And we FINISHED! Our GTI ran strong and finished, we ALL had a blast of a time, the cars, the teams, the people and teamwork, our fan club, everything was fantastic!
This picture below is of us heading for safety inspection and the BS inspection. This picture is on the first row of the 24 Hours of Lemons website for this event. We are stars!
We finished 57th out of 121 cars that started, so we were above the mid-point and we are SO pleased with this being our first time ever! We can say, like Lake Wobegon children, that we are "above average"! We completed 205 laps, that is after being penalized 19 laps for a determination that we spent more than $500 on our car. The penalty started at 29 laps but a strategic offer of a bribe to the Judges, gained 10 laps back.
205 laps, 16 hours, top speed of 86 mph at the end of the straightaway, fastest lap from Ted 4 (our hot shoe) of 2:33 for a course almost 3 miles long, so well over 60 mph average! We had a few mechanical issues that hurt us, lost a total of about 3 hours in the pits chasing the mechanical gremlins, but nothing big broke and we continued on and took the checked flag on Sunday at 4pm.
The race started at 9am on Saturday, Paul at the wheel, he kept the Magic Rabbit out of the way of the fast boys, like the Death Cab VolvoV8, the Pussy Wagon BMW, the Eyesore turbo Miata and the ultimate winner, the Ice Cream is Good for Kid cuz It Makes Them Hard to Kidnap Nissan 280Z, these guys would fly by us. Near the end of Paul's stint he traded some paint with a Volvo station wagon putting the first battle scar on the Magic Rabbit. Tighten a rear wheel bearing and adjust the shift linkage kept us off the track some on Saturday. At 6pm the checked flag dropped as Darrell finished up his second stint. We had met our initial goal of finishing on Saturday and be able to take the green flag on Sunday, so we all sat around in the pits Saturday evening toasting each other and the sturdy little GTI! 9 hours of hard racing on Saturday and no heating problems what so ever.
Off again Sunday morning, green flag at 9am, but soon a "death rattle" appeared, Paul stuck on the course and had to be pulled in by a tow truck. No idea what is wrong, checked the car all over, nothing apparent. Mr. Unruly suits up and goes out, first three laps, no problems, zipping along. Maybe it fixed it's self....NOT...the "death rattle" appears again at high speed. Back in the pits, pulling off the drivers side axle, nothing wrong, check all the suspension, nothing wrong, finally just put everything back together and send our "hot shoe", Ted 4, out to test it out.
One lap, thumbs up, two laps, thumbs up, 3,4,5...all thumbs up. Well, just maybe we fixed something, but we don't know what! So off again, the funs continues, lots and laps and we move slowly up the standings as other cars have problems and drop out. By Sunday afternoon we know the car is hanging together with no further issues, so our times start dropping as we get braver with out little rabbit. And it responds, it is a very forgiving and also very stable car. Push it into the corners faster, don't touch the brakes, go into Turn 1 with just a lift, now that is exciting going into a 90 degree corner at close to 80 mph! But no problems. Throw the car into turn 10 and the inside rear wheel lifts way off the ground, like 6 to 8 inches, and throttle all the way down! The Magic Rabbit is just a blast to drive!
After 7 hours of racing Sunday, the checkered flag comes out for the end, 16 hours total and we are still running. Mr. Unruly is lucky enough to be the driver that took the checkered flag and got to drive the Magic Rabbit back to the pits with all the crews and fans lining the fences giving every car a standing ovation, now that made you feel really good inside. It is such a great group of people, we borrowed tools, asked questions from other GTI racers, shared our tools and our beer with our neighbors, and just had a wonderful time!
We have lots of amazing video thanks the Ted 4 and the video camera he borrowed from his new employer, ScottUSA. Unfortunately the files are huge, 3 to 4 gigabits, so I can't load them here.
Also, so many pics, we haven't downloaded them to disk yet, but you must go here. Rye has posted over 300 pics on shutterfly. So please go take a looks, it tells a great story from the sunrise on Friday to the team photo next to our marvelous Magic Rabbit on Sunday afternoon.
Here is the link:
Also a huge thank you to all friends that came:
Kristin, Victoria and Bill, Glenna and Arnie, (and now I am in big trouble because my feeble mind cannot remember Nancy's brother and sister-in-law names; ahh, with outside counsel help) Ken and Lorranine, also Darrell's friends, and Chris Wray. Thank you all for coming to see and supporting us.
And the biggest thank you, because the head perps of this adventure, Mr. Unruly and Paul, could never have done it without your help and support. Nancy Leatham and Nancy Frame!!
Thanks for putting up with these silly old men acting out their boyhood dream!
Mr. Unruly can now call himself a racer!
Look out Buttonwillow Raceway, December, Arse-Freeze, the Dirty Duck Racing team is already working on plans to give the Magic Rabbit some more thump in it's thumper!
