Garage Heroes (In Training)

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

lemons racing

GHIT 0058 Thompson 2019 Race Wrap-Up

New Drivers and a New to Us Car

Alan, Jennifer, and Bill with our “new to us” BMW E36 race car

This Thompson 2019 episode is dedicated to our friend Aaron Leinemann.  He has had some unexpected bad medical news and a GoFundMe page has been started to assist.  Please share whatever you can to assist Aaron and his amazing family.

On this episode, our team reviews the 2019 24 Hours of Lemons race GP du Lac Chargoggagogg(etcetera) at Thompson Speedway in Northeastern Connecticut.  We entered our Race Truck El Jeffe a 2004 Chevy S-10 with many Isuzu Hombre body panels and our new to us 1998 BMW E36 3-series car for our first race with it after buying it about two weeks prior.  El Jeffe was updated from the former Stan Lee livery to and Avengers Endgame livery and the E36 was quickly themed in the paddock to be a Captain America car. 

  • Alan as Spider Man
    Alan as Spidey
  • Bennett Rocketing Deadpool
    Bennett Rocketing Deadpool
  • Connor with a Serious Chin
    Connor with serious chin
Garage Heroes were present and accounted for

We review Friday practice and spend most of the episode covering the race on Saturday and Sunday.

Highlights include:

  • New Drivers, several first timers at Thompson
  • Thompson track walk and review
  • Saturday and Sunday within El Jeffe
  • Saturday and Sunday in the BMW E36
  • El Jeffe brake issues and a potential fix and path forward to alleviate this ongoing problem. 
  • Our 4 black flag debacle and how it impacted our position in the race (HINT not well)
  • Bill got to make two signs with Connor to slow the cars in the pits
  • A minor incident where a car came across the bow of the El Jeffe and removed moist of the front end facia
  • Saturday night’s Potluck Dinner hosted by the Three Pedal Mafia team for Stuntin’ and Explodin’ fest
  • We show our exceptional math skills several times this episode
  • Team awards for the weekend
  • Hella Sweet or Butt Terrible idea of the week
  • To do’s and improvements for our next race
  • Radio and Helmet communication issues
  • Then things devolved from there
  • E36 performed very well
  • El Jeffe was a race truck
Proof we were ahead at least a few times

GHIT 0058: Thompson 2019 Race Wrap-Up

How did we get here?

A member in an endurance racing team?  It all started as a kid.  My favorite toy was a Hot Wheels cars or a Matchbox car or especially a Johnny Lightning car.  This was very cool since my mother worked for Topper Toys and she got the Johnny Lightning ones for free.

Fast forward another 34 years and my son is fascinated by Hot Wheels and then moves on to the Transformers, cars especially of course.  

Fast forward again, my son now has his permit.  How do you train a new driver.  Well it all started with hundreds of hours at various go kart tracks across the country, but what to do now that it really matters?  We had a very extensive process, (we can elaborate in detail if anyone is ever interested) but a HPDE (high performance driving education) course seemed like a great idea.  So it turns out his firt time ever driving alone is on the high banked turns and infield course at Pocono raceway.  Being a good dad, I had to share the experience as well in another car, lol.  

Once we completed this, we made a deal.  Don’t drive like a jerk/idiot/dummy/etc on the road and we will do other track day driving to enjoy periodically.  

There were two other key steps in the path towards amateur endurance racing.  Number one was a podcast and TV show called “Everyday Driver” that had an episode on Lemons racing in Washington.  Second was another podcast called “Everyone Racers” that is hosted by four members of the Three Pedal Mafia lemons racing team (who became our good friends later).  

So lets skip to the present day.  We are an amateur endurance racing team.  We have a ton of friends at the races and find more every single race.  We have 2.5 race cars for lemons.  We have raced in two lemons races so far and are registered for at least two more this year.  Our team name is Garage Heroes (In training) and at this point, the emphasis is on the “In Training” part of our moniker.  

We have a team of 8 drivers and growing.  Two of which learned to drive a manual transmission just to race in the last race.  In total, we have 3 high school teen drivers and 5 parents, with at least two more younger kids in training to get into the car ASAP and a bunch of other high school friends chomping at the bit to get in.  We all know we are way closer to the beginning of our journey into driving and working on race cars, but we are all enthusiastic about it and looking to learn as much as we can as fast as we can.  

So hopefully we can accomplish one or more of our goals here for you.  

  1.  Help motivate you and your potential team to give this a shot
  2. Help you learn along with us and ideally learn from you as well
  3. Help save you some learning lessons and hopefully save you time or money, likely at our expense
  4. Entertain you with the process, our ups and downs, and hopeful improvement.

Who says that none of the kids care about driving?  Or that no one cares about driving!  Perhaps when you do more than steer a care it becomes a bit more exciting.  There is a vast difference between steering a car and driving one.  

Welcome aboard and enjoy the ride!