24 hours of Lemons 2009 - Team Cougar Bait
Well, it's official, we're in again.
We were accepted into the 24 Hours of Lemons again this year, for a race called "The Lamest Day" at Nelson Ledges Road Course in Ohio on October 3rd and 4th, racing (hopefully) a full 24 hours from noon on the 3rd until noon on the 4th.
Out of over 160 applicants there were 120 teams accepted to race on this 2 mile 7 turn road course. This is a far superior course to the small truncated 3/4 mile oval on which we raced last year in Toledo OH. But with this larger track comes quite a few more cars out there to bump into!
As some of you know, we raced last year in a 1991 9000 turbo, dubbed "Cougar Bait 1," which we wrecked about 1 hour after the green flag dropped. By the time we got the car repaired we were in 58th place, but with some great driving the terribly compromised 9000 was able to sneak back up into the top 20 car before some "minor engine failure" forced us to take it slow and sit out for an hour only to limp back onto the track and finish under the checkered flag. We walked away have learned a few things about what matters in a 24 hour endurance race, and with a nice trophy for the "Most Heroic Fix"
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That car was cut to pieces and as much of the expensive safety equipment as possible was salvaged for whatever sorry lump of a car we could scrape together for this year, which brings me to Cougar Bait 2 for 2009…
In honor of the severed relationship with GM we chose one of the most bastardized offspring of the whole GM/Saab relationship, a 1994 Saab 900SE 2.5V6 with a 5 speed manual transmission. The very 1st fully GMified Saab, with a motor that some people regard as one of the worst to grace the engine bay of any Vuxha…I mean Saab. This car was found in an alley on a COLD and VERY snowy January, the owner was desperate to get rid of the car as it was using up precious off street parking. A deal was struck and we practically stole the car for $200, AAA helped us transport the car home since the alternator was toast and the airless tires were frozen to the ground.
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The car sat for the better part of the winter, once the ground began to thaw we pulled it out of the garage and got to work and fixing the seized alternator in an attempt to get the car running. It took a while to source a cheap alternator for the car, but after employing the services of a local automotive electronic shop we had a fully rebuilt alternator for $100. The car sort of ran and we were sort of relieved, having bested out previous milestone of a running car the week before the race by several months.
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You find strange things stripping out a car, change, 2 year old French fries, and large bras may be among those things.
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Since then we've stripped the car, moved many of the safety items from last year over to this car, and began constriction of the roll cage. We hope this car, or at least the body of the car can make it through our race in October and continue to live on for rallycross, ice racing, and most of all, another 24 HOL race! Prepping the car is really the expensive part of the whole ordeal, and avoiding that will allow up to improve other aspects of our setup, like getting a car trailer, or some sort of janky old RV or bus to fix up and use for race transportation/towing.
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We have more work to complete before the race, Viggen brakes to install, race seat adapter to make, finish welding the cage, gutting the doors, getting the car a much needed tune-up and timing belt replacement, and gathering up a bunch of tires and wheels are just the start of it. The car will be done up in some extra special livery for this year's theme, hopefully we can get a preview of that in the next two weeks.
Feel free to follow Team Cougar Bait's Facebook page for team and car updates!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Cougar-Bait/116795308591?ref=ts
We'd love to see anyone show up to cheer us on! Anyone interested in hanging out in the pits is free to do so as long as you pay your way and get a pit pass, the RV facilities for the team members are already pretty tight, so you'd be on your own to look after yourself. It's certainly an entertaining time to watch and participate. Lots of great people to meet and plenty of janky endurance race action!
Well, it's official, we're in again.
We were accepted into the 24 Hours of Lemons again this year, for a race called "The Lamest Day" at Nelson Ledges Road Course in Ohio on October 3rd and 4th, racing (hopefully) a full 24 hours from noon on the 3rd until noon on the 4th.
Out of over 160 applicants there were 120 teams accepted to race on this 2 mile 7 turn road course. This is a far superior course to the small truncated 3/4 mile oval on which we raced last year in Toledo OH. But with this larger track comes quite a few more cars out there to bump into!
As some of you know, we raced last year in a 1991 9000 turbo, dubbed "Cougar Bait 1," which we wrecked about 1 hour after the green flag dropped. By the time we got the car repaired we were in 58th place, but with some great driving the terribly compromised 9000 was able to sneak back up into the top 20 car before some "minor engine failure" forced us to take it slow and sit out for an hour only to limp back onto the track and finish under the checkered flag. We walked away have learned a few things about what matters in a 24 hour endurance race, and with a nice trophy for the "Most Heroic Fix"
That car was cut to pieces and as much of the expensive safety equipment as possible was salvaged for whatever sorry lump of a car we could scrape together for this year, which brings me to Cougar Bait 2 for 2009…
In honor of the severed relationship with GM we chose one of the most bastardized offspring of the whole GM/Saab relationship, a 1994 Saab 900SE 2.5V6 with a 5 speed manual transmission. The very 1st fully GMified Saab, with a motor that some people regard as one of the worst to grace the engine bay of any Vuxha…I mean Saab. This car was found in an alley on a COLD and VERY snowy January, the owner was desperate to get rid of the car as it was using up precious off street parking. A deal was struck and we practically stole the car for $200, AAA helped us transport the car home since the alternator was toast and the airless tires were frozen to the ground.
The car sat for the better part of the winter, once the ground began to thaw we pulled it out of the garage and got to work and fixing the seized alternator in an attempt to get the car running. It took a while to source a cheap alternator for the car, but after employing the services of a local automotive electronic shop we had a fully rebuilt alternator for $100. The car sort of ran and we were sort of relieved, having bested out previous milestone of a running car the week before the race by several months.
You find strange things stripping out a car, change, 2 year old French fries, and large bras may be among those things.
Since then we've stripped the car, moved many of the safety items from last year over to this car, and began constriction of the roll cage. We hope this car, or at least the body of the car can make it through our race in October and continue to live on for rallycross, ice racing, and most of all, another 24 HOL race! Prepping the car is really the expensive part of the whole ordeal, and avoiding that will allow up to improve other aspects of our setup, like getting a car trailer, or some sort of janky old RV or bus to fix up and use for race transportation/towing.
We have more work to complete before the race, Viggen brakes to install, race seat adapter to make, finish welding the cage, gutting the doors, getting the car a much needed tune-up and timing belt replacement, and gathering up a bunch of tires and wheels are just the start of it. The car will be done up in some extra special livery for this year's theme, hopefully we can get a preview of that in the next two weeks.
Feel free to follow Team Cougar Bait's Facebook page for team and car updates!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Cougar-Bait/116795308591?ref=ts
We'd love to see anyone show up to cheer us on! Anyone interested in hanging out in the pits is free to do so as long as you pay your way and get a pit pass, the RV facilities for the team members are already pretty tight, so you'd be on your own to look after yourself. It's certainly an entertaining time to watch and participate. Lots of great people to meet and plenty of janky endurance race action!
