Monticello NY April 5-7th, 2013 Lemons race

[drdanteiii]

FYI: the roto-Racer Xr4ti will be "racing" at the 24hours of lemons event in monticelly NY on April 5-7th

http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/monticello13.aspx

Come by to see our hoopite in action, and appreciate the spectacle that is leMons racing. We'll be hte fastest merkur on the track. (Mostly because we will probably be the only merkur there.)

If you are thinking of ocming, send me and IM or email, and I'll give you my phone number so you can find us there.

[drdanteiii]

If you have seen my posts, you know we had a massive manifold crack 3 weeks before our race...

SO guess how we ended up trying to repair our manifold...

We ran out of time, and couldn't weld it properly, so off to autozone we went and bought 2 of those hi temp epoxy containers that claim to be good to 2400°F. It worked... for about 10 minutes.


Wednesday before the race, we discovered that our fuel tanks was leaking big time. We ended up dropping the tank on thursday, and found that our JB weld filler neck junction had cracked, and a couple of pin hole leaks on the rear upper half of the tank. Unable to locate a replacement the same day, we did what any lemons team would do. We sanded the flaky rust off, and applied $80 worth of fuel safe JB weld in a skim coat over the affected area. Surprizingly, we found the gasket for the filler neck to tank junction in stock, at the ford dealer for $15! At 10pm thursday night, we got an email from our guest driver. He had located an XR tank at a junk yard, and was bringing it to the race. our lucky day!
Thursday night we loaded the car on the trailer with a quart of gas in the tank, and JB weld still dripping off the back of the tank. Luckily, by friday 9am when we arrived at the track, it has pretty much set up.

Friday was pretty uneventful. Our guest driver had gotten there at 7am, and gotten us a paddock spot about as close to the pits as possible (spot #13, lucky us). It was tight, but we got the car, campsite, box van, and my pickup in. We did a couple of minor things to the car, and then lined up as the 4th team through tech inspection. We flew through tech, just needing to modify our graphics to make our numbers easire to read. Some quick pocket knife work and we were good to go. Then came BS inspection. WE were ready to go with bribes. However, we got a quick look, a few spring rate checks (luckily in the front where we only have 200lb coils) and got class B with no laps. We then bribed the judges anyway... with a monticello appropriate bribe of incest porn and fried chicken skins. http://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LNY13/0 ... cello.html

We then hit the track for some testing. The car was working great, and our ghetto hood scoops didnt fly off. https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 6132_n.jpg

As a track monticello motor club is awesome (north course). a lot of off camber banked turns, a long straight where we could touch triple digit speed even with our boost only set to 10psi, and a terrifying tire wall chicane at the top of a blind hill. The off camber turns and hair pin into the front straight made it hard to get power down out of the corners. The subarus and audi's just killed us out of those corners, but we had longers legs in the really fast straights. I'm going to do more research into limited slip options. The ancillary facilities weren't nearly as good as NHMS, because aside from port-a-johns, there was none. Still it went pretty well, and we would go back and put up with the lack of facilities just for the track. BTW, that manifold repair putty was long gone at this point. We then drank too much, and slept in the back of our box van

Saturday was great. We sent my brother out on the track first. He was anothe guest driver, never been on a track, never seen the car in person until saturday morning, so he could get a few pace laps in before all hell broke loose. He ran the pace laps with the Ferrari P4/5, which was pretty cool to see in person. Other than that, day one was pretty uneventful, with my brother picking up one black flag due to contact early one. Saturday night we re-puttied the manifold, tightend some bolts, swapped our tires front to rear, and then drank too much, and slept in the box van again.


After a few cups of coffee, and telling the apple pie flavored moonshine how I really felt about it, Sunday also went well. Again we sent my brother out first, he turned a blistering lap time, and then continued to turn consistent laps near our best time from saturday. Until he earned another black flag for contact. After that, we ran through the order and I finished out the day. I was running way hard, even though the car was only showing 7-8psi of boost due to a slipped hose clamp that would later be discovered monday morning. We ran hard, and finished 9th in B class, one lap down from audi 9000 quattros of rally baby and the broklyn bomb squad (we are going to be gunning for these guys at NJMP). we were 49th overall. The car was definitley showing its age at the end of sunday. The rear brakes are done, the clutch is chattering, the primwells are dead (we did get 2 entires races and 4 hrs of testing out of them!), and our manifold crack now flows more exhaust than our exhaust system does.

back to the wrenches until NJMP. If we have the chance to run monticello again next year, we will definitely do it.

All in all, it was a damn good time, a good track, and a mostly problem free weekend for our merkur, which has now logged over 1200 race miles on its 90k mile rusty old bones.

Pics when available...

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Damn, I can't believe that I hadn't checked this forum until just now - I live just under an hour from MMC and surely would have visited. It's a great track - that sweeping right-hander on the western side of the track reminds me of the "light bulb" corner at Bridgehampton.

Did they put the chicane in on the back straight or was it all out all the way down? Indeed that turn at the end is deceiving, but awesome when you hit it just right.

[drdanteiii]

Damn, I can't believe that I hadn't checked this forum until just now - I live just under an hour from MMC and surely would have visited. It's a great track - that sweeping right-hander on the western side of the track reminds me of the "light bulb" corner at Bridgehampton.

Did they put the chicane in on the back straight or was it all out all the way down? Indeed that turn at the end is deceiving, but awesome when you hit it just right.

wide open down the back straight. It was nice, and a great place for the XR to stretch its legs. Our average top speed before braking into corner 13 was 95-100, GPS tracked.

North course, clockwise direction..
http://www.monticellomotorclub.com/_upl ... ne%202.pdf


We made most of our kills down the 2 straights, in corners 1,2,3, and in the braking zone into corner 13.

120 car piling up into the tire walls in corners 14+15, and the barely 2 wide hairpin at 18 created a real tie up at some points, but gave for some great "my balls are steel and I'm going fly past and try to out brake 8 cars at once" moments.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

North course, clockwise direction..
http://www.monticellomotorclub.com/_upl ... ne%202.pdf

Okay, got it - you didn't get the full length back straight. I did that in a CTS-V (with the chicane) and got it up to 120 - that was fun. You missed the "light bulb" - turn 10-11 on the full course.

[drdanteiii]

As far as I can tell, the only reason we didnt run the full course was because it would have cut off access to the heli-pad area, and we wouldnt have had enough paddock room for all the teams.

[GPz11]

Great report, let me know if you ever decide to run the Autobahn rounds or up at Road America, or Gingerman.

[drdanteiii]

Great report, let me know if you ever decide to run the Autobahn rounds or up at Road America, or Gingerman.

Its not in the cards this year, but maybe next year. We've already run HNMS in 2012, and now monticello last week. We're planning to run NJ motorsport park in august. That should close us out for the year. Unfortunately we only really have budget for 2-3 races/year. I'd definitely like to make it out to Gingerman or Autobahn, those track look great. Maybe we'll squeeze a long distance run like that in for 2014.