Garage Heroes In Training

On this episode, we were joined by Nick Pon from the 24 Hours of Lemons HQ. Nick is a car enthusiast for the vast majority of his life and worked with the Lemons team since the inception. During this interview, we were able to go over Nick's history, both with Lemons and personally.

Highlights included:

1. Thoughts on how you Lemons has gone so far, the Good, The Bad and The Ugly
2. What is planned for NJMP next weekend with Race, Radwood, Hooptiecon and everything else on site

Also please check out Nick's latest article at Autoweek related to a 24 Hours of Lemons race car that turned into much more. (and no, that is definitely not our Capri)

https://autoweek.com/article/car-life/capremium-when-cheap-race-cars-turn-out-be-valuableish

Jeff Wakeman from the Three Pedal Mafia racing team and the Everyone Racers Podcast joins us for this week's episode. We had a wide ranging discussion covering many topics including:

Jeff's first car

Some of Jeff and the Three Pedal Mafia early history

The Wartburg vs the Trabant

Past few seasons results, and challenges

Building two new cars for this season

Team Goals for 2019

Summit point led to no stunting and 'splodin rule

Track Discussion of the NJMP Lightning track for our upcoming race

Bill makes the same bad joke

In between races maintenance practices

• Fix any broken parts
• Full nut and bolt check
  • All suspension bits, end links suspension bolts, shocks, struts
  • Oil change every race
  • Brake pad check
  • Wheel bearing check (12-6 and 3-9, every day)
  • Shocks and struts
  • Rim check
  • Brake Rotor check
  • Calipers
  • All lugs and lug nuts
  • Fire system
  • Electrical system
  • Clean up and Vacuum
  • Brake fluid every season, unless overheated then change immediately
  • Tires for flat spots, cuts, bubbles etc.
  • Fuel cell foam every season, unless fuel filter clogging etc.
  • Exhaust inspection, will rattle apart
  • Transmission fluid every few seasons unless issues
  • Read tire tread after every day
  • Wheel bearing check at 12-6 and 3-9 every day
• What exactly is involved with "Dialing In" a new car
• What is the exact definition of Mental Extrapolation and an itemized correction list/rant
• Race Car Development guides
• Vicki gets excited about power steering for the Spider-Stang
• Street and Normal mechanics vs endurance racing mechanical needs
• Alan takes a few shots to the bow, in a very good natured way
• Vicki has two tickets, Bill only knew about one, until now….
• Jeff is oddly collecting tickets from every state
• Bill makes bad decisions about towing with the new rental truck
  • However, Jeff presents his quick summary of what to do and what not to do to related to speeding to avoid speeding tickets book review
• Keep your eyes up
• Speeding ticket story time
• We end with a discussion of Avengers Endgame and many other hero
• Game of Thrones discussion, or how to end a story via Cliff Notes
• Upcoming theories and desires
• Ranking of many marvel movie favorites
• The upcoming Watchman series on HBO
• Monoculture in modern entertainment, is it ever possible again with streaming and bingeing becoming more and more popular
• How Lemons could be the solution to this and everything else
• Upcoming ace at NJMP with Hooptiecon and Radwood as well
• Star Wars discussion and predictions
• Jeff Does a Road Warrior impression

We apologize for being helpful to your racing this time. We will resume our normal uselessness next week, lol.

For this episode, we wanted to look back on our team's first year racing Lemons and what we did, what we did well, what we did poorly, and begin to refine our plan for the coming year. Alan also covers his recomended tool of the week.

For this episode, we wanted to look back on our team's first year racing Lemons and what we did, what we did well, what we did poorly, and begin to refine our plan for the coming year. Alan also covers his recomended tool of the week.

We received a ton of questions from you and reconvened to answer all that we could. Thanks for asking!

PS We are planning our summer and have some ideas but would love to hear from you on what would be of interest. Please drop us a line at [email protected] or even better give us a review and include your ideas there within the review.

If you think you have the driving itch or may have an interest, how can you try racing to find out if its for you? We also cover what is a preferred path towards your personal driving greatness. As always, the biggest key is safety and safely progressing up your individual learning curve.

During this episode, we also cover various ways to get out on track, how to progress with many options given including experience type driving events, one day HPDE's, SCCA Track Night America, SCCA and NASA events, various Mark clubs like BMW, Porsche, Audi, etc. etc. Naturally we also cover low cost endurance racing series, Go carts/carting, autocross, and other low cost methods to race. Racing lemons. Towards the end, we also cover a brief overview of various decisions and interests that may shape your individual progression including whether you want to race vs a clock or wheel to wheel racing (or both), sprint racing vs endurance racing, open wheel vs closed wheel/road cars, buying your own vs renting a race car or just renting a seat. We tried to provide an overview and include an approximate cost where we could to help with budget discussions.

As always, with Mental it always involves great stories and a good bit of digression by both of us across a many subjects.

Always try to remember that the key is remain on the primary tasks of #1 safety and #2 having fun!

Race school recommendations aplenty, but not all inclusive.

Plus we work through Vicki's flat tire excursion while we were taping

PS We did manage to keep it under 3 hours this time, lol.