Prickstine Lemons Team

Obviously our venture into the 24 Hours of Lemons didn’t go as well as planned. Things started great, with the car handling fantastically (watch the YouTube video linked below - I was having a ball behind the wheel), but it went downhill from there. If only this were a sprint race! Hearing, “Man, your car was so fast. You were passing everyone! What happened?” a bunch of times from other teams was both encouraging and disheartening. Oh well.

Although the car didn’t finish the race, we did accomplish our goal of getting a race car together from scratch. None of our team members are professional mechanics, race car builders, or racers. We’re just a bunch of car loving nerds from the internet. Yet we were able to pool our talents together and build a legitimate race car (in Vince’s garage with basic tools and no lift - oh, and lots Tecate). We did it! Not only that, but our car was one of the best looking cars out there. I was under the impression that the bar had been raised in this race as far as having interesting themes, but there were still plenty of cars out there with nothing but a spray-painted racing number on the side. In contrast, our car looked fantastic, and we got tons of compliments!

So to all the members of our team: Bravo! Everyone contributed different things and talents to the team, and we couldn’t have gotten it done without all of you. Vince and Kris, I’m really sorry that you guys never got a turn behind the wheel. But the Porcubimmer will be back, and you two will be first in line to drive if you can make it back on board.

Thank you to all our sponsors and contributors. None of us are ballers (well, ‘cept maybe Kris), so all the financial support is greatly appreciated.

And to our fans and everyone else: Prepare yourself for Porcubimmer 2: Porc Harder! Coming December 2008 to a cold and rainy Norcal track near you. We’ll be back!

Here’s a smattering of photos I took during the weekend.  Enjoy:

http://flickr.com/photos/26541144@N02/sets/72157605053959930/ 

-AJ

Youtube limits videos to 10 minutes, so here’s the first 10 minutes of the race… Scott Chamberlain kicking butt!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag0QBsUwJ3g

Nicolas got some great pics of the PorcuBimmer in action here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncoulet/sets/72157604986821428/

Thanks for the pictures Nicolas!

-Kris

During the award ceremonies, we also won an award - the “I Got Screwed” award for all of the problems we had.

Looking at the video, I think it’s safe to say it’s simply a clutch. Of course, we’ve also got an engine problem we need to chase down. I think it’ll be relatively easy to get the car prepared for the race at Thunderhill on Dec 27-28!

The pictures I took are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/klinquist/sets/72157605011976325/

Alex took some great pics here:

http://rbp.f0e.net/forum.php?d=1316&t=051008

LeMons and Altamont have each given $5k to the family of the racer who passed away. Most other teams have put the racers number (37) or team colors on their cars. Very touching.

We got bumped on the side hard which seems to have done something to the clutch or tranny.. Car won’t move. On top of that, we’ve lost all engine power- sounds like its running with very retarded timing. Timing belt is ok, so this leads us to believe its a sensor or computer problem. We don’t have a spare DME ;(. Almost noon now and its not looking good.

We started off the day great - Scott went out there and kicked ass!  We were in first place until about 15 minutes into the race when we got a flat tire.  Came in and with a new tire, he was back out in no time.

Shortly after that, the car began to stall and was becoming increasingly difficult to restart.   We replaced the high pressure fuel pump with no results.  Andy continued to pass cars after driving back out onto the track with a cold car.   Of course, 20-30 minutes later, we have to limp the car into the pits once again.

Tomorrow we will get a low pressure fuel pump from a junkyard.  We’ve also swapped the air flow meter … hopefully the problem will be solved tomorrow.

While working on the car, someone pointed out that an ambulance was on the track.   A Gulf-colored Volvo went head on into a wall (witnesses say that the car did not brake/turn).

A lifeflight helicopter was dispatched but turned away before landing. Police arrived on the scene and began an investigation into the incident. The race has been called off for at least the rest of the day and race organizers have collected the transponder units from the teams.   It was a fatal crash.

As of 4:00-ish, the race was called off for the day and hopefully will resume tomorrow.

Last night was the last work night in San Diego for the team. All the labels and decals are applied, all the porcupiney pricks and face parts were installed. It is done.

It is my true honor to present to you: The Porcubimmer. Congratulations to everyone on the team, everyone brought a unique set of talents to table and together we put together something truly amazing.

Bask in it’s prickyness glory.

The crew from the final night: Left to Right - Kris, AJ, Scott, Andy, Ben, Jeff, Vince

After the photos were done, and Tecates were empty - we pulled off and numbered each prick and prepped the car for the big ride north. Next stop: Altamont.

-Sickboy out

It was an afternoon of drilling holes and sexual innuendo in my garage this afternoon, as a lowly BMW was transformed in to a rolling Porcupine. Jeff and Ben showed up at my door while I was passed out on the couch, and in their non-LeMons car they had about 40 gigantic foam porcupine quills and an 18 pack of sweet, sweet Tecate. While we didn’t have much time to take pictures of the process, I’ll describe it for you here:

Step 1: Open Tecate, drill 500 holes in car.

Step 2: Realize you drilled through some brace in the trunk that you would need a 10′ long bolt to attach quill.

Step 3: Drill more holes. Open fifth beer.

Step 4: Attach quills, have seizure because it looks so fucking awesome.

A Porcupine is born:

The rear view of the car is exceptionally intimidating.

Ben approves of this automobile:

We also had time to permanently attach the eyes to the car - angry porcupine is angry:

At the end of the night, the quills were mounted and we had contributed greatly to our Wet T-Shirt Contest. It was all too much for Jeff to handle, and he finished off the evening making the sweetest of love to the Porcubimmer.

-Vince