Merry Christmas from Dirty Duck Racing

Merry Christmas everyone from Dirty Duck Racing and our Magic Rabbit.

Nothing says Christmas more than your parts car all aglow in white lights! And the Bounder is happy with its string of lights all the way around the coach!

And who said I live in a holler? Ever seen a holler so decorated, well maybe lighting up the dead cars and the RV does qualify Pine Trail as a holler! :-)

But you have to admit the Bounder looks great all lit up with the house in the background.

And the Magic Rabbit is out for Christmas with it's red lights all ablaze! So festive, so very Christmas. Totally in the Christmas Spirit.

With its red lights shining Santa Claus will certainly be able to find my house, hope he brings camber plates, new cam shaft and maybe even a limited slip differential.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Buttonwillow Day 2 - Sunday Dec 5th

Sunday morning, day two of the Arse-Freeze Appalossa at Buttonwillow. We are feeling good, here is the car jacked up so we can give everything a once over to make sure everything is tight and secure. Fill up with gasoline and ready for an early drivers meeting, 8:30am.

Everyone gathers under the shade structure to listen to Jay Lamm's instructions for Sunday. Most of everything he says is routine until he says, "Well, you guys have been doing so well on the track yesterday, we have decided to mix things up. For today we will run in the opposite direction, counter clockwise instead of clockwise."

A huge moan from all the drives, lots of looks of disbelief! How could he do that, everything we learned on Friday test session and all day yesterday goes out the door. We have no idea what it is like to run the opposite direction. Also, Jay added another corner into the circuit, right in the middle of the "Drag Strip" straight away. Actually that sounds good, slows us down a bit. But the biggest shock to everyone is that no one has practices going counter clockwise. So perfect Lemons, the only thing constant with Lemons is change! Just like the weather.

I am the first driver again, so I have just the smallest advantage in that the two or three parade laps before the green flag is waved will be very slow and I can at least figure out where I would like to be on the track for each corner. Everyone else on our team will have to learn the track at full speed their first time out!

So first we line up before going onto the track. The top 10 finishers from yesterday get to line up at the front and the rest of us fall in behind them. Here I am on the second row of "the rest". So we wait for the Top 10 to make it onto the track and then we roll out behind them. I immediately start thinking about where the best line around the track is in the opposite direction.

Another change for Sunday, the little Fiaguzzi (remember Fiat 600 with a 1000cc Moto Guzzi motorcycle engine in the back) must race with the blue and yellow flag permanently mounted to the side of the car. This flag means to move over, you are about to be over taken. Perfect for this little car as the corner workers were working overtime on Saturday waving this blue and yellow flag at them. Also, this flag make the little Fiat much easier to see ahead of time and plan a place to pass them. Great decision by the Lemon's Staff.

The crowd favorite was back out again, the Lincoln Towncar horse and cowboy.

But they soon had problems on the race track, drew a black flag and ended up in the Penalty Box. Here is the team dressed in pink prison outfits, chained together having to parade around the pits as their penalty. The pink prison outfits are actually used at the Maricopa County prison outside of Phoenix, AZ. The county Sheriff is notorious for treating prisoners with very little respect, make it tough so they will not want to return. An amazing idea! I like it, and I enjoy seeing our Lemon's team dressed the same way, just so long as it's not us.

And thankfully, again, the Dirty Duck Racing team ran clean both days, no MAJOR black flags, well maybe just one. Well there was one little one on Sunday, hardly worth mentioning, why even go over it, are you sure you want to know? OK, seems that when Paul first went out in the morning, on his first lap they waved a black flag at him. He couldn't believe it, how could he have a black flag in one lap? But he came into the pits and the course worker, positioned as you first come off the track, waved Paul over and told Paul he MUST slow down sooner when coming off the race track. Paul grinned and said that this was his first lap out but he would tell the other driver, Mr. Unruly, to slow down. Paul was then pointed back on the track, no lengthy penalty, no visit to the penalty box. See, a black flag hardly worth mentioning! So lets just forget it!

This is a picture on the added corner for Sunday, call Lost Hill or Phil Hill, in the middle of the Drag Strip straight, an up hill and then left and downhill. Fun corner, could take it very fast in the Magic Rabbit. But took a while to learn as we had never seen it in either direction.

White helmet, so this is Paul coming down the "Esses". You can see the top of the new turn, Lost Hill and the corner workers in the background.

Here is a shot looking back at the Esses, a series of three quick back and forth turns, run them flat out. Here you can see the Fiat on the curb trying to stay out of the way of the Jeep Cherokee and the Help Dubai Porsche 924.

The Magic Rabbit ahead of a Porsche 924 with the topless blowup doll riding her hobby horse!

And here we are battling with Christine, the BMW E30.

Closeup shot as the Magic Rabbit turns onto the start/finish straight away. You can see Bugs Bunny riding Shotgun. He loved the wind in his face. In fact his face got very dirty after two days of racing.

Traffic at the "On Ramp" curve, that Volvo station wagon in front of us was the same car that hit us at Thunderhill. This time we were faster and could pass them.

On our inside is the past winner at Thunderhill, Ice Cream for Children Nissan 260Z.

The last driver on Sunday was Tedders, we put him in with a hour to go, we thought. The clouds had rolled in and it was starting to sprinkle when Tedders went out. Immediately the skys opening up and for 15 to 20 minutes Tedders was racing in the rain, heavy at times. In the link of the blog post earlier, the video now includes right at the end, video of the Nissan truck spinning out in the rain right in front of Tedders. He did a great job of keeping the Magic Rabbit on the black stuff and right side up!

As 4pm came and went, we realized that our expectation for a 4pm checkered flag was erroneous! So now we started to worry, will we have enough fuel to make it to 4:30. We hadn't refueled at the last pit stop. We held our breath and we just made it. During that last 30 minutes our standing just moving up, from the high 40's, then into the 30's, then the low 30's. Our competitors where spinning, breaking and having to pit for more fuel. Our little rabbit kept chugging away.

At 4:30 the checkered flag flew, WE MADE IT! And better yet, we finished 30th overall! Over the two days we completed 263 laps or 684 miles. That is 164 miles longer than the Indy 500!! and 64 miles longer than the longest NASCAR race, the Coca Cola 600! With no major mechanical problems, just awesome!

We were all amazed and thrilled at our success. High fives all around and thanks to all the support from out fans.

The awards ceremony at 5pm, first the overall winner of laps completed went to POS racing and their BMW E30 with the F'ed Up theme. They had come very close a number of previous races, this was their first win. $1,500 for them.

And look at the dark clouds behind them.

And the award for the best theme went to the Cowboy and Horse atop the Lincoln Towncar. It finished the race. The team arrived on their stick ponies to accept the trophy.

And the favorite price, the Index of Effluency or IOE award, and $1,501 cash went to the Fiaguzzi! The 1964 Fiat they ran the whole race and stayed out of everyone's way. The car with the least that did the most! They brought the blue/yellow, "move over you are about to be overtaken" flag with them to the victory stand.

Congrats to every team, it was another great time, a total blast. Can hardly wait until March for Sears Pointless at Infineon Raceway.

Buttonwillow Day 1 -Saturday, Dec 4th

Well, to start this blog, I have to rewind about 12 hours back to Friday evening. We walked the pits to meet people and see who was already working on their cars. So met up with the VW Jetta team, Bros from Santa Barbara, and they offered us some liquid courage, special Lemon's style! Being real race car drivers, how could we resist more courage? So, down the hatch.

And Rye too, more courage for the Magic Rabbit team! Notice how my courage is already shouting its way out of my mouth.

Here are the fine gentlemen from Santa Barbara and BROverload Racing and their racing VW Jetta with snowboards for wings!

With courage in our bellies we wandered off to sleep in the RV. Then at 2am I awake to the sound of rain on the roof. It wasn't supposed to rain tonight! Big drops, they continue, so I decide to get up, slip on some pants and shoes and go out to cover things up. Moved the tent to cover the car and all the tools that were out in the rain. Move all the chairs under the awning and other stuff. Looks OK, back to bed to listen to the rain. Oh NO, I will be the first driver in the morning in the rain. How about windshield wipers, I brought the motor and wipers but they must be installed. Lets wait until morning.

Morning dawns, still very wet, a few sprinkles, so we decide to install the wipers. Figure out the wiring, use the same switch as our red Christmas lights, good to go. Have time now to fill our fuel tanks. 8:30am drivers meeting, a charity electric car race and green flag to fall at 10am.

OK, time to form up, I am suited up ready to get in line. I start the engine and it sounds way too loud, something wrong, Murphy is still around. Very loud under the car so we know it's the exhaust system. Jack the car up and we find that the two bolts linking the exhaust header to the exhaust pipe have fallen off during practice on Friday. So I stay in the car and Paul digs up some replacement bolts and slides under the car to install them. All the time other cars are lining up for the start. Here are a few of the other competitors:

Love the 1975 Lincoln Towncar all dressed up as the horse and cowboy! The team was Phony Express-Clydesdale Edition.

BMW disguised as the 60's Plymouth Superbird from NASCAR and Richard Petty fame.

The Mazdarita, blend you a Margarita at 90mph!

And the girls favorite My Little Pony Mustang, complete with tiara and flowing train.

Here we are, exhaust all fixed, out on the track, trying to figure out just how slippery the wet course will be. Three or four pace laps as it takes that long to get everyone out on the track, close to 170 cars started on Saturday.

The 57 Variety Be-Heinz Nissan.

And the 27 foot long, Rolling Chicane Limo Service entry complete with prom queen legs and dress protruding from the sunroof and the rest of the prom dress trailing out behind. They drove the course with the cruise control set at 31 mph. Always a challenge to get around this barge.

The Air Prance Chitreon, it was driven to and from the race course.

And a Mini-Moke dressed up to look like a remote controlled lunar vehicle. Won the award for heroic fix as they had to repair fractured frame rails twice!

The Magic Rabbit coming up through the pack, got the Cheetos car in my sights. Huge traffic at the beginning until some of the cars started to break down.

Here is a typical traffic jam at each corner during that first stint on Saturday. Luckily I kept my nose clean and didn't bump anyone or get bumped.

OK, then there was the White Trash Racing Team, complete with their white trash girlfriends. Love those boots!

Lovely hair and trashy statement on her jacket.

But they love their boys, complete with their mullets! What a crazy place. You go from serious racing to laughing at the fun everyone is having.

We ran well all day Saturday, Murphy only peeked his head in twice. First time was my second stint early Saturday afternoon. I had been out about 10 laps when I started to hear a rumbling noise. Oh no, what could that be, CV joint, transmission, bearing... I slowed down for one lap, it was getting worse, so I came into the pits early. As I drove up to our area, everyone could see that my front left wheel was wobbling all over the place. All the lug bolts had worked their way loose and one out of the four had fallen out. So I was racing with just three loose bolts holding my wheel on, that could have been ugly!

We didn't have an extra lug bolt (remember to bring extras next race) so we borrowed one from the Las Vegas team, off of their team car! Everything tightened up. Since I came in early, Paul wasn't in his driver suit, Tedders was, so he jumped into take the next stint. Another lesson, all the drivers need to be suited up at all times.

Tedders stint was good, but he too had an issue as he came in to put and for fuel. A very loud hissing noise, again didn't sound good. What could it be, Murphy smiles as we lift up the hood. Luckily we quickly diagnose an air leak in the intake system, but where. Second thing I check turns out to be the problem, an idle set screw had backed it way all the way out and fallen off, so we are sucking lots of air there. But where to get such a specialized screw? Ask our rabbit warren mates, from Powered by Bacon, in 30 seconds they hand me a used throttle body with the needed idle screw. I quickly take it off the used part and install it in our car. Start it up, perfect, Murphy goes poof!

Paul in to drive, good stint and then Rye finishes the day as it get dark at Buttonwillow. Our red Christmas lights look great in the late afternoon. Checkered flag falls at 5pm and we are sitting in 52 place, we are happy. No major breakdowns and no black flags!

So the Magic Rabbit served us well, we had fun and were very happy with our position. We all relaxed around the RV and had a cocktail and then off to Mike and Candy Bolton's motel room for more cocktails, wonderful appetizers, and continuous race day tales to share. Dinner at the local Buttonwillow BBQ, delicious. We tried to impact the Las Vegas Slot Machine racing team by buying them extra drinks. At the end of Saturday they were right in front of us in the standings. So, get them drunk and then we can pass the hungover drivers on Sunday morning. Great strategy, but it seems the Las Vegas team was very happy with our generosity.

OK, tomorrow is the second half of the Arse-Freeze Appalosa, off to bed and a good nights sleep. Tedders put ear plugs in before bed, seems the noises from Rye and me were worse than inside the race car (hard to believe, I know).

Buttonwillow-Arse Freeze Practice on Friday

Arse-Freeze Apalooza, it starts on Thursday as Rye and I pack up the RV and pick Tedders up at Sonoma Chicken restaurant near the San Jose Airport. Tedders flew in from Ketchum, Idaho (we are a national team). And drive down Interstate 5 to Buttomwillow, CA. When we arrive at the race track we expected to park and sleep at the entrance Thursday night, but instead the track personnel processed us in and allowed everyone to enter and find a spot Thursday night. So at 11pm Thursday night, in the pitch black of night we navigate the pits to find a spot. Luckily we run across our VW Rabbit friends from Chim Chim Racing, aka Powered by Bacon. So we pulled in the RV, hooked up to some power and went to bed.

Up at 7am Friday to set up shop, first things first, put up the awning and string some Christmas lights!

Now, here is Mr. Unruly on his way to sign up for Friday practice. Oh how well he fits on that Honda 50!

While we awaited the arrival of our Magic Rabbit, on its way from Sacramento in the early morning, Rye went out and snapped some pictures of an array of very interesting Lemon's competitors.

Here is the latest creation from Evil Genius in Davis, CA. A Model T GT, a Ford Model T body, on a Ford Model A frame with a modern Ford V-8 engine. This is the same guy who built the Death Cab VolvoV8.

Next is a 1958 Plymouth take-off done on a BMW E-30 series car. It is to look like the car "Christine" in the Stephen King chiller. Very well done.

OK, how about a Pac-Man themed Porsche 924 from the racing stable Fartini Racing.

Or Team Petty Cash (painted in the Richard "The King" Petty racing blue) Jeep Cherokee. This Jeep was amazingly quick.

Add in some flower power, hippee style Alfa Romero.

But the most interesting/bizzare was the Fiat 600/Moto Guzi 1000, called the Fiaguzzi 1000. This is a 1964 Fiat 600 with the tiny 600cc motor removed and replace with a 60's Moto Guzi motorcycle 1000cc engine. The huge home style air ducts you see on the roof was an attempt to funnel cooling air to the motorcycle engine in the back. During testing on Friday it was determined that this setup didn't work, more than one lap and they were overheating. They replaced this cooling setup with two large electric radiator fans under the back engine hatch blowing air directly onto the air cooled motorcycle engine. That worked, they ran both days and won the coveted IOE prize for the car "getting the most from the least" and $1501 cash.

After a sumptuous breakfast somewhere on I5 Paul, Nancy and Darrell arrive with our Magic Rabbit.

Off loading and getting it prepared for inspection and practice.

First, we go through inspection, here is the team all dressed up and heading for tech inspection.

Paul and Darrell are carrying the surprise bribe package.

We were lucky to end up with Jay Lamm, the Chief Perpetrator, to do our tech and BS inspection. We flew through the tech inspection, no problems. Then Jay started the BS inspection and wanted to know how much we spend on our crapcan. So here I am showing Jay our books. We started with a residue value of $225 (a determination by Jay himself of what our car was worth immediately after our Thunderhill race in August). To this residue value our books show what we added to the car or at least what we were willing to disclose to Jay that we had done. Our books showed a new total less than $500, of course what else would we say. Jay was suspicious as he should be.

However, at this moment Paul interjected while Jay pondered our calculations, to declare to Jay that we had a bribe for Jay. Jay unwrapped the bribe to find this fabulously printed, mounted and lemonly framed portrait of himself!! Perfect bribe, no further discussions needed. Jay was all smiles and so were we.

This portrait of Jay, the Renaissance Man, Lamm was from a Road and Track article about Jay and his new racing series 24 Hours of Lemons.

The team posed with Jay and his potrait.

Next on our list of to-do's is to get all our safety gear checked, racing suit, helmet, gloves and shoes.

While we were getting checked another marvelous entry appeared, a 1985 Maserati Quattroportte, ie 4 door Maserati and the owner, shown here in his finest Purple Rain, formerly know as the artist Prince, bought this Maserati for only $500. So he claims. It was a favorite of the Lemon's staff, they all got to drive it on the track. Yes, they put in a full racing roll cage inside of this Grand Touring car and its Italian leather seating!

OK, all inspected, check in and ready to race. The Magic Rabbit team stops to pose for the growing team of photographers!

A couple of more interesting entries, the Lincoln Towncar complete with "horsehide and saddle". This car was driven down I5 looking like this, must have impressed a few CHP officers and drivers along the way!.

And here is the Time Bandits, if you watch TV and the "Deadliest Catch" series you will know that "Time Bandits" was the name of a boat in that series. And here is the Time Bandits decked out to catch the Alaskan crabs. Well done.

This banner just made us laugh, "we don't like us either".

Here is our VW Rabbit Warren neighbors, Chim Chim Racing with their new theme, a play on UPS delivery, called JewPS, We Deliver on Christmas. Brilliant, along with their UPS brown uniforms offsite so well with their Hasidic Jewish hats and curls!

OK, here Mr. Unruly looks like a true racer in his pink tux tshirt and his 24 Hours of Lemons knit cap. What a site.

For this race we added a co-pilot, who else but Bug Bunny belongs in the Magic Rabbit. He is tied in, ready to race!

Friday night, after practice, the red Christmas lights show up on the race car.

And the final task, put new "sticker" tires on the front. They aren't any stickier, they just have the paper sticker still on them. A NASCAR term for brand new tires. We only put them on the front since the front tires on a front wheel drive car, like our GTI, does most of the work and therefore wear the fastest. So here is Tedders putting the new tires on the front before we called it day and got a good nights rest before the start of the race on Saturday.

That was our first day. More as I post our race days. Sorry for the delay in posting, just been very busy.