Culture|Garage

This is the video most of you have been waiting for…sickos. I was headed into this sweeper at 55-65mph.  As I rounded the turn, the back end of the car made contact with the car that was following, the car snapped left, grazed the wall and then shot me right and into the far wall–head on.  Me and the car managed to nudge the concrete barrier walls a foot and a half out of place.

The car lay, for what everyone considered, dead.  But we had faith and rebuilt it and had it back out running some 4.5 hours later.

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We weren’t timely with our pit work or driver switchovers.  In the future, we will be much more dilligent about how we do drivers changes, fill ups, etc.  This is in-car with Chris after an exhaust fix and a quick drive through the pits, just to give you guys an idea of environment.

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But we somehow managed to make it all work out.  I guess it helps when you have one of the fastest cars on the track.  Here are a few in-car videos of me driving the car–giving you a rough idea of how heavy the traffic was.  This is all pre-Chris just hit a concrete wall.

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Big thanks to Matt Pruett, an art-director I work with, for designing all of the vinyl work on the car.  It’s inspired by the B-52 bombers of yore.  The smiles on our face were pretty hard to contain as we stickered the car up.  If the roll cage, harness, race seat, and gutted interior don’t make you feel like you are in a race car…I suggest adding stickers.

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A big e-cookie goes out to the following people who have made our Lemons entry a bit easier:

1. Frozen Rotors
2. Iowa City Saab | Meyer Garage
3. Jeff The Alignment Guy
4. Track Time Motorsports

Among them, we have been given a trailer, discounted parts, used autox tires, mounting and balancing, general advice and friendly service.

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Yup.  So we waited until the last minute to get the car running.  Swapped the turbo out for a different unit that was sitting in the garage.  The BPC seems to be a bit borked, or hooked up wrong, so the car is showing no boost.  However, with limited weight, it still hauls quite nicely.  And I certainly can’t wipe the grin off of my face.

Professional driver, closed course; culture|garage recommends wearing a seatbelt at all times.

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And the limited edition Cougar Bait tshirts were just dropped off.  I must say opting for the American Apparel over the Fruit of the Loom was a sure way to go.

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To get into the 24 Hours of LeMons, you had to write a bit of an essay and explain why you and your team were worthy enought to compete in the race.

Following is our entry and the meaning behind out name.

Team Cougar Bait: Toledo, Ohio has one of the highest cougar per capita populations in the United States. We don’t know if that is actually true or not, but it makes for a great concept… plus we just updated Toledo’s Wikipedia page with those “facts.”

Team Cougar Bait is built with a slew of young men (mid 20’s) who have spent their time wrenching on cars, doing everything from rally to track days. But their strength isn’t in car related things, but rather in attracting the attention of mid 40’s suburbanite married females with low social morals. There are many tactics we plan to take to help woo the female population of Toledo (who also happen to be fans of $500 cars racing).

Keep reading…

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