Next roof decoration?

Maybe we should talk to this float builder about our future races...

From Team Stimulus Package

Yes, that Obama's Stimulus Package she's holding on to!

Video of us

Here's a couple of Volvos playing. You can see that the front straight starts at ~17 seconds in. Then, at the end of the esses, at the end of the straight, Mark in the TSP car and a Porsche 944 pass them in the turn at the end. The video follows him all the way up the hill climb and you can see the 944 pass Mark at the bottom with him passing right back and holding them off. The rear volvo then passes everyone on the back straight...while the yellow flag is waving!



Here's another good video from another team, but we're not in it. Still, it shows the crazy LeMons scene well!

6th place overall!!

The weekend started out with an afternoon photo shoot in the Golden Sierras on Thursday. Holding back the press and our fans we were able to get some good clean shots.

From Team Stimulus Package

From Team Stimulus Package

Day Zero .... Friday was a bit exciting. We did not pass tech with the lotto cage or the kill switch. Got those fixed and then got a little track time to test the car. We found that we leaked fuel into the cabin. We tried a number of fixes. In the end we went back to a closed system. Opting for no breather and hoping the pressure did not build enough to cause problems.


Day One we had racked up 127 laps and were in 6th place. Darryl ran two stints and had some great dicing with multiple other teams. At the end of the day we swapped the tires around, checked the fluids and she was ready to roll for Sunday. Tire wear on the fronts was significant. Brakes and fluids were great.

The weather was not as warm as expected. With high clouds on Saturday, wind and thunderstorms in the evening.

Many teams came out in costume. Spy vs Spy brought matching black and white rabbits. Even the kids got involved.

From Team Stimulus Package

The chili feed and lotto on Saturday, brought in funds for the Santa Clara Burn Center.

Day Two had more excitement with less overall track time. By using great teamwork, a little luck and just 2 short black flags we were with in spitting distance of first place. Bill brought her home with a three abreast drag to the checkered. All this following an off track incident by our firefighting friends. We finished with 216 laps, 6th overall, and 2nd in class! Just 6 laps off of the leader!

Talk about a stimulating experience!

Decorations are complete and the car is ready...almost!

We got the decorations on the car and took pictures at our sponsor's shop.

Roof top additions:

From Team Stimulus Package

LeMons Lotto added to the trunk:

From Team Stimulus Package

From Team Stimulus Package

We then discovered we had a fuel leak! Good to discover this now before we leave for the race though! I can't wait for Reno-Fernley!

Going for the gold!

The forecast was for showers, but it was dry enough to paint the car after all. Here's how she looked after her golden shower:
Next we removed the fuel tank and found that the source of our gauge troubles appeared to be that the fuel level sending unit was hanging up on the fuel pick up... All seems to be working well now!

Fuel starvation problem licked!

Now that we have a fuel surge tank and plumbing installed, we got the fuel pumps wired up yesterday. We also rolled the other rear fender because of the larger tires we're running. We then towed the heap down to our original testing ground (parking lot) and tried it out. The car ran great and the new tires are a LOT more fun!

We then pumped out the main fuel tank and then poured ~3/4 gallon back in. We threw the car around for around 30 min and never had the slightest fuel starvation hiccup in power! Now, wheel spin we had plenty of in those tight corners...

Here's some testing video:



Next up for us: Finish our theme update for the Reno-Fernley race!

lots of progess

We scavenged through 2 Pick Your Part locations the day before Easter and finally found five 15" wheels that would fit our Honda's small bolt pattern. Our new tires (thanks Big-O!) look great and promise to handle much better than the ones we had last time.

This past weekend we built a surge tank to deal with our fuel starvation issues while cornering. It looks like it will work well but we have to finish wiring the extra fuel pump.

Big-O Tires in Newark, CA

I thought I'd put in a plug here on our blog for our sponsor, Big-O Tires in Newark, CA! They agreed that with our slogan of "Giving the racing economy the Big 'O'" they were a good match for helping us out.
They've been awesome to us in supplying us new and used tires. If you live in the area please consider giving them a chance to earn your tire and service business! Please tell them we sent you!

To John and the gang at Big-O, Team StimPack thanks you for your support!

Track time!

We got the car out on the track last Friday (Thunderhill) and it ran great! We were getting fuel starvation issues below 3/4 full though, which is apparently a result of our using the original caburated civic fuel tank so we'll try a swap with a baffled FI tank and see how she does! It handled fine for a crap can race car with our best lap time of 2:27 on the full 3 mile course. The tires we were using were old hard tires so it should be more fun with stickier ones during the race.

What an April Fools' Day!

We "fixed" our "overheating" and non-working tachometer problem last night by grounding the gauge cluster better. However, we then noticed that the gas gauge was no longer working. We pulled that ground off again and the gas gauge returned to normal, the tach went dead, and the temp gauge shot up to full hot! WTF??

Well, we loaded up the car on the tow dolly anyhow and went down to our local "test track" (empty biz park) at ~11:00 pm and had a blast! The car is running great and is really zippy! (I won't say fast...) I can't wait until tomorrow when we head to Thunderhill Raceway for testing!