Doing Time in Joliet; the 24 Hours of LeMons at Autobahn CC.

Tom driving into the night.

Well, this was my second LeMons race with Team Gutty aka Team Honda Meet or Team GridLife. haha. This race though, Adam was driving with Team Landshark in their Integra. Adam started the last race for us, but this race, I got the job. I was pretty stoked because in the first race, after 2 and a half hours on track, I ran pretty open laps. So, starting meant a lot more time to work on my racecraft/situational awareness since there were 101 cars starting the race! 

I got to Chicago on Friday night and unloaded on "Jabaay St."! I swear, almost this whole street is owned by a Jabaay. Anyways, I was staying at Jeremy and Allison's in their garage. They have a killer loft that has a very efficient air conditioning unit. I thought that I woke up in Antarctica!! I called it a night early while everyone else, besides Adam, went to this Pub-type place. Tom seemed to be real pumped on these nachos that he and Luke shared.

Adam, Tom, Luke, and I went to this pancake house right around the corner on Saturday morning. I had already been up for a bit, so I ate a Clif Bar and a banana prior. I got a water and wheat toast to keep it light because if you know me, you know a big meal would have meant disaster as I would be getting ready to hop in the car. 

We headed back to Jeremy and Allison's to load up the miscellaneous stuff. A quick drive over and we were at the track. We had a killer paddock spot, thanks to Team Landshark!! So, it was a quick trip to tech. Also, shout out to Brandy who has all my stuff organized in this tote now. Then it was time for the Drivers' Meeting, yay!! Tons of people, typical moral of the story, "don't be an idiot" and here is how we are going to convert the track from South to Full. Once the meeting was over, the mad rush to the bathroom/s began! Wow, you would have thought there was a Black Friday sale on relieving yourself!!

We were starting the race with an 8 lap penalty due to winning B class at Gingerman last year. They wanted to put us in A class, that is a huge LOL!! With the 8 lap penalty, we were starting 99th out of a 101 cars and probably dead last in B class. We had our work cut out for us, but we had the team for the task. I got suited up with the addition of the Jabaay homemade Cool Suit. 

I headed out towards the back half of the pack to save fuel and keep the car cool. It seemed like we circulated for 8 laps under full yellow. I was in between flag stations when it went "green", but I kind of had the idea because a few people were "making moves". The first half hour seemed like it was full yellow about every five minutes. It was tough to get in the "groove" because of the constant go then slow going on. I really needed to find that groove because I hadn't been to Autobahn in 4 years and hadn't been on track in nine months. The second lap, there was a car that caught fire about a corner in front of me. Then, a few laps later, a Civic flipped front to back twice, which is what I figured out later, but left a big divot in the inside of T8. After that first half hour, it was pretty "smooth" from there. We still had several local yellows, but not full course.

I started to get in the "groove", but yet I felt like I was "being a passenger". I was being too nice, especially to a few certain "faster" cars. But, I wanted to conserve the car for everyone else and no "burn everything up". Once I told myself to quit being a passenger, the times started dropping, yet I didn't feel like I was "pushing" or "burning anything up". After the long back straight, the tires would howl every time through there. I brought the braking zone back some and carried less speed, still howled. haha. So, I gave up on "saving" them in that corner. Around this time too, the track kind of "opened up". I decided to turn it up to about 8.5 out of 10 from the 7ish that I had been doing. I planned it out well, super clean lap, I made one pass which was pretty easy and didn't take too much time. Then, the one time that I got passed was on the straight away. 

The laps at the first part of the race were around 2:04s due to all the traffic. Then as the field spread out, it dropped to 1:56-1:59. The fast lap that I ran was a 1:54 which I was pleased with given the situation. That time was good for our car, but not really for our class! The car that won our class absolutely blew my doors off in the straights. It is shown in one of the highlight videos that I posted. When it passed me, I actually thought it was an A car. That's one thing that is tough about LeMons racing, you don't know what class the cars are in. Last year, my mentality was "if I pass the car, it is a B or C car." Well, come to find out, after day 1, I battled it out with the overall P2 car. I ran defensively, etc, but felt bad after knowing the fact.

Once I had the "groove" back, it was a ball. Using traffic, playing it right, etc just a great time racing. I got behind this A class Celica and we were turning decent laps. I was being the cat and let him be the mouse. It was working great up until this point. I had made several inside and outside moves going into T3 until this lap. I got a run coming out of T2 and went to the inside of the car that eventually won C class. But, I don't think that they saw the little CRX on their inside. Once I saw them start to turn in, I tried to get on the binders to miss them. But, we made contact, very minimal contact at that. Not a single piece of the bumper bracket was bent, etc, not even the fender had a mark. Yet, the bumper cover came off on that corner and started rubbing the ground plus the tire on occasion. 

If that wasn't enough of the problem, our radio communication wasn't working. I call it in, I get no response. I then yell "CAN YOU HEAR ME!!", still no response. When I went through T12, I knew there was no way that I could keep going. So, I called in again, this time saying that I was coming in. That didn't get through either. The only reason that they knew that I was coming in was our paddock spot was near pit in, so they saw me rolling in. Adam and Jeremy kicked the cover off, then zip tied it back on. LeMons tech guys said that it needed more zip ties, even though the Civic next to us just flipped and didn't have a cover on or a windshield!

It was a huge setback even though we might not have had a chance to win anyway without the perfect race. But, it continued with Luke's stint due to the radio communication malfunction. I was on the radio talking to him, etc and Adam had said that he doesn't talk much. So, when I didn't get a reply, I figured he was just out pedalling, I get that. Nope, he just couldn't hear me. We are sitting in the paddock and here comes Luke pulling in. Great, bad pit stop number 2!

Tom had a good stint and took it into the night. Chris was having some problems with others lights in the night and the lack of ours. Due to that, he didn't want Jeremy to go out. There was clear tape on the headlights in case of contact, so that got removed. Jeremy went out and started laying down some great laps! He brought it home in P7 in B class and P25 overall. Great effort by everyone with a pretty good result given my incident and another black flag. Next time, we need Allison there for the whole race, so that we won't have radio issues again. Then we will be fighting for the top spot on the podium again!

Here is the Video Highlights:
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Bonus: Karting.