Hey Ryan, did you learn anything interesting?

 

 

I learned that in endurance racing, zip-ties and duck tape can work wonders. I also learned how to roll a damaged fender with half of a floor jack handle.

In all seriousness though I learned a lot of little and big stuff. I had never done rear brakes for instance and realized they are a huge PITA compared to the fronts. I also made brackets to mount a hardtop. There was always so much going on in the garage. Diffs, engines, transmissions, hubs, and axles were swapped. That is just the half of it.

 

Emilio, what's your feedback on the Federal's RSR during this race ?

 

I second the motion!

 

We won the Thunderhill 25 Hours on Toyo RR's

As a side note, there were a lot of teams that really wanted to know which tire we were running. Actually caught one guy in our trailer looking at our tires. Others just wandering into our tent enclosure snooping around. We were shooing people out all week. I at least have the courtesy to stand on the access road and zoom in with my phone when spying

 

Excellent!

 

Congrats to everyone. Tempting to book next year and fly over! (you will win again won't you!)

 

Excellent, great move. I was a little surprised to see this tyre choice, the RSR is a "good" tyre, but not a competition tyre.

 

lol @ 949 & TSE sonning pros.

Who ran the fastest times? I need to know who to order parts from. lol

 

Kids lining up to buy what he's got... and they pay cash...

 

lol, truth

 

Props to Jeff. For those that didn't know, Jeff spent a lot of time with the first set of pads off crusher and a digital caliper calculating wear. During a tire change at 7:30am, he took an extra second to measure the LF and made the call to do the brakes again. This was a pivotal decision because it allowed Crusher's driver (some skinny guy that acted like he owned the place ) to drive flatout for the next 4.5 hours without worrying about brakes. IMO this was huge. He probably could have driven around it but I'm glad we didn't need to.

Brian/mechanic

 

I saw Jeff with a vernier during the last change and heard the call being made. That is pro level mechanical competence under fire.

Now you guys know why I make such a big deal about the team and always say they win our races. The drivers just drive around trying not to bend it.

 

What was really impressive about that is that Jeff was doing the math in his head on the brake wear after we'd been racing for 20 hours or so and he'd been involved in changing just about every moving part on Nemo. I watched him calculate it, he didn't look tired at all.

As always, Emilio put together a great team. Everybody made it their mission to win the race - not just the guys spinning wrenches, but everyone. Making sure the guys who can't leave the pits have a hot breakfast at 7 am without being asked doesn't sound like much, but it's the sort of thing that makes the difference. The fact that most of the team were volunteers who hadn't met before Wednesday made it even more impressive.

Emilio drove 7.5 of the last 10 hours of the race, including setting the fastest lap of the race for the car. Great drive.

Keith/car chief

 

6th grade algebra state champ, bitches.

On the topic of brakes, I hope someone got video of Chris and the pass. side guys doing a pad change. I'm pretty sure I ended up with the nice thick heat gloves during every pad change, and Chris and the other guys still either matched or beat Brian and I every time. Having at least 2 sets of heavy duty gloves and using Chris' system next year could cut even more time out of our pad changes.

 

Wow, great job guys. I think this enduro is only going to get bigger. Steven K. told me a few things about last years event, everything sounded like a blast. I was dying to go this year, but things just didn't pan out for me.

Hope to make it out next year if the team still needs help. I can help get coffee, carry stuff around, media coverage(shameless plug for FM), or anything.

Going for a e0-e4 sweep next year?!

 

I have to give mad props to Grant for objectively listening to me as I struggled to figure out exactly want I needed to do after I came off the wall from my disastrous first stint as co-chief (with Keith) for Crusher and Super, followed by William, Brian and Keith for hearing me out and making the necessary changes. I realized very quickly that I was in way over my head and my complete lack of experience was giving me absolutely no basis to make informed decisions on the judgement calls I was being asked to make. After that, I really enjoyed being a wrench and a spotter, even with the 15-20mph wind and biting cold up on the hill. Glad I packed my polypropylene thermal underwear and scarf!

Keith and Grant: You guys are MACHINES! It was great working with you guys. I hope to be back next year, preferably in a position more inline with my experience, or perhaps with more experience in a given position!

The mechanical crew was just awesome! The effort to keep Nemo running was Herculean at times. I don't know who made the call, but I think the decision to park Nemo was absolutely for the best. Don't let that be any sort of reflection on the ability of the mechanical crew! I've never seen a more dedicated group of volunteers work so hard to get the job done. I've also never seen anyone weld a steering shaft like that, but I guess there is a first time for everything!

The drivers were also phenomenal. Kitty and Super had some unforseen mechanicals (See mr_hyde comment re:hammered ****) that cost a bunch of time, but the drivers STILL managed to put them in 4th and 6th for E3 out of 25 other cars. How's THAT for driving? Emilio and Crusher are a pretty amazing combination. Watching Crusher move through traffic in the dark was pretty amazing. The man really does only have one speed...



Gordon/co-chief, spotter, wrench

 

Poor Nemo. I can't believe how mechanically it seemed to attract bizarre bad luck issues. Blown oil cooler line and a spin off the track in practice on Thursday. Then a smoked Diff fairly early in the race followed by a blown motor with a windowed block. I drove a stint in it with the replacement motor the session before just before the final overheat due to the broken off fan blade punching the hole in the radiator. And I just can’t put together if I missed catching the problem, The car had a stumble occasionally when rolling onto power like a miss or something the whole time. I sort of thought it might just be a bad tune for the less prepped motor that replaced the original. There was one time In the later in my stint thought I saw the temp gage go high and I remember the momentary panic as I was going up the hill into 9 but had to look away from the gages due to traffic and being at night dealing with driving and the glare of headlights and everything else. A good look at the gages going down the back straight however showed them all pointing almost straight up again where they should have been. I think the car started to overheat as I was getting out of the car and the next driver was getting in.

Kitty was a phenomenal car for E3 It seemed easy to drive fast but some issues just hampered it a little. Super was not as fast or quite as developed in setup as Kitty but I think good driving had it up in a podium spot until the front sub-frame let go. I suspect sub-frame failure was initiated by some contact during one of the night stints and replacement time slowed slightly by Crusher coming in for 4 tires and a brake swap dropped it from 3rd to 8th I think then it moved back up to 6th before the end. It seemed to be having a fuel pressure issue or something towards the end as well but kept on going. Still 4th and 6th in E3 with that big of a field is quite good I think just not quite as good as winning.

Pretty cool experience for me to be a part of I am thankful for the opportunity I know I got some improving to do as well.

 

The guys pulling off a complete motor swap in a 2 hour and 9 minute pit stop was amazing.

Bob