In the chop Shop

For those of you who don't know, we here at Stick Figure Racing are pretty crazy!
For our latest endeavor we will be chopping up a perfectly good Toyota MR2 and trying to squeeze what we can under the Fiat Multipla body. For most of you that is a travesty but for us it make perfect common sense. :-) It was a sad day when we brought our little Multipla home and found that there is no frame left, which meant the body is literally the only thing that can be saved. So here are the first steps in our Plight to revive one of the very first Fiat 600 Multipla Abarth X2 's

As you can see Larry is in one of his moods and cannot be bothered at this time.


After about 30 minutes this is what has been accomplished.


An hour and a half into the project and after going to Home Depot for more Sawzall blades the top is removed.


Here is Larry explaining the rear wheel drive features of the MR2.

Tune in next week for the chop shops latest damage that will ensue when we get our hands on the Multipla.

Last of Animal House

Buttonwillow raceway was the scene of the 3rd and final part of the trilogy we called Animal House. I would have to say that this year was all around our best performance so far in the 24 hours of Lemons endurance racing. To wrap up I would like to say Thanks to all who supported us in our endeavors.
Andy: For all of the electronics expertise, willingness to get in and get the job done at crunch time.
Bill: Working on the car on every weekend even though you missed out on the last two races. Getting us Parts at cost, that was awesome. Racing at Sears with us and keeping me from killing another driver on purpose.
Larry: Helping on the car even though for two of the races you were on your brothers team. Racing with us at Thunderhill and willing to dress in a Toga and looking like an idiot like me and Pete.
Pat: For sending me a plethora of invaluable info on the MR2. Allowing me to come out and race in your car to get a better feel of what the MR2 can really do. Racing with us at Sears and keeping me from killing another driver on purpose.
Stevo: For flying all the way from Indianapolis to drive with a bunch of idiots and not complaining about how tight the car was to get in and out of. Oh yea and keeping me from killing another driver on purpose.
Pete: For being a real stand up guy and racing with us at Thunderhill. Dressing up in a toga and enjoying it a little too much!
Ruben: For joining us at Buttonwillow and driving the hell out of the car. Committing to race with a team you had no previous knowledge of and being a real stand up guy.
Judy: For all of your support financially, mentally, and most of all your willingness to get your hands dirty without any complaints. Also thanks for being the only driver on our team who had "0" black flags for the whole season...Way to Go!
Bob: For doing most of our Logo designs, theme designs, and working on the car even though we never got you out on the track.
Team Snowspeeder, Killer Bees, and Free Range Racing for supporting us in the pits.
Thanks to all of you. Next year will be bringing a lot of changes to Stick Figure Racing. As most of you know we have a new car in our stables and another that we will be building in collaboration with Team V-Ram so come out and join us in all of the fun.
If I forgot anyone please forgive me and thanks for your help. If your reading this and have a tingling feeling in your pants and want to race with us let us know. We welcome all people and sponsors and cash.

New Theme?

We have yet to announce a new theme for Lemons 2011 but we do have some Ideas.:-)

For those who don't know, Stick Figure Racing is working on a two front approach to racing in the new year.
We will be joining forces with Larry and his team V-Ram in designing and building one of the most wanted, dependable, powerful, and of course best looking race cars of 2011.
Larry will be posting the threads to this most ominous vehicle once we get back from Buttonwillow.

As for the second theme for 2011 we have gone into the shop and started inventory of all the super, great, ludicrous, and powerful parts that will make our car impossible to beat in the new year.
During this process we have found the following.
One 4x4 toy with real moving wheels....

One jack stand that can also be helpful in frame support.

without frame support...



The car doing its part.... Loosing as much weight as possible so we won't have to worry about qualifying under the 4000lb. rule.



And of course one slightly used 21 Hp powerhouse that some say may actually be worth it's weight in gold!

Buttonwillow?

Well it's that time again....
A time when family gets together the sound of buzzers going off, the fresh smell of Turkey in the air and promises of no more eating after the holidays, and of course Racing!
Buttonwillow is the last race in the trilogy of Animal House dementia that started with the Death Mobile at Sears Infinion, the Toga party at Thunderhill (Thanks for coming by and drinking the beer) and will now finish with the all important Cake.

I am real sorry to say that the original plans for creating a full size cake float that would be driven around on the track have fallen gravely short. We will have some cake to eat on Saturday night for all to enjoy, along with beer and champagne because we know cake and champagne go so well together. So all are welcome to stop by and get their buzz on and join us in the hysteria we call Lemons. We hope to see you there!

Latest and Greatest

Yes I know it has been a long time in coming, so here is the latest.
We have been accepted to Buttonwillow, so as usual the date has been coming up fast.
There are only two weeks until the car hits the road for the infamous trip to Bakersfield California, that's where I tell everyone the race is at because Buttonwillow is a craphole town nobody knows about.

Judy and I have prepared the car for it's long journey and are excited to welcome Ruben to the team, he lives 2 hours away from Buttonwillow and knows how to get to the track, a nice plus, I don't have to explain how to get there.

So here is the latest....
I was invited to Race with Pat Mulry and the tarp team at MSR Houston so Judy and I flew out there an did a little clowning around. During the process we had a little rain and Pat had created some very ingenious rain guards that deflect the rain away from the drivers body. As you can see I stole the design for our version of Pats design. Thanks Pat.




So on to the "greatest" at least I think so....
This is the new design element to help us maneuver the engines around at the track.


I had been talking with Bill and Larry for a long time about designing an engine stand that would allow us to move motor around the shop and still be portable enough to take with us to the track. It had to have the ability to roll under the car. Elevate to the right height of the chassis for mounting purposes and disconnect quickly enough to get it out of the way for final motor installation.


The design also allows for easy loading and unloading from the truck.


The big plus for this stand is that allows for great maneuverability around the shop because it utilizes the footprint of the engine and doesn't snag up an anything.
It is also capable of just carrying the motor without the transmission.


So the race car is loaded, parts are inventoried, nerves are frazzled and new projects are on the horizon. Our plate is full and I still feel like I am missing something.

Infinion Results

Well, we did it again!
For the second consecutive race, we finished without any major mechanical failures.

Sunday morning started with the team replacing the rear brakes. The passenger side rear was still dragging so we replaced the brakes. The rear caliper on the drivers side was showing a damaged rubber seal so we replaced that too. We finished bleeding the system just after the drivers meeting was over. The drivers meeting was interesting because Jay talked about the roll-over that had happened on Saturday afternoon. The driver ended up having a cracked vertebra and will be out for some time to come. Our prayers and hopes for a speedy recovery go out to him.

The links to the accident videos are here:
in-car and car following

The race started with Judy in the car. As usual, she was the only driver on our team that went on the track, drove 45 minutes and came off without getting black flagged. We continued our quest to finish the race with Bruce up next in the drivers seat. We decided to go to a longer seat time and it seemed to work in theory until he was flagged and had to come off the track. 15 minutes later, he went back onto the track and drove another 5-6 laps before ending his stint. Stevo jumped into the car and drove for 45 minutes clean and then he got into trouble, black flagged. Judge Jonny was nice and let him go back on the track - he lasted another 15 minutes and received a second black flag, this time we had to do a drivers change. I was up, I got into the car, drove less than one lap and spun out in turn 11, black flagged and the penalty this time was a 1 hour time-out.

During that time, we had a little time to talk about the car. Stevo was feeling that the car was still not braking to its full potential so after our penalty was over we brought the car into the pit and did a front brake overhaul. Nobody timed us but I think we did the front brakes in less than 15 minutes, not too bad for novice racers. I took the car back out and ran clean for an hour, the brakes were still not up to 100%, they had a little chatter going into the corners. Pat jumped into the car and drove the "hell" out of it, he did really well until he came in for his black flag. The car was missing a mirror and the whole side of the car was scraped up. I asked him what happened, he started to tell me how he got his flag and I stopped him and said wait a minute, you're not flagged for impact with another car? His comment was nope that damage was done in an earlier incident where a car slammed into the side of him and no flag was called. Well "hell" we have no mirror and the car needs a new paint job but Pat was flagged for going 4 wheels off in turn 9A! The Judges were nice to us again but told us if we come back we are done. Pat takes the car back out does one lap and Santa Claus throws a hissy fit and Pat gets flagged again. This time Pat is not a happy camper! The judges don't know why he is back in so they let him out with another warning. Time for Bill to finish up the race, we are all so happy that our car is running so well and we will get the checkered flag - until Bill gets the final black flag with 6 laps to go.

Dammit! Bill pulls into the penalty box where the judges proceed to take our manliness away from us. They stripped us of our window sticker and pulled our wrist bands off! We were sooooooo .... close. We finished 89th out of 146 cars that made it onto the track and had one hell of a fun time doing it.

Next race Thunderhill May 8-9th, hope to see you all there.

Sears Infinion the first Day

So day one is done......


The car did really well, we had only two issues that were very minor. The swirl pot vent tube broke free during Bruce's stint and sprayed water everywhere, Bruce came in and we fixed it right away. Pat had a similar issue except that the Brake and alternation light came on and when we went to test the alternator we found the cable had come loose from it's terminal and lost connection. Bill had contact with car 88 which left some door scrapes and ruined our professional paint job. All of the drivers ran pretty clean today, Bill and Bruce received the only black flags and they were minor. We are currently in 79th out of 152 so we are siting in the middle of the pact. We just need 78 cars to blow their motors and we will be sitting pretty. We have had one roll over and one car hitting a concrete wall, both drivers were O.K.
More news as happens or watch the face book page....

We need better tools

So it's less than two weeks before we have to load the car and get on our way to Sears.
In the closing moments before we go we realize we could use some better tools.

I think for our application we might just have the best tools money can buy.

What's your best improvised photo?

Center for Disease Control Warning

The Center for Disease Control has just issued a new warning about Swirl Pot Disease.
The center is claiming that the new Swirl Pot is stronger and better engineered than the last one leading them to believe that this Swirl pot will be around for a long time to come. Here are some of the symptoms of the new Swirl Pot.

As you can see the worst case symtom can be appendages that you really don't want.

As a precaution take everything you can away from the pot to prevent spreading.


The best case is to have a pressure gauge and drain valve in place to prevent seepage. Now back to your normal Lemons programing.

Special thanks to Jefferson Bello for the awesome welds he did for us.

Counting down

5 weeks to go until Sears Pointless! Geez, we'd better get going on the thematic portion of this event...

Paul and Bill are putting the motor back in after going through various sections, and replacing the water pump. The plans that Mulry came up with are 'in the mail' and we should be getting those any day now (hint hint). Tonight we'll watch the movie again (or for me, the whole thing) so we can remember some of the ... 'finer' details!

Do you realize we have to have our entry in for Thunderhill/Goin' for Broken by Feb. 27? Hmmm...

Which T-Shirt Front?

Ok, so which front do you like better? Don't let the fact that there are literally tens of hours (ok, maybe not tens) in the illustrated one and only about 60 minutes of finding the right font in the other one. Just vote on which one you like better.

Float:



Text:

Happy New Year?

Here's to wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Now on to the important stuff. We have officially been recognize as a race team by the Judges appointed in creating the Sears Pointless race, part of that ever growing series called 24 Hours of Lemons. We are now "Stick Figure Racing/The Animal House Death Mobile." I personally want welcome two new-comers to the team for this race, Pat Mulry and Stevo to the team. These guys come to us from the TARP racing association out of Dallas, Texas. They come from similar stock as we do, broken engines, blown head gaskets and heroic fixes. So they are well seasoned racers capable of dealing with the stresses that are the Lemons series. Pat and Stevo will be doing their part by working on the theme, design and a limited amount of build based on the fact they are over a thousand miles away from the car (minor details!). We will be linking our blog with theirs so that everyone can stay on the same page. Pat has already started working on ideas, so here is the link: tarpblog.net

During the next two months we will do our best to make this theme come alive. Bill, Kirby, Judy and I will start work on getting the car prepped. After all, this is a race and not just show and tell. We have something to prove and that is that we can really compete with the rest of the crazies that are willing to throw their personal lives out the window to make their dreams happen.

So from all of the crazies that make up Stick Figure Racing / Tarp Racing,

Happy New Year!