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.