So, Lemons racing!
My friends back in Texas, team
Mullet Motorsports, bought and built an '83 El Camino. They took out the 305 and put in a rebuilt and cammed 350 to give it some oomph, threw in a cage, gave it some beautiful bodywork, a long flowing mane of hair (weaves) on the tailgate and a suspension that was a little bit cheaty for Lemons (but it's an Elco, a new suspension was a necessity).
So, first day test and tune!
The fuel pump starts leaking fuel as we take it off the trailer, and a couple guys run in to town to get another one (fucking $25, this is insane to me in Porsche parts land), and while they do I go out for a couple of laps to beat it up a little bit and see if anything else breaks. Well the brakes break, not breaking badly but braking badly, locking up the front right brake first all the time so I knew it was breaking the brakes. So we bled the brakes and swapped the fuel pump. Tech inspection was that afternoon, and apparently the judges didn't like our brush-guard, I can't imagine why. Oh because it was totally illegal and we all knew it but it looked sweet. They also didn't like our roll cage because some of the bends were flat--they asked us to weld some gussets. No problem.
We get it back to the garage that night and...oil everywhere. Everywhere. The oil gasket had blown out completely. At 8pm. While we still had to do the cage.
6 hours later we had the engine
back in the car with a brand new oil pan gasket, a beautifully welded cage, and 3 hours before we had to wake up.
Now get this shit. The car ran perfectly all day long the whole weekend. The only issue was a short in a loose brake wire that blew our main relay, but otherwise it ran lap after lap after lap without problem. And it ran it waaaay better than it deserved to, being a lowly '83 Elco. This is partly owed to the front sway bar being little less than an I-beam. Seriously it was something ridiculous like a full inch and a half bar. Nuts.
I, however, didn't get a chance to discover this until day two, because day one was an hour long stint for me in a constant downpour. With no windshield wipers (rain-x!) and a 300+ horse motor putting power down to the rear tires in an Elco with no posi. That I drove that car without crashing on the
very slick track is a golden testament to my manhood. It was like dancing on ice with a bear, but god damnit one hour of 100% countersteer and throttle feathering the sun came out and the track dried up...for the next driver.
The next day was beautiful, cool, sunny, and everyone had a great time. Lots of track time for all, no black flags, no full course cautions (we had one for five minutes the first day because a deer wandered out on track) and we got to cross the checkered at our very first race.
Now because we were all such swell guys and a) didn't argue about rewelding the cage or b) spend all day spinning the elco like they figured we would have, they awarded us organizes' choice. Everyone was wonderful there, and to be the team that was the most wonderful in the eyes of the judges? Pretty good feeling.
We're gonna weld that fucking trophy to the bumper for the next race, too.
Unfortunately we forgot all about the gopro. Sue me we went into the race with 3 hours of sleep.
Check out the team's instagram above,
https://www.instagram.com/mulletmotorsports/, and sorry I don't have many more pictures or videos. This is the best I got aside from a procession video which I'll upload later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lMOL5f2hzs (filming not driving). All said and done, though, it was great, great fun and I totally suggest it if you have a few grand like you'd like to burn up to make a shitty race car go faster than slow.
Fun note: I was 3 seconds faster a lap than a 944. I was the fastest on the team, but everyone else were novices and for being novices did great. Nothing super fast but nice consistent laps in traffic, and with up to 40 cars on track, that's pretty great.
