Garage Heroes (In Training)

Learning as we go. Come along with us and Enjoy the Ride!

Our Team

GHIT 0050: Our Lucky Dog Race and Portland International Raceway – 2019

We came, we saw, we were conquered.

Engine Swap at the PIR
Engine Swap at the PIR

Alan, Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill with a few drop ins cover our race weekend with the Lucky Dog Series at Portland International Raceway.  It starts with a review of practice Saturday morning, then our 7-hour endurance race Saturday and our work to get back out late Sunday. 

Proof we raced
Proof we raced

We compare Lucky Dog to our home series the 24 Hours of Lemons.  While similar, there are differences, pluses and minuses for each, so we compare the two in the continual pursuit of the perfect low budget amateur endurance car racing.

Lucky Dog
Lucky Dog Racing League

There were a ton of great teams there, most of which passed us on Saturday as we were towards the slower end of the field. 

Some of the Field at PIR
Some of the Field at PIR

We recorded this shortly after we completed Sunday so there is a bit of echo since we were in the pit. However, we did manage to give out our team awards for the weekend.  

Lucky Dog Awards
Lucky Dog Awards

Racing Results for those who are keeping track at home: 

Saturday:  We were in 37th place when our engine went away Saturday and ended up at 41st for the day.  We did not get to participate in the 2 Saturday enduros due to the engine issue.  Our fastest lap was 1:38.664 by our guest driver Randy Pobst, but we managed to 1:45.870 as our internal team best.  (Randy was able to get to 48th fastest lap of the day and Alan’s time would have placed us as the second slowest car in the 60 car field that ran a lap Saturday )

Sunday:  We ended up getting on track after a long day of engine swapping and rebuilding and finished 3 laps and ended up finishing around 48th out of the 64 cars this weekend and 48th fastest of the 48 cars that ran on Sunday. 

Fastest lap of the race weekend was 1:29.932 by Blue Bayou for reference to the relative performance to the field.

We came, we saw, we were conquered.
We came, we saw, we were conquered.

We came, we saw, we were conquered.

GHIT 0050: Our Lucky Dog Race and Portland International Raceway – 2019

Lucky Dog Portland – Saturday Night Review

An interesting day

Randy Pobst with Jennifer and Vicki at Lucky Dog Portland
Randy Pobst with Two New Friends

Here is how our day and night have gone at Lucky Dog Portland.  Its got a good, bad, and ugly, but what would you expect from us after all.  Its live and unedited from the paddock, so sound quality may be less than stellar.

We had a bit of work to do....
“We” pulled off our first engine swap at a race, barely.

Any questions, please let us know on our Instagram.  We will try to cover them tomorrow or tomorrow night if we finish fixing the car.  

Thanks again.

GHIT 0049: Lucky Dog Portland – Saturday Night Review

GHIT 0048 Pre-Race Prep for Lucky Dog race in Portland OR (PIR)

Prepping for a race across the country

PIR - Portland International Raceway

Well this episode started out as a quick update and we intended to show you some of the planning that goes into a race weekend when you have to travel a significant distance.  What we ended up with was a bit of what we intended plus a whole lot more.  We go over a training session using go carts, new ear plugs for racing and a variety of other things.  Technical issues in the background abound as well, but they will hopefully be entertaining.

GHIT 0048 Pre-Race Prep for Lucky Dog race in Portland OR (PIR)

Our First GHiT Year In Review

For this episode, we wanted to look back on our team’s first year racing Lemons and what we did, what we did well, what we did poorly, and begin to refine our plan for the coming year. So this episode is our first GHiT Year In Review.

AT Thompson 2018
Our endurance racing team at the 2018 Lemons race in Thompson CT

Alan also covers his recommended tool of the week.

GHIT

GHiT Podcast 00424: Year in Review

GHiT 0035: Pitt Race Review

We had our issues at Pitt Race 2019

Pitt Race
Pitt Race HQ

We reviewed our first race of the year at Pitt Race with the 24 Hours of Lemons series.  We had some issues during the weekend that prevented us recording at the track so we went into some detail during this race review. 

GHiT Flags Flying High!!!
GHiT Flags Flying High!!!

Including:

  • Tech inspection
  • Greasing palms with lots of fake money
  • Virtual Track walk vs Real
  • Practice schedule at the race
  • The awesome race track at Pitt Race (We will be back)
  • Brake fires (yes, plural)
  • Car Spins/Trimming the infield grass with our “Aero”
  • Racing in the rain, again
  • Changing track conditions all weekend
  • Overview of each racing day

We also tried cover how we ran the race and our thought process, post race diagnosis and plans and we ended with our segment on The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, along with the highlight of the weekend, as well as things we learned and changes to continue to improve.

Jennifer and Bill going through BS Tech Inspection

As a special bonus from our website, here is an example on how now to talk your way out of a Black Flag penalty. The video started after our “Tony Stark” had begun with offering to buy the entire 24 Hours of Lemons Racing Series and/or the Pitt Race venue itself to be able to exactly define what is the track, as any billionaire would.

Celebrity Guest Driver "Tony Stark"
Celebrity Guest Driver “Tony Stark” tries to buy Lemons and Pitt Race

How not to get through Black Flag Interrogation successfully

We hope you enjoy the episode and please review the podcast if you have a moment and add any question that you would like us to address in a future episode.

  • Liam and Alan at Safety Meeting
  • Stan enjoying Lemons Prom
  • TR7/TR8 World Championship Contenders
  • He even bought the street
  • Coming back into pit
  • Don’t worry, we will return broken soon

GHiT 0035 Our Pitt Race Review