[NOBBC] Lemons at ThunderHill

[Mike Gianandrea]

To all of our members,

I would like to ADD my take to comments on our racing adventures this year. As
4 rookie racers,  with years of dailey driving experience, all over the age of
50 plus, but with little actual racing experience, and one with experience
racing motorcycles, we delved into the realm of taking a really low level
mediocre car, and built it into a what is now actually a pretty stout little
machine. It took a lot of time, money and hard lessons learned to get to a
point that we could actually race and be able to say did something real, we
finally finished a race. We are fortunate that our team members have what is
really somewhat limited technical knowledge to employ, but we did what we
could with what skill, knowledge and resources that we did have, Clif
Williamson  and Walter Kiltcher carried the bulk of the load in the areas of
design and fabrication and task management, Alan Norman, David Willson, and
myself contributed our various skills, knowledge, and efforts as needed and
available, our support group of Deb Williamson,  and Big Mike Whalen, all made
and kept what turned out to be a MAJOR commitment to continue our effort in
the face of some pretty tall adversities, driving in the rain at Searspoint,
blowing up a motor and tranny. Traveling to Buttonwillow Raceway down by
Bakersfield for a full 24 race again with rebuilt but un-tested motor and
tranny that failed after 15 or so laps, was removed and repaired to the tune
of 10 or so hours of hot, dirty, greasy hard work by the four drivers, only to
fail again at night after 5 more laps, day was done, with nothing left to do
but pack up and go home the next day after cheering on the finishing drivers
Sunday AM. After more repairs and replacing our automatic tranny with a
rebuilt T5 manual tranny, we headed to Thunder Hill near Redding this past
weekend to race once more, again with untested equipment, but to what end?

Despite the problems we had with brakes, suspension tires, etc. our team of
rookies, with our little V6 Mustang did the improbable, on Saturday we raced a
track that we had never seen before, dealt with all the problems that arose,
we all worked and supported each other through the event, and Sunday, with our
car surprisingly still running and performing, and one day of experience under
our belts, we were able to race comfortably, each driver establishing momentum
and confidence through the day, and for our level of experience, did very well
finishing 13th or 15th in our class B, and 52nd overall out of 166, 178, or
185 cars, however many there were, not bad for a bunch old British car buffs
with little to work with. With limited seat time, we all raced against a very
difficult up and down hill track with many severe turns, against drivers that
were faster and more experienced than us. I don't even need to close my eyes
to still see the white BMW that I followed up a hill into a hard left turn
about two inches from his rear bumper, down shifting to 2nd gear, over a blind
hill that drops to an offset left turn that if missed, you are off the track
in the dirt, downhill at 90 MPH, downshift into another hard left, to another
hard left, into a chicane that I managed to straighten out to go 100 plus mph
down another straightaway into a long fast sweeping right turn leading to the
long front straightaway, and onward, with cars at very close quarters
throughout. I know that this is Lemons, or CRAPCAN RACING, the budgets are
supposedly low, and the cars range from ugly to interesting, and the level of
commitment required is tremendous. As we formulated our team and our plans, we
called this a bucket list item, Clif called it a life time experience, but I
can truly say to all of you, it was not only a life time experience, bucket
list item, and insane idea and effort, for me it was a dream come true, that
became a personal best, an experience that I will remember and enjoy for the
rest of my life, and hopefully will continue for years to come. Personally,
this has been a very tough year for me, business is down, money is tight, I
have had a number of medical and physical issues, even lost a relative two
months ago, but this racing effort was therapy for me, breathing new strength
and vigor into me. I want to thank my team mates for their considerable
support and understanding, and enduring the problems I've had this year, and I
want to say to John Kenner, you should have had more patience. And to all of
you, the CSRG event is next month at Sonoma Raceway, and is actually a charity
event, at which all of you can donate a few bucks to ride as a passenger in a
spec race car at speed with an experienced driver, I have done this myself.
This is a simple but effective way to have a close encounter with real race
experience, and is well worth $50. If you have had thoughts of actually doing
some racing, but don't want to shoulder the time and expense alone, you will
find the Lemons series to be a CHEAP(?) but fun way to get started,
enlightening, exciting as hell, and there is a great deal of commradery and
help from other teams, it may even lead you to higher racing aspirations, my
advice, if you get the chance GO FOR IT. If nothing else, come out and watch
the Old Crows team race next season at Searspoint / Infineon / Sonoma Raceway,
share in the fun that we will be having.

Michael Gianandrea
64 TR4
Proud member of the OLD CROWS