Fancy Chicken Racing

WHAT happened is solved. There is no head on the exhaust valve. Why is a mystery still, but it is what we suspected. The Duratec has been bulletproof until this. It only did 120,000 miles on the road, then 240 laps at Kent, 195 at Sonoma, 260 at Kent again, and for no reason at all, after only 47 laps at Thunderhill, a valve let's go! I should complain to Ford!

The 25 hour and 2 minutes (for a NEW World record) was amazing. Me and 5 young fellows with VERY limited mechanical knowledge/experience found ourselves with a busted Focus about 4 and a half hours in. We did a clutch in the spares powertrain 1st, then a complete subframe swap, and got back on track with 2 hours to go. Epic!! New friends and family now. The 24 Hours of Lemons is an experience unlike anything else on the planet.

So ends an EPIC weekend! Hiromi Bush and I made the trip down and reconnected with Ashwin Sundaresan Balaji who raced with us at Sonoma last December. Then we added Robert Yu and Allan Zhao friends from San Francisco. Then came Justin Wayne and at the totally last minute Dashiell.Hill.26. About 4 hours in Lil Bette dropped a valve. I brought a full powertrain, but it needed a clutch. We did that on the trailer, then a full powertrain swap overnight. We went for a shower and nap about 4am, then back at it at 6. By 10am we were back on track tl get the checkers. H said this is just like Top Gun Maverick with the old guy and the young bucks, except none of you know how to do what you are about to take on.

So, doing the math... The little Focus was doing 2 minute laps. We broke around 2PM, with 120 minutes of racing left. Even allowing for the fuel/driver changes, we would have done 50 more. That would have put us 4th in C! We were ahead of a BUNCH of way faster cars, and we're still sloppy in the pits!! We can win with this car! Bette the Middler may need a new name!

We're trying something new for the Pacific Northworst GP 26 in the The 24 Hours of Lemons. Cages and all safety gear has been through tech on all 3 cars. 2 of the 3 cars have been SUPER thouroughly gone through with fresh motors, transmissions tires, brakes etc. Other than the seats (Jetta/SC) and moving one battery (SC) the cars are all READY, with a week to go still!! The cube van, Georgie Boy and the Karaoke Canoe are still outstanding worklists, but perifferial. The weather prediction, if it holds, should be just enough rain to be miserable in the pits, and HIGHLY entertaining on the track. Oh Lemons friends, how I have missed you!!

Its a picture of the Milky way, painted in Unicorn tears! The media is Royal Purple 75 90 gear oil, with 3rd gear synchro blocking ring, converted to metal flakes over a 14 hour race at Sonoma, inside a Ford MTX75 transmission.

Funny thing, I reached out to Kroll today, and had a laugh about EVs in Lemons. Then a picture of my friend and team driver Irwin in Jerry's mass market EV.

55 days to the Pacific Northworst GP 2026, and Loretta says "I'll keep an eye out for you sweetie". Jon is hard at work on the harness for Bette to get a 2.5L heart transplant. It's her "Escape" plan.

The Miata subframe gives us a track width 0.2" wider that the factory torsen beam axle. The motor is not here yet, but the exhaust gives a good idea where the placement will be. Mid engine, flat 6, RWD, Mk2 Jetta. We're ambitiously shooting for a 1600 pound racecar. I think Ferdinand Porche and Colin Chapman would both approve.

Part of our day with Loretta yesterday was working to find out why we had no spark. It turns out the rodent residents at the farm decided to make our engine computer wireless! I guess they're all amped up now. I think they need to be grounded!