Prickstine Lemons Team

We’re number 32!  32^nd place!  Thirty Second place.  Out of over 100 cars!  Heck, there were so many cars there that Jalopnik only showed the top 100.  The car ran great, the team kicked arse, and the results are frankly wonderful.  Obstacles were encountered and crushed.  Competitors were raced and passed.  Beers were drunk.  The Porcubimmer ran like a champ.  It was a glorious weekend.  Apologies now for details forgotten or misplaced.

 

Arse-Freeze-Apalooza 2008 at Thunderhill - the promised rain never showed, the temps never got quite as low as some feared they would, and everyone had a good time.  The team arrived in spurts over the course of Friday the 26^th.  Kris and Reid were at the track when Mr. Malone arrived with the car in tow.  They tested it on the track and with honest smiles reported it primed and ready to go.  The rest of the team arrived and General Scott laid out the plans.  The level of cooperation was great.

 

Saturday morning dawned and the sky was heavy – leaden looking even, to sound a bit cliché.  I was thankful that we had a covered pit slot in case it rained.  Rich had food ready for everyone when they arrived.  We all walked the track.  Kris got suited up for the primo stint in the car.  He and AJ had the radios ready and handed out.  The car sounded AWESOME.  Seeing it queued up in the hot pits was wonderful.  Slowly, the track officials started to get the cars out and parading.  There were a lot of cars.  I really can’t stress this fact . . . seeing the parking lot develop on turn 6 . . . watching cars stall out on the hill up to turn 5 . . . it was comical.

 

And then came the radio call.  Kris had been parading for, well, some time then.  He had to make a pit stop.  Yes, he had to pee.  What an auspicious start to the weekend!  AJ said no, Kris said yes, AJ said No, Kris said YES!  So in he came.

 

Thankfully 3 things happened – he peed fast thanks to the team quickly helping him out and back in to the car, he got back on to the track while they were *still* parading the cars in prep for the start, and most importantly – there is photographic proof of him sprinting from one of the track spot-a-pots.  We will never let him live it down.

 

Other comical highlights of the weekend – boogie boogie Ratbert driving under a yellow . . . Reid’s ongoing and never ending commentary (“take yer vacation someplace else!!”  “get this effin fiat out of my way!”  “Surprise buttsex passing!”) . . . Ben packing 50lbs of dirt into the wheel wells after some rad work passing other cars . . . Kris buttering the sides and stuffing the car into places you wouldn’t think it would fit . . . Scott seeming to be in all places at all times – in the car, in the pits, talking with the judges.  Ben got a black flag for contact when car 45 – the Peoples Curse winner – but turned around by a fustercluck in 5 and right into him despite his best efforts to avoid the chaos.  Reid also had bad luck in 5 on Sunday when, during the dishing out of the Peoples Curse, the track went from yellow to green and I screamed this at him over the radio and off he went passing cars . . . and a slow mustang turned in front of him in a state of total obliviousness to the actual state of the race.  I was one of like maybe 5 people in the tower spotting right then.  We got lucky with black flags and penalties overall – the worst we had was a 10min timeout and driver change . . . much better than some other teams earned.

 

Mechanically we had a return of electrical gremlins late on Saturday.  Rich was driving and the car started sputtering and cutting out.  He brought it in and everyone descended on it to figure it out.  The car would crank but not fire – is it fuel or spark?  We quickly found it was fuel – the pump wasn’t running!  We ghetto’d up a bypass to get power to the pump and got the car back out, running strong.  After racing ended on Saturday we fixed it proper and left the bypass in as an emergency fix ready to go.  Thankfully that was the only issue we had besides tires . . . and our tire changes were epically fast at about 2mins or so!  Beat That!

 

If Saturday was grand, the Sunday was simply Epic.  We started the day in 61^st place.  We finished in 32^nd.  The credit goes to our great drivers:  Scott, Kris, Ben, Rich, and Reid.  Mike Y, Mike M, Tyler, Cody, AJ, and I helped as best we could with spotting, prepping the car, changing tires, etc.  We Finished The Race!  Seeing the Porcubimmer racing under the checkered flag was the perfect ending.

 

-Don

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.