Chumpcar 12 hours at Willow Springs - 13 Nov 2010

Team Line - Up

Drivers : Carl Johnk, Bob Lehmann, David LeCren, John Simpson, Michael Chiappetta

Crew chief: Wally Partridge

Pigs fly, hell freezes over, and we win an endurance race in our third try: the 12-hour Chumpcar race at Willow Springs Nov 13 2010.

We had the 5th-fastest car on the track (as measured by single fastest lap of the day) so this was a narrow margin win (7-lap margin out of 353 total laps) created through consistent driving, well-run pit stops and a lot of luck to avoid any breakdowns.

each driver's avg speed for their session, ignoring the pit stop laps:

driver laps lap count fast lap avg speed

dave 1-44 44 1:47.207 42 81.914

john 45-97 53 1:52.002 97 76.799

bob 98-145 48 1:46.182 126 81.248

michael 146-198 53 1:45.891 183 81.070

carl 199-242 44 1:47.378 230 79.973 (dusk)

dave 243-296 54 1:48.372 249 77.531 (night)

bob 297-353 57 1:49.053 319 76.686 (night)

- Dave is really fast, consistently, across laps.

- John's performance was amazing - I can't believe he never drove on a track before! For me, the best part of the day was the look on Bob's face when he saw John's lap times and was honestly concerned he wouldn't beat them.

- Bob "I only want to run 1-hour sessions" is really an iron man: 105 laps for 263 miles.

- Michael "one fast lap"once again leads the team in black flags. but, since we didn't have to re-create any oil paintings this time, it didn't hurt too badly.

- Carl got pulled too early. Most drivers had their fast laps at the end of their shift when the car was lighter on fuel. Next time, he gets first pick on the shift.

- Our pit stops average 8:47. We can do better!

A couple thanks to two other people who helped make it happen:

Steve Close - besides co-inventing the car we race, and all the advice along the way, thanks for getting the funky wheel nuts to me so we could practice on Friday (I picked-them up at your shop after midnight on Friday morning.

Tim Gray - the brake pads worked great for a whole day, as you said they would.

And, of course, a million thanks to Wally, our mentor, coach, manager, sponsor, and Carl, who really deserves a lot of the credit for the car. Without them, none of this would have been possible.

start watching at 2:40 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plm_zibWJAQ&feature=related