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Jaime Garcia’s Sonoma Endurance Race Review

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hardware

GHIT 0270:  Jaime Garcia from the Race FF Podcast Reviews their Sonoma Endurance Race

Jaime Garcia from the Race FF podcast returns to review his recent endurance race at Sonoma with the 24 Hours of Lemons.  His team prepped their Toyota Corolla for the race for the last several weeks and had a great time at the event.  They had a series of good and bad events during the race but ended up bringing home some well earned hardware.  Was it a perfect race?  Of course not.  We aren’t even sure that is possible, but each race you learn a bit more and how to solve a few more problems.  The Sonoma race was no exception.  Please download and learn what Jaime’s team battled through and learned.  They were a great group and really exemplified the true spirit of an endurance racing team.  We hope to see them on the track at an upcoming event.

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, and YouTube etc. Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating or even better, a podcast review, we would greatly appreciate it and it would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving.

For instance, leaving an Apple Podcast rating is very easy.  If you go to your podcast library, under shows and click on the podcast you can leave a (5?) star rating and enter your review. 

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  Please don’t forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, don’t forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.  Just enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order.  They are a great system and truly invaluable in safely increasing your speed on track and/or autocross etc.  The recently released second generation systems and app increases the capability of the system greatly.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this Sonoma Endurance Review episode include:

1)  How did the prep go for Jaime’s team

2)  Jaime learns the joy of actually having to travel to a race track as opposed to his normal local tracks. 

3)  How did check in, tech inspection, and BS inspection go 

4)  Why you should listen to the announcements and attend the rookie and drivers meetings.

5)   How Saturday go and what did the team have to do after their first racing day.

6)  Overall thoughts on the Sonoma track

7)  What their team learned and what they are looking to improve.

8)  Our traditional Good, Bad, and the Ugly

To follow Jaime and his team, please go to:  

Instagram:  @raceffpod

His podcast is:  Race FF Pod

The teams Vlog is on Kelvin’s YouTube channel at:  

https://www.youtube.com/user/driftmonsterr

GHIT 0270:  Jaime Garcia from the Race FF Podcast Reviews their Sonoma Endurance Race

Thompson 2021 Prep

For Our All Ladies Race Team

The Ladies at Thompson 2021
Elizabeth, Vicki, Jennifer, and Audra

GHIT 0221 Our All Female 24 Hours of Lemons Racing Team for Thompson 2021 Prep

We are planning for our first ever All Ladies 24 Hours of Lemons racing entry at the upcoming Thompson event.  Vicki and Jennifer will be racing in the 2003 Chevy S-10/Isuzu Hombre race truck.  They will be joined by past podcast guests Elizabeth and Audra, for her first wheel to wheel racing event.  Alan will be racing in the 1984 Mustang GT Turbo with his sons Bennett and Quinn. Quinn is joining us for his first race, and Elazar with Bill as a backup. 

We go through our Thompson 2021 prep of the drivers and cars. Next, we also discuss our team and personal goals going into the event.  We started our team with a goal of eventually having an all female team entry. Now we are finally able to do so at this event.  Elizabeth has raced in Lemons several times before. But this will be Audra’s first ever wheel to wheel race, although she has tons of experience in autocross.  The race is coming up this weekend.  We will try to keep you posted.

GHIT 0221 Our All Female 24 Hours of Lemons Racing Team for Thompson 2021

GHIT’s Race at NJMP 2021

  • Chris Fix Fixing
  • Loki Truck Hood

GHIT 0207:  Our race at NJMP – June 2021 Our 24 Hours of Lemons Race at NJMP Thunderbolt for 2021

We are all suffering from a serious sleep deprived, post-race weekend hangover, and we are all calling in from across the US with varying internet speed and connections.  It starts with the somewhat normal Race Bar takeover and then we go into the NJMP 2021 race.  For this event, our drivers consisted of Vicki, Alan, and Jennifer and our two adopted teammates Aaron Diamond from the Saabs of Anarchy racing team and Elazar Mann from Race Bar.  It was a great weekend with many, many highs, and a few notable lows.  It was almost back to normal, well as normal as a Lemons race can be, and it was great to see everyone again.

In this issue of Dominating with Dawson,

we start off with our latest GHIT swag t-shirt that we made for the Dominating with Dawson and how we surprised Ben with it a few weeks back.  We then try to get back into our topic for this episode where we go into several things that you can practice on the public roads and during your normal driving that will improve your track driving or refine skills that you may want to start to employ on the track.  It is a great time to practice driving with left foot braking, heel-toe downshifting, as well as other less obvious areas of high performance driving.  Luckily for Bill, Vicki missed his joke, so he did not have to sleep in the tub after this episode, leaving a bit more room for Bill, lol.

Vicki Driving in el Jeffe

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, and YouTube etc. Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating or even better, a podcast review, we would greatly appreciate it and it would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving.

For instance, leaving an Apple Podcast rating is very easy.  If you go to your podcast library, under shows and click on the podcast you can leave a (5?) star rating and enter your review. 

A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/LemonsNJMP2021

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS  Please don’t forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, don’t forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.  Just enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order.  They are a great system and truly invaluable in safely increasing your speed on track and/or autocross etc.  The recently released second generation systems and app increases the capability of the system greatly.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

El Jeffe on track

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  The Trophy truck/El Jeffe/Bad Hombre/Loki truck made its way to the track a bit late, but the theming of the truck and our drivers was a big hit in the paddock and with several of the young fans at the track.

  • Our Team with a Special Fan
  • The team on El Jeffe

2)  The race weekend started off with some small issues with the El Jeffe that we worked through the entire weekend.  Then we had a few other issues as the weekend progressed.  In other words, a normal endurance racing weekend.

3)  Aaron does his best robot impressions, but the connection improves after a few minutes.

4)  We had an issue with the engine losing power and having difficulty starting.  Unfortunately, we were not able to diagnose and fix the issue at the track, but let us know if you have any suggestions.

5)  Our two guest drivers describe the glory involved with driving the El Jeffe Trophy truck.  Since Aaron usually races a front wheel drive (Saab) and Elazar is usually in a mid engine car (Toyota MR-2), the truck is a bit different.  It is not what anyone expects.  We think Aaron and Elazar are both hooked.  

6)  In addition to our power/electrical issue, we also had a continuing issue with our new exhaust design.  We fixed it Lemons style to keep racing and then we made a plan to fix it permanently, of course this was after sending Jennifer out for her stint.

7)  Bill makes a terrible American Pie joke.  He says he was really tired.

8)  Aaron has raced in Lemons for almost 5+ years and had only two black flags in the entire endurance racing career.  However, in true GHiT fashion, he managed to get two more in a single stint on Saturday.  As Mars Blackman said, “Its got to be the shoes.”

9)  Elazar describes how he dealt with a total brake failure going into the high speed turn 1, truly an example of dealing with a brake issue in one of the best ways possible.  To add a bit to the weekend, Elazar was again subjected to a loss of the mounting bolt on the upper front control arm on the passenger side.

10)  Alan goes for donuts, well just one donut, on our door.  He may also have to adjust the HANS device or seek another design.

11)  So in the end, we missed the checkered flag on Saturday by about twenty minutes and we missed it by again by about the same amount.  Cue the sad trombone.

We had a great time, we learned some more, and we were able to spend some time with our old friends, our new friends and our soon to be friends. 

A special shout out to our sister Jennifer who came to her first ever Lemons race and saw how much fun this can be.  We hope you come back again soon.

  • IOE Winner
  • Amanda in her 1937 Buick
  • The Bob Ross Narwhal
  • 1937 Buick
  • The artists take a bow

GHIT 0207:  Our race at NJMP – June 2021

GHiT 0096: Eric Rood on the 2020 Lemons Rally schedule is our Special Guest

Eric Rood Official Capacity
Eric Rood: Lemons Official

Eric Rood from the 24 Hours of Lemons racing series reviews his history and the upcoming Lemons series, especially the rally events.

Eric Rood is our guest on this episode where we review his car history, the upcoming 2020 Lemons races and especially the Rally events.  We first met Eric when he was judging one of our races.  Alan quickly knew all about him after he visited him 4 times.  In addition to being an awesome judge, he has written for several automotive sites and currently helps steer the direction of the 24 Hours of Lemons series, especially their social media presence and the Lemons rallies.  If you see Eric, please ask him about touring with Ozzy!  (Details are in the first three minutes of our show)

If you would be so kind, please Rate, Review, and Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite listening platform.  We would greatly appreciate it. 

Eric Rood and Friend
Eric Rood and Friend

Highlights for this episode include: 

1)  Our best introduction to an episode, EVER
2)  Vicki is vying for our lead master mechanic position/opening
3)  We break news of an upcoming Lemons YouTube video on the latest Lemons Rally
4)  Bill shamelessly begs for reviews and ratings of the podcast
5)  What does the title of Everything Bagel exactly mean in the Lemon’s org chart
6)  Eric’s writing and racing history and how he first started with racing in a Lemons event
7)  What does being a catalog copy editor entail and how much you can know about office folders
8)  Overview of the Lemons Rally events and describes the “process” of competing
9)  Eric discusses some of the most forgotten cars we have ever discussed on the podcast, some thankfully forgotten
10)  Rally stories abound including the Asheville Pinball Museum
11)  Alan makes his debut as our sound board
12)  Eric discusses a long list of cars he has had and would like to see in Lemons
13)  An amazing (and backward) Good, Bad, and the Ugly with the best “Good” we have ever had
14)  Our trials and tribulations related to getting our E36 BMW race car prepared for our upcoming race
15)  Alan may have an apprentice “In Training” and Vicki seems to have a talent and enjoys the mechanical work, well most of it
16) We are now looking for a “Hub Tamer”.  Does anyone happen to know anything about them?
17) We have a high-level discussion about our telemetry system and electrical system upgrades.  More details will come in an upcoming episode.

Eric at rest and and play. Little Difference.

This week’s Dominating with Dawson segment reviews proper hand position while racing and how that can impact your driving performance and control of the car.

To keep up to speed with Eric and the 24 hours of Lemons team, they are on all the social medias as the 24 Hours of Lemons or via his email at eric@24hoursoflemons.com

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, Jennifer, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast
and team members in the GHiT
Immature Endurance Racing Team

GHIT 0096: Eric Rood on the 2020 Lemons Rally schedule is our Special Guest

GHIT 0068: NHMS 2019 Prep Week

Our plans are unravelling
Our preparation plans are unravelling

Our ineptitude continues

NHMS race weekend prep status.

One race, three cars, none working.  The rest is good though.

On one hand we have the BMW E36 3 series from 1998. Issues, yes.  It won’t start.  It seems to not be getting power to the computer system and won’t turn over.  We found one wiring issue and are tracking down any others, slowly.  One good thing is that the prior owners live very close to our race, so as a last resort, we may ask for some assistance.

New to Us BMW E36

El Jeffe/The Bad Hombre:  Braking issues abound.  Still.  The caliper/pads do not fully release from the rotors, which may be the issue we have been battling this entire season.

It is a race truck

On this NHMS Prep episode:

  1. Alan breaks up into a game of boggle with things like DME, EWS2, etc.
  2. Vicki breaks back in and tries to get us to explain what is going on
  3. Bill breaks down the entire battle we have been having with the brakes on the race truck
  4. El Jeffe brake theories, plan, and a review of the current status
  5. An El Jeffe Transit story for the books
  6. Alan talks about flashing ECUs and seeking additional help to get the E36 running well again.
  7. Alan does his best weatherman impression and forecasts clear skies for the E36
  8. Kate even makes a quick guest appearance towards the end

It seems to be a standard week before the race.  Now will this turn out?  Tune in tomorrow, same bat channel, same bat time.

Or actually when we record at the track this weekend. 

GHIT 0068: NHMS 2019 Prep Week

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