To find out Team Schwing's secrets, click http://jalopnik.com/5067517/how-to-w...-their-secrets
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To find out Team Schwing's secrets, click http://jalopnik.com/5067517/how-to-w...-their-secrets
He shared a lot....but NONE of the secrets to success! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by rpoz27
SCHWING
SCHWING
SCHWING SCHWING SCHWING
http://teamschwing.com/files/PA191821.jpg
SCHWING
Here is the write-up for those who haven't seen it on the website.
Friday - Arrived at the track and pitted under the tents next to the LeMons officials. We decided to run the practice day to shake down the car and drive the new track configuration. We ran the track backwards and used an access road between the "bus stop" and "carousel". Matt ran the first session and bedded in the brakes, scrubbed in tires, and got familiar with the car. During this session we found tire rubbing on the rear bumper mounts and inside the rear quarter panels. A small sledge hammer and a cut-off wheel fixed this problem.
Jeremy and I each went out for about 15 minute sessions and everything went great. Later in the day each of us all ran one more session just to have a little fun. It was an absolute blast driving with the other crap boxes on track. In total there were about 30 cars that practiced with a couple of them having major failures. A red MX-6 pulled onto the track with a rod knocking pretty badly. A couple of laps in the motor let go and dumped all of the oil onto the track just before the carousel.
Friday night we got our car tech'd and inspected. We bribed the officials with the use of our welder for the weekend so the inspection process was pretty quick. Any vehicle that went through inspection that appeared to be in too nice a shape got a few licks with the mallett or an additional paint job with fancy neon paint. Teams were bribing the judges with beer, liquor (evan a bottle of Patron), slim jims, shrimp cocktail and steaks (sweet move Team Mullett), and various other things.
Saturday - We got to sleep in a little as they were continuing tech'ing cars from 8-10. At 10:45 we had our drivers meeting with an speech from organizer, Jay Lamm. From there it was to our cars for a start time of 11:30. We were supposed to do about 10 minutes of circling to check transponders but this was a little delayed by multiple cars breaking on track before we even got the green. Team Blue Goose unfortunately blew a motor and had to be towed off track.
Finally we get the green and the action begins. The racing was intense with a large speed margin between quite a few of the teams. Everyone drove clean with great close racing all throughout the track. There were quite a few yellows early as a bunch of cars started breaking. I ran about 1 hr. 45 min. and came in for a drivers change.
Jeremy gets in and we do not gas up as we are still at 5/8's of a tank. Jeremy drives very clean and at about the 20 minute mark we see that he is settling in nicely. He makes some sweet passes including getting 5 cars through T17 and T16 on one lap. Jeremy runs for about 1 hr. and 45 min. and comes in for a driver change.
Clifton gets in and we fill the car completely full of fuel. Clifton's Spec Miata skills show instantly with great momentum driving as he starts clicking off the laps. Towards the end of his stinthe is running hard towards the chicane and has "an incident" that results in another car making contact with the tires at the chicane. We stay under yellow for many laps while the track gets cleared and the tire wall gets rebuilt. Every lap we look and there is no black flag for us. :D The track goes green and first lap here comes the black flag. :cry: Clifton pulls off and into the penalty area and gets out of the car. An official comes over and begins talking to Clifton reminding him to be aware of others on track that might make unexpected moves. We get off with a slap on the wrist and do a driver change.
Matt gets in the car and we put 3 gallons of fuel in just to be safe. On Matt's first lap he spins the car in T1 and hits a cone. The next lap around we get the black flag and we head back to the penalty box again. The officials seemed a little suprised to see us again so soon. Matt goes over the spin the Wheel of Misfortune. It lands on Sarah Palin and Matt has to dress up like a woman and go find a bear that is somewhere around the pit area. The officials see that we are in the lead of the race and have pity on us. They hand us a bag and tell us to hang about 50 christmas tree air fresheners on the roll-bar throughout the car. We hang them all over the roll bar, dash bar, and around the rear-view mirror. The car smells horrible and Matt heads back out on track to finish the day. People on the garage balconies at T16 +17 could smell the air fresheners every lap Matt drove by. With about 30 minutes left in the day Matt gets drilled in the left rear by another car. He begins to complain about the tire rub as he starts to smell the rubber over the air fresheners. We look every lap he drives by but can not see any rubbing of the tire and tell him he is good to go. The day was supposed to end at 6:00 PM but it turns out they extend it to 6:30 because of the late start that morning. At this point we are very glad we put in the additional 3 gallons the previous stop. With 15 minutes left Matt comes over the radio saying the fuel is on empty and he needs gas. Clifton responds by saying "stay out, I guarantee you have at least 5 gallons left". I wonder who told him that? :wink: On the last lap we see the start/finish flagger get the checkered flag in his hand. We were sure he would show it to the Miata that was about 10 seconds from the line. The Miata drives by and no checkered flag. 15 seconds later The SCHWING Team rounds the final turn and we get the checkered flag for P1 after the 1st day!! It ended up the Bikini Racer team was on the same lap as us with the Miata 3 laps behind.
Saturday night - We realize we have a banged-up left rear that was causing the tire to wear on the rear strut. The inside sidewall even had cords exposed in certain spots. Matt gets to work on the strut adjustment while Jeremy and I go in search for a new tire. We search for about 30 minutes and finally Jeremy finds Team Blue Goose and we arrange payment for the tire in the form of cash and a 6-pack of brew (not Keystone). After fixing the tire issue we do routine checks with bleeding the brakes, oil, tire rotation, clean windshield, wax car, etc. Walking through the pits at night was an amazing sight with teams making repairs, doing maintenance, and even swapping motors!
Sunday - The morning came a little earlier with a brief drivers meeting and then to our cars for the start of the race. We altered our fuel strategy slightly to guarantee no fuel issues and planned for 3 stops throughout the 7-hour race session.
I started the race with an approach to stay smooth and clean with no penalties. The racing was "slightly" calmer as there were a handful of vehicles that didn't survive Saturday. I ran exactly 2-hours in the stint and also clicked off our fastest lap of the race @ 1:19.3.
Jeremy gets in and we also put in 6-gallons of fuel. Jeremy runs a super-clean session with some amazing passes. Total stint was 2-hours.
Clifton gets in and we fuel the car up completely. At this point the race is super-tight and I think we are up by only 1-lap. Clifton runs a clean session of 1hr. 30 min. and brings it in for our final stop.
Matt gets behind the wheel and we put in 5-gallons of fuel to bring us home. Throughout the last 1 1/2 hours we preach to Matt to keep it smooth and to point the faster cars by. I think this was the hardest part of the race for Matt to hold back and not race full out. We keep a close eye on the P2 car and stay at virtually the same interval for the entire session. We are watching the clock closely for the last hour and finally we see the black + white flag ready to fly. Matt crosses the finish line taking the checkered flag and the celebration begins!!! It was such an amazing feeling that I can't even describe. We get back to the pits and we are bombarded with people coming up congratulation us, what a great moment. I do remember David Love being one of the first to congratulate us and he even had a Keystone Light tall-boy for me! :D The combination of winning the race and getting a Keystone Light was so emotional I think I teared up a little. What a perfect ending to an amazing event!!
See ya'll at LeMons Texas 2009!
Man the stories and pictures sure make me want to do this event next year.
I need to find some money.... I might could get a car donated.
Damn he's a dead ringer for Garth Algar ...
http://www.orange.co.uk/images/edito...05_rex_170.jpg
http://www.aicmctexas.com/forums/fil...wing_2_473.jpg
Simply awesome. You guys are awesome! What a great story and amazing victory with a ton of fun built in. Wish I could have made it out there. Events like those are what keeps you coming back to racing again & again at whatever cost. Enjoy the memories forever...
Speaking of coming back......When will Todd Who tranform back into Todd Covini? I'll even venture a guess that some actually miss having him around.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mitchntx
Party on Garth!
JJ