Here is my little rant about the 2008 24 Hours of LeMons.  The included video shows, albeit not all that clearly, the #11 SCHWING Team car (the little powder blue Toyota), smacking into the back of me going into the chicane.  One can see that I had the line with several other cars and that the #11 car was clearly out of the racing line.  At the last minute he makes an abrupt maneuver to enter the line hitting the back of mine with his spinning me into the tire wall.

The perturbing part of this incident, is that WE were penalized for his mistake.  One of the other drivers of the #11 car was even overheard to say “We are professional drivers and the other drivers are just not driving to our level”.  All I have to say to that is “go race somewhere else then”.

The SCHWING Team did a great deal of aggressive driving during the event and was the topic of much controversy in the paddocks.  I think the majority of participants would have had a much better experience had #11 not chosen to attend.

You didn’t make any friends in our camp.  Roughly translated, that means we’ll be looking for you next time…

Let me begin by saying thank you to my teammates.  Without the support and understanding of this group it would not have been any fun at all.

Brilliant performances by Jay, Fez, Paul, and Jeff kept our team above the middle mark for the better part of the weekend.  I was proud to be a part of this team and have great respect for the skills and sportsmanship they demonstrated.

Much was learned about the politics of racing and officiating during our three days of competition.  I learned that rules are not the most important thing in competition, but rather knowing the landscape of the event.  In this case, I made the error of assuming that people would be held accountable for their mistakes.  I came to understand that the important thing is to pay attention to what you’re doing and forget about what’s happening with everyone else.

There were a number of teams, chiefly those directly adjacent to us in the paddock, that personified the very essence of persistence.  I would have given them all more than a pat on the back had it been my event.  I found myself overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of our neighbors.  The experiences had in the paddock were worth the trip.

I feel confident that we’ll be back doing this again.  We will be better prepared mentally and have a better idea of how to compete in this venue.

Some “In Car” footage taken by Team Unintended Acceleration during the event

Nissan GTR on Top gear test track

See more on Virtual Blight at the makeitcomplete.com blog.

This may be the first time that Paul has been awarded man points but he deserves them.  Paul invents fire!  We have a welder and we have actually welded with it.  The bumper on the race car is now connected.  It was supposed to be connected with 4 nuts an bolts but seeing how the mounting points are many inches away from where they belong and the hammer could not move the points together we decided to weld the bumper to the body.

Pictures coming soon.