer
^6B AKA "Shit-your-pants" lift-throttle oversteer
⁷ Some of the more astute may ask why Johnny didn't radio back instantly. We had rigged up the radio system to essentially be received only. Johnny was able, after the car died, to reach the radio at last and call us back. We'll have a driver headset for future races.
⁸ The cloud of smoke clearly represented our shortcomings as humans^8A.
^8A What? I have to use my liberal arts degree for something.

*Photos by Dave Belland, Alan Cesar, and Seth Graham. Video by Brian Quezada

Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500: Friday

2010-10-28T13:14:00.040-05:00

Several months ago, Alan and Eric endeavored to begin a 24 Hours of LeMons quest, a Ford Escort dream that at times closely resembled a nightmare. Despite stubborn engine and and suspension swaps, wiring fit for torture, and last-minute scrambling to meet safety requirements, we finally made it to the race and even had the car on the track for a bit over the three days of race events. Here is our story:

FRIDAY

Friday began with an early start. Eric had been attending to some family matters all week, so Alan had spent most of the week scrambling to fulfill our car's theme and trying to create some kind of makeshift budget we could show the judges. We began packing up the garage (and freezer)¹ around 8 a.m., throwing it into the rented RV, which quickly became the de facto storage locker the weekend. A fit of errand running then occurred, as Eric picked up team member (and driver) Dave at the train station in Woodstock and then snagged the Falken Azenis on loan to the team from team member Johnny.

After liberally filling Eric's Ford Focus full of tools and highly flammable chemicals, the two-vehicle caravan departed Woodstock around 10:15. The drive to Autobahn Country Club² near Joliet took a solid and boring 2 hours, but we showed up at the gates around 12:30. While waiting to sign in, we noticed that the "Mutt Cutts" Dodge Neon was sitting in the parking lot. After an extended period of laughter, I think we all realized that we were in for an interesting weekend.

Our arrival was much later than most teams, we realized, as we were forced to take a paddock spot on the grass³, about 1/4 mile or so from the pit in/out and tech shed. We did however notice that we were parked two spots down from the only other Ford Escort team, which we quickly saw had its intake sticking out of a hole in the hood⁴. As we were unaware that anybody else had ever had this idea before, there were only three possible explanations:

(1) We had entered backwards bizarro world.
(2) Great (and thrifty) minds think alike.
(3) We are entirely in the right place.

Dave went and got us a number for tech inspection, which they would call over the track's short-range radio broadcasting system, so we unloaded the car, set up camp, and had a bite to eat. As our number approached being called, we threw our theme together and dressed up as Nixon volunteers. When our number was called, we piled in the Escort, cranked up "Hail to the Chief" on our makeshift radio, and plunked the bribe⁵ in the car's "trunk."

Our car drew a lot of attention from onlookers, and people everywhere in the pits stopped what they were doing to take pictures. We pulled into tech inspection immediately after the Nimitz-Class Cadillac sometime around 2:30. We nearly breezed through tech, but the inspectors didn't like our harness belts, which were mounted to the roll cage. We were told to attach them to the car's unibody instead and have the car reinspected. We also had a minor weld to fix.

Immediately after tech inspection, we pulled through the Tech shed for BS Inspection, where the LeMons Supreme Court goes over the car and the receipts to see how much you've spent over the $500 limit. We were expecting to get grilled, since all of our receipts had long since disappeared, and we expected a handful of penalty laps. But instead, the response from Chief Justice Phil of the LeMons Supreme Court went kind of like this:

Judge Phil: (Points at intake protruding through hood) "What the hell is this?" [Pauses, looks over entire car] "Oh my god! It's the Richard Nixon car!!!"

He proceeded to go over the car and team decorations (namely our Nixon mannequin, our Nixon volunteer patches, and assorted other small things on the car). Phil took a few dozen pictures of us, then did a brief walkaround. He leaned on the corners of the car to test the springs, then he and another judge looked under the hood. We overheard one judge say, "Well, I thought it was a swap, but now I'm not sure." Phil said something to the effect of "Whatever. Zero Laps. We'll give it, uh, Class B I guess. What kind of car is this anyway? A Tempo?"⁶

He then pointed at the Nixon mannequin held into the trunk by bungee cords.

Phil: "You're gonna run with that in the car, right?"
Alan: "We weren't really planning on it, since we'd like to be able to see behind us."
Phil: "No. I'm TELLING you that Nixon WILL be in the car or you won't be on the track."

He took a few more pictures and then showed us the "Nixon's the One!" button that's adorned his backpack for dozens of years before dismissing us. We later learned that he'd included a post about us and our excellent bribes on his blog.

We set to work on fixing our tech failures. Alan ran down some 3" washers with which to relocate the belt mountings, and our pit neighbors, the #10 Not Uranus Saturn, were kind of enough to fix the one weld on our cage. Dave and Eric ran to Menards in Joliet for Nixon-mounting materials and big washers so Alan could finish relocating the belt.

We worked past dark fixing the harness belt, mounting the transponder, and affixing Nixon to the car using tie-down straps. We should have tried to fix our temperature gauge, which was not working properly. But we intended to do that in the morning⁷.

As the night progressed, driver Kiko (Alan's dad) and crew member Pat showed up. We cracked open a few beers and traded brews and stories with the Racing 4 Nickels guys. Dave headed to a hotel for the night, and the remaining team members took a stroll through the pits, where we met a lot of great teams and traded more beer and more stories⁸.

We packed it in around 11:30 after a long day. Alan, awakened by Kiko's incessant snoring, spent the latter part of the night sleeping in his daily driver ZX2. It would be the car's last night intact.

¹ Kudos to Amy Cesar for the food. It was all delicious.
² This is a place where generally affluent people come to drive their race cars and/or extremely fast road cars. The fact that they allowed greaseballs like us LeMons racers to run at their facilities is kind of mind boggling.
³ We did not, at this point, know to what extent a grass pit space was a disadvantage. Have you ever tried to move an engine hoist with 400+ lbs. of weight on it through the grass?
⁴ This team would later ask us if we had a spare transmission, as theirs had suffered from the 3/4 shift fork breakage/wear that strikes most ZX2s at some point in their lives. We had a spare to offer, but they didn't end up taking it.
⁵ For the record, our bribe was: Homebrewed beer, courtesy of Dan Meyer: 1 6-pack and 2 22-oz. bottles; 1 thick biography of Nixon (with a HILARIOUS AND CRINGE-WORTHY DEDICATION), hollowed out to hold a small bottle Johnnie Walker; 1 poster of Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley in the White House, with photocopies of a bizzare letter from Elvis to Nixon on the back.
⁶ It should be noted that none of the judges asked to see a single receipt or budgetary item. We know we lucked out, but I guess it pays to have a great theme and an even better bribe. Like Illinois politics! Ah, it comes full circle...
⁷ A word to the wise(r than us): If your temperature gauge is not working, GET IT FIXED. Because if it isn't working, then you won't know when a radiator hose breaks and dumps all of your coolant, causing your engine to severely overheat and then grenade itself into tiny pieces. Not that we'd know or anything...
⁸ Extra special thanks to Greg with the Morrows team (also the genius behind the Team Skid Steer Mercury Bobcat at the Omaha race) for sharing his award-winning chili, some A++ beer from the Boulevard brewery, and lots of awesome stories. Also, thanks to Jay from C.A.R.T. for BSing with us.

Team Resignation Wins the Heroic Fix Trophy at the Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Day 500

2010-10-26T13:13:00.006-05:00

More detailed information to come, but the short story is that we grenaded the motor after about 75 minutes of racing. We replaced it with the engine from Alan's daily driver and then ran it all day Sunday with no major incidents. We finished 66th out of 87 entries with 217 laps and had an awesome time the whole weekend.

We don't have any pictures from our drivers/crew/friends/etc. yet, but you can see pictures of the event at the links below:

Coverage of us at BS Inspection from Judge Phil's (aka Murilee Martin) blog

Timelapse of BS Inspection

Judge Phil's pictures, including the our Nixonmobile at BS inspection, during engine swap, and back on the track for Sunday.

Pictures taken by a spectator, organized by finishing order

More pictures taken from another team, includes some pics of the engine swap in progress

Edited video of the Toyota MR2-powered Lancia Scorpion

In-car footage from Ford Taurus SHO on Sunday

In-car footage of only major crash of the weekend

It's ready. It's actually ready.

2010-10-18T03:53:00.004-05:00

It still hasn't sunk in yet fully. I don't know that my brain can comprehend this fact, since it's been 6 months in the making, but this car -- this awful, awesome, utterly incredible piece of ~~failure~~ achievement -- is actually ready to race.

A short recap. Since buying this car in February, we have:

Swapped out front suspension, and complete rear subframe.
Repaired numerous brake issues, among other things.
Selected the awesomest theme in the whole world.
Swapped in a ZX2 engine.
Had many nightmares about wiring harnesses until we finally got the car running, then driving.

And now, finally and still unbelievably, the car is done. All that's left to do is dress up in our theme costumes and show up on race day.

Click below for a gallery of our accomplishments this weekend, and pictures of the car in its final race-ready stage.

Final prep!

An open invitation

2010-10-12T22:31:00.000-05:00

Hello,

Several months ago, Team Resignation began working on an entrant into the Chicago event of the 24 Hours of LeMons racing series. With lots of trial and error (mostly error), we have eventually reached a point where we think the car might possibly be considered actually thinking about being ready to race in the inaugural Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500. As the race is named after a bastion of all that is true with politics, we decided to theme our car after the true master of political manuevering (read: stumbling), Richard Milhous Nixon.

And so we let you--dear friend/relative/political cohort and/or lackey--know that spectators are welcome to endure the torture of an endurance race for $500 cars. The event takes place on October 23 and 24. Please see below for a brief rundown:

Who?    Team Resignation--Alan, Eric, Kiko, Johnny, and Dave. Also there will be 100 or so additional cars/teams running around the track that day. You are also welcome to attend and spectate

What?    Ah, such a question. The 24 Hours of LeMons is a race for cars that have been purchased and fixed/modified for less than $500. In our case, the car is the #74 1991 Ford Escort that has had its engine, transmission, wiring, and suspension all replaced from those parts on a 1999 Ford Escort ZX2. Richard Nixon may or may not be riding along with the driver. Other entrants may include cars such as a 1984 Honda Civic with an inflatable Godzilla on its roof or a Toyota MR2 that very closely resembles a go-kart.

Where? This will take place at Autobahn Country Club, which is a road-style race track in Joliet, IL. We will be racing the North Coursewhile rich people drive their M5s and Ferraris on the South course that day. I think we'll have more fun. The track's address:

3795 South Patterson Rd.
Joliet, IL 60436

When?   As previously stated, the race is October 23 and 24. This is not a true 24-hour race; it is instead two 7.5 hour sessions. Saturday's session runs from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday's session runs from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. We would generally recommend coming on Saturday when the car is more likely to be functioning. If we, for some reason, are not running on Sunday, we will be at the track hanging out and would love to see you. So come either or both days!

Why?   There aren't a whole lot of places where you can see a homemade Oscar Mayer Wienermobile or Santa's sleigh driving around a race track at top speed.

Some more information that might be helpful:

-   The cost to get in is $20 for one day or $30 for both days. For this money, you have access to the paddock area, where you can see real teams saying real curse words while they put out real fires in their real race cars' engine bay. You also have access to the spectator area, and you can probably come-and-go as you please if you get a wristband at the gate. You do have to sign a waiver saying that getting injured by flying tires and/or flaming pieces of octopus that had been previously attached to a 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix are not the fault of the track or race organizers. No biggie, really.

-   The race goes on regardless of weather, unless it's rain heavy enough to be deemed entirely unsafe. This means that we'll drive through moderately heavy rain and cold weather. It is October, so you should be prepared for the weather if you come.

-   Here are some Web sites that may be helpful:
      - Blago 500 Web page: http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/rodb2010.aspx
      - Autobahn Country Club: http://www.autobahncountryclub.net/
      - Team Resignation's blog: http://teamresignation.blogspot.com/
      - Team Resignation's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Woodstock-IL/Team-Resignation/152704761425395

If you're interested, you just have questions, or you think we're clinically insane, please contact us and let us know.

Take care and please help us,

Eric*, Alan, Kiko, Johnny, and Dave
Team Resignation
"A Fresh Approach to Disgrace"

__________________________________________________

*This letter, though posted by Alan, was written by Eric.

Brakes courtesy of McDonald's

2010-10-02T09:03:00.000-05:00

At our most recent repair weekend, we replaced one of the rear brake calipers (it had a bad adjuster screw) with one off of my Miata. I had previously painted my Miata's rear calipers yellow. The used pads we had are red. The resulting color scheme makes me wish we had a corporate sponsor with big, red shoes.

Team Resignation's first drive

2010-09-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

With working lights, some working instruments, and very illegal emissions equipment (read: none), we took our Escort ZLX2 on a run to Farm & Fleet.

You get to see more of the interior and hear it seriously revved up in second and third gear. Enjoy!

Minor update

2010-09-18T00:15:00.001-05:00

Last weekend we worked on more wiring, peeled off the vinyl trim from the doors, and put a suit on Nixon. There are a few new photos on our Facebook page.

Holyshitholyshitholyshit!!!

2010-09-05T22:07:00.005-05:00

It runs! Oh hell yes, it finally runs!

That's me sounding like a lunatic in the video and waving the (crappy cell phone) camera around like an idiot. The waving guy is co-insane man and the guy twisting the key, Eric. The thumbs-up guy is my dad, Kiko. It's my dad's garage, and he'll be driving this heap too.

(If you just want to see pictures of the thing, scroll down to the bottom and click the photo to go to a gallery.)

That it starts is quite the feat. This beast has been inoperable for several months now, the whole time in the process of an engine swap. Having reached the point where it moves under its own power is quite the milestone.

After fighting with the wiring harness for what seems like forever, Eric and my dad figured out what wires were cut when we pulled the harness out of the donor car (major props, guys). But that afternoon, once it was finally time to crank it over, we just heard a starter spinning all alone.

Upon pulling it out we discovered the starter gear wasn't pushing forward to engage the flywheel. I cleaned it a little, gave it a few liberal sprays of PB Blaster and let it sit for a few minutes. Then I took it to our battery and smacked the solenoid terminal several times with the jumper cables. Freed up pretty quickly.

Shortly after that was done, we got to the video at the top.

Somewhere during that day, I made a shift knob for the car out of a billiard ball.

Twelve was Richard Nixon's number when he played football in college. Check my blog a little later on for a how-to on making these. It's easier than I expected, though supplies are expensive.

In other news, Eric scored an amazing headless mannequin with poseable arms for free. Yes, free. A high school friend of his works somewhere that was pitching a bunch of mannequins, so we got lucky.

You like it.

All this good stuff went down yesterday. Today, I was by myself. I put the wheels on, tightened down the axle nuts, installed the battery (when we started the car the first time, the battery was sitting on the floor and we attached jumper cables to the terminals), and set the thing down. I drove it down the street and back; I'm not going any further than that until we resolve several pending issues:

1. No exterior lighting (brake lights/turn signals).
2. No instruments. Don't know if it's overheating or losing oil pressure until it's too late.
3. Steering column is pretty loose. We'll need to attach it in some better way than how it is now.

In the mean time, enjoy this album of glamor shots I took! Take special note of the badass side-exit exhaust with single cherry bomb! The entire exhaust, manifold back, is made from pieces of the original exhaust, with the exception of two store-purchased adapters. (Click the picture below to see the full set of photos).

Glamour shots

Speed Nixon

2010-09-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

Team Resignation has official artwork, compliments of Phil Rood!

I don't think I need to tell you how fucking awesome this is.

Wikkid intake, y0

2010-08-30T21:13:00.000-05:00

d00dz, we got tha illest intake on the market. It's so ill it's illegal, man. I'm talkin' black market shit, so badass it ain't even JDM. Watch out for the po-po, they'll pull you over for this.

For serious.

Considerable progress

2010-08-15T20:15:00.000-05:00

We installed the engine this weekend! Holy shit!

It's in place, anyway. All mounted up properly. The wiring requires some attention and repair, from damage suffered in the accident. A bit of a time saver was that the back half of the LX wiring harness plugged right in to the ZX2 fuse box. We also need to finish plumbing the fuel lines, coolant, and vacuum hoses. And fill up the fluids. And I don't know what the hell else.

160k miles, biatch!

We also managed to install the dashboard, steering column, and de-scuzzify the inside wiring to some extent. There's still a lot to do. I'm not sure we'll get it driving in time for the last Miata Club autocross of the season next weekend.

07/25/2010: A Wiring Harness Odyssey, Pt. 1

2010-07-28T13:27:00.004-05:00

This is (most of) the wiring from our ZX2 donor car. I laid it out on the driveway last Sunday so I could approximate what parts went where and label it accordingly. It's all well and good to lay it out on the open ground, but something tells me it will be a wee bit harder to put all this wiring into the LX. But once this harness goes into the LX, we will finally be ready to throw the Zetec engine in!

Alan was working on his newly-acquired 2000 Proteg for most of the day, so I was pretty much on my own. After labeling the harness as best as I could, I wrapped up all 50 lbs. of it (so I guesstimate), threw it into the LX trunk for now, and proceeded to loosen the LX wiring harness under the dash and in the engine bay. With another 30-60 minutes, the LX harness will be free and a new nightmare (called "How in hell do we put two miles of wiring into another car?") will begin.

Clean!

2010-07-20T21:53:00.001-05:00

A clean engine bay may be frowned upon in a race of crapheaps, but it'll make engine installation and trackside repair much more pleasant.

In related news, for a while the power washer was failing to deliver much water at all. I found out later that there was a tiny frog in the garden hose that got pushed against the input screen on the washer. Poor little guy fell out, stone dead, when I took the hose off.

Now with updates!

2010-07-06T22:22:00.000-05:00

The weekend before last, we finished pulling out everything we needed from the green ZX2. Steering rack, wiring harness, and a number of things to sell. There was some serious funk in there from stagnant water that leaked in past the tarp. Last Wednesday the ZX2 was dragged onto a flatbed and hauled away, leaving our team poorer of 1 broken, rusty chassis and richer by $100.

The 1.9 liter CVH engine from the LX got dropped neatly into the engine bay, complete with rear-left-wheel drive invisible magic propulsion drivetrain.

We treated the cab like a dumpster for unused parts. We tossed the suspension from the LX in there, along with nearly all the interior parts from both cars. All the stuff in the picture below, with the exception of the tires and the white hatch, was stuffed into the car. It was full up to the headliner.

We may post more regular updates as we go along. If we have time, we may also post here the content of the posts on mine and Eric's blogs which detail our progress so far. We'll differentiate those by leading the title with "Old News:" or something like that.

Some upcoming work:

Remove wiring harness and fuel tank from LX.

Install ZX2 wiring harness and fuel tank into LX. Figure out plumbing discrepancies.

Replace rusty fuel and brake lines.

Install steering rack, engine, dash, and instruments.

Install Zetec engine.

Install safety equipment.

Get accepted.

Race.

Credit for the top photo and this video below go to my mom, who was home to handle the transaction.

Introducing: Team Resignation

2010-04-02T11:09:00.006-05:00

We are Team Resignation.

Our mission
To compete at the 24 Hours of LeMons: Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500, in October 2010. This endurance race for $500 cars will take place at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, IL.

Our tools
A quad-tone 1991 Ford Escort LX and a wrecked 1999 Ford Escort ZX2 (under the tarp). All the good stuff from the ZX2 is going into the LX.

Our sponsors

None at this time. Give us your money!

A brief history, in chronological order
http://assonancerood.blogspot.com/2010/02/escort-service-pt-1.html

http://assonancerood.blogspot.com/2010/02/escort-service-pt-2.html

http://sentimentalmechanic.blogspot.com/2010/02/another-9-hour-round-of-cussin-and.html

http://assonancerood.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-to-expect-from-lemons.html

http://sentimentalmechanic.blogspot.com/2010/03/behold-failure.html

http://assonancerood.blogspot.com/2010/03/escort-service-pt-4-5.html

http://sentimentalmechanic.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-oversimplification.html

http://assonancerood.blogspot.com/2010/03/running-long-race.html

http://sentimentalmechanic.blogspot.com/2010/03/always-with-surprises.html