Congrats to Rectilinear!!!

[DON SVO]

We had the first true 24-hour-straight (3p Sat-3p Sun) race in 24 Hours Of Lemons, and his team not only entered the race with a virgin Festy, they completed the entire 24 hour race! Great showing guys!!!

[FestYboy]

more details!!!

[Movin]

Thats not news thats teasin!! lets here it and post pics!!

[DriverOne]

I concur!

[DON SVO]

I'll let him tell his story

I'm sore as hell. Our car (green and white Miata) developed a large cut in the lower rad hose and I watered down my rear tires while making a 70mph right hander. I kept it off the wall and other cars, but dislocated my thumb on the steering wheel and a whole host of bruises from the seat support and harness.

They made my team put 12 air fresheners on our roll cage since "my driving stinks" and you could smell lemon and lavender and vanilla for several hours. Nauseating!

[JPT]

^ LOL!!

Way to represent, Rectilinear!

[Movin]

Good show!!
LOL that would make one heck of a burn-out!!

[DON SVO]

Good show!!
LOL that would make one heck of a burn-out!!

The cornucopia of smells from the little Christmas tree air fresheners or going sideways from the unplanned tire washing?

[drddan]

I vote on both! :p
Congrats on the race REC!


... and Don ...(Lee Van Cleef FTW!)

[DON SVO]

I vote on both! :p
Congrats on the race REC!


... and Don ...(Lee Van Cleef FTW!)

LOL! I'm an Admin on the other board I frequent, I'm known as 'The Bad' over there (I'm a rather methodical and "do the job I've been paid" person), so Angel Eyes was only natural

[Rectilinear]

Thanks everyone!!

Our team, Bryant, Decklan, Mike and myself did an amazing job of keeping this little car alive for the 24 hours! We had our share of problems early in but we had plenty of support from fellow racers and paddock neighbors.

From the start, the Festy was running very well and handling better than expected. In the first couple of hours, Mike brought the car in with no oil pressure. We checked the level to find it was full and feared that the oil pump had failed. We started the car back up and found that the pressure came back up to normal. Mike complained that the car felt odd in left turns and we investigated to find that the driver side inner tie rod had a lot of slop in it. Couldn't get a part that day so we had to run it.

I took the car out and started making good time around the track but had the same oil pressure issue after 2 laps. I took it in and decided there had to be something clogging the oil pickup tube. We dropped the pan and found all the dry crusty sludge from it's previous 230K miles was flaking off the inside of the block and clogging the pickup tube screen completely. We used 2 cans of Berrymans, 3 quarts of oil and a gallon of ATF to flush the engine out and put it back together with some 50 weight oil.

I got back out there and cranked the little bugger around with a best time of 2:40.81. About an hour in, I started into turn 9 and the rear end came out from underneath me putting me into a 2 wheel up slide. When I reached the penalty box, we quickly realized why when it was pouring oil onto the ground. Long story short, the drain plug had gone missing and the oil had soaked my rear tires. We borrowed a drain plug from the Escort GT #108 team and got back out there with a different driver. As night fell, Bryant flipped on the 3 Hellas only to find out that the belt was squealing like crazy from the poor little alternator trying to keep up wiuth the demand. By the time he got back around and came in, the belt had shredded and gone missing. The car was hot and water was boiling past the cheesy squeeze clamps on the radiator hose. At the last minute, Mike made a mad dash into town to grab a couple belts. We threw on on and went back out on to the track around 9:30.

From that point on, the car ran like a champ. It had been overheated and ran out of oil 3 times but kept running like a dream. We had to add about 3 quarts of oil to it from then to the end of the race but it kept up 60lbs of pressure and the temp stayed very cool for the duration.

When I started another shift at around 3:30 a.m., I realized that one (or more) of our wheel bearings was really growling in left turns. In right turns our tires sounded like a coaches whistle. But the Festy still wanted to go. The rest of the race was all about driving and staying in the race. No more worries about the car, it was all about staying alert and keeping it on the track.

At 1:00 p.m., the car was turned over to Decklan, who was giving it hell the entire time and he brought it all the way to the checkered flag. We were all beside ourselves. It had been 24 hours of ups and downs and not really knowing what to expect out of the car. As it turned out, all of the hours of preparing the car had paid off. Although we didn't trophy, we had a blast and finishing was a huge win for us all!!

Thank you to all that supported us, gave us advice in building the car, let us borrow parts, got us paper towels when they went in to town and most of all tolerated our slower car out on the track!!

We hope to get out there soon and do it again, but not sure when that is going to be!

We didn't get any action photos, but got these in my driveway after I drove it home to Plano from the race! Call it a nice long victory lap!!

[DON SVO]

We didn't get any action photos, but got these in my driveway after I drove it home to Plano from the race! Call it a nice long victory lap!!

I got some pics of it on the track

[Rectilinear]

I got some pics of it on the track

Oh please, please share!! We were too tired to bother come Sunday!

[DON SVO]

Oh please, please share!! We were too tired to bother come Sunday!

I tried to take a pic as I was passing you on Saturday, but between steering and waving I was occupied

[Rectilinear]

Ahh, you showoff!! ;-p That's how you screwed up your thumb, isn't it?!