I was looking through some emails and stumbled across this story written by Jason Ernst back in December 2017 after the 24 Hours of Lemons race at Road Atlanta.

This was my first Lemons race as a spectator. I had gone down to Macon, GA to pick up a parts car and had it on the trailer. That car later became ToadRacer. The next Lemons race in February 2018, Jason let me drive his 64 Valiant. It's been a constant adventure ever since!

Here's Jason's story:

The Exciting Story of an Uneventful Race… or, Team Slant 6 Joins Forces with Wheel Team 6

I hadn't done much with the ’64 Valiant race car since Barber other than fixing the alignment and taking itto Savannah to be in a LeMons display at an HSR race. During our Sunday parade laps of the Hutchinson Island track the transmission kept popping out of second gear. Add one more thing to the list of fairly major items that need attention. The rear axle makes horrible noises, the brake fluid reservoir has cracks but isn't leaking, the tach doesn't work, etc. Life got in the way and sooner than I realized the registration deadline is upon us. I only have 3 of the required 4 drivers signed up and I'm running out of money. I call my regular co-driver and Slant 6 guru Lou and he talks me out of trying to run the car. Understandably, he is growing weary of wrenching on the car at the track more than driving it. The day the database for race entries closes I withdraw the team and let my other co-driver know. The other driver is Frank from Escape Velocity Racing in Texas. His car is a'64 Dart, basically the same, a Dodge version of my Plymouth. I was relieved that he was able to cancel his flight from Houston without penalties, but he got a seat in the Rambler which was towed all the way from California. “Great, I'll pick you up from the airport Friday morning.” I told him.

The weather forecast keeps looking worse for the second weekend of December and finally starts snowing as we head to the track. The practice session goes on as slush builds up in the paddock and I visit with friends and rivals. I check out a '68 Mustang that is going through tech inspection and fails for multiple reasons. All of these things are fixable, but there are a bunch of them including a cage that needs to have welds completed, a bar added to protect the stock fuel tank and a harness that needs 2 individual shoulder straps instead of coming together in a Y with a single mounting tab. I check in with them later that night as they are running their welder using a borrowed generator, and we huddle in their trailer around a kerosene heater borrowed from another team. One of their crew is about to tear into the engine to replace a camshaft that ate a lobe. They plan on converting the drum brakes with a Summit disk conversion kit and were going to send someone back to Summit for a new harness. Summit Racing is on the opposite side of Atlanta and snow continues to fall. I told them they had enough work to do and could borrow the one from my car. “Where's your car?” he asks. “Does it have a passenger seat?” It’s less than 20 miles away and no, I would pull the belts from the driver’s seat. I wander around the paddock with frozen feet and after huddling around propane heaters chatting with other racers I head home to get spare parts that I promised Frank. EVR won the Heroic fix trophy at the MSR Houston race for taking apart a '64 Valiant station wagon they brought as a judgemobile, to replace the broken tailshaft. Early cable-shifted pushbutton ball-and-trunnion flange automatic transmissions don't litter junkyards anymore and I had an extra that we could put into the Tetanus Racing trailer to get it back to Texas.

At midnight I throw the transmission and an oil pan into the van and at 4 AM I wake up to load BMW spares that someone might need. At 5 AM I get this idea: The BMW 7 series of Wheel Team 6 failed tech because of an unsafe cage. So much of it is wrong that they basically need to start over, for the third time.

I had met them at the Kentucky race this summer where their cage wasn't good either but Jay, the race organizer, let them pass after making some changes. I think he had a soft spot for these guys, all Special Forces about to ship out back to the Middle East. All their drivers got a session in the car at the National Corvette Museum track on Saturday and on Sunday the 740 caught fire. The fuel line was an easy fix and they ordered another cage and brought the car to Georgia. The cage didn't come with instructions, however, and bars were welded in the wrong place. I look up one of their team members on the LeMons forum and email them. I have a car that will pass tech but doesn't have heat or a functioning wiper. They can use it if the track dries out. At this point I don't even know if there will be any racing because of the snow and near-freezing temps. An hour later I'm at the shop about to pull the harness belts out of the Valiant for the Mild Horses Mustang team when I get a phone call. On the other end is Phil with the BMW. He's at a Waffle House eating breakfast and feeling pretty bummed about the weekend when he checks his email. I tell him about my arrangement with the car 666 Mustang guys and suggest they loan them the belts from the BMW. He agrees to that and to get me registered as a driver so I say that I’ll be there as soon as I can.

Much shuffling of trailers, trucks and cars later, I text him to find out what was said at the drivers’ meeting. His reply; just explaining the flags, and saying to go slow since it’s wet. To my surprise, racing was on. Shortly after the green flag fell I was finally headed back to the track.

When I say much shuffling, it took a lot. My tow vehicle had a '65 Barracuda on the trailer behind it. The ‘Cuda has no front suspension under it, so unloading it will be difficult. I leave that trailer at the shop and head home to get my old trailer. It’s parked down a hill on a power line easement in front of the house. Because of the snow the tow van can’t get to it so I have to use the old Range Rover, but first I have to remove the pintle hitch that is stuck in the receiver, dig out a tow strap and loop it around a tree. After I pull the old trailer up the hill, I can’t find the wooden ramps that go to this trailer. The retired E30 /6 BMW is on the trailer and just gets shoved off the back. That’s when I notice the two flat trailer tires. At least the shop is only 2 miles away where I have spares.

The Valiant fires right up and with a little tickling of the gas (no choke) it finally settles into an idle. I clear the windshield and drive it to the gas station then onto the trailer using the ramps from the other trailer. Ina rush to get to the track I leave behind all the usual totes that I bring to races.

When I get to Road Atlanta I pull up to the tech shed and they call Jay to come inspect the car. He has tech’d the car before and signs off while it’s still on the trailer. Phil calls me his hero and we get to work on the few things that it needs before it can get on track. The passenger seat had to be removed so the fire bottle could be remounted and the battery terminals taped up. His teammates Brian and Eric attached the transponder and taped the tech sticker to the windshield. As soon as I could get into my fire suit I was on the track! The racing line had mostly dried out but there were still wet patches and areas where melt was running across the track. I had fun, passed a few cars, lapped a few cars and tried to stay out of the way of the fast guys. After an hour I had caught up to the1964 Fairlylame car. My teammates were beeping the radio signaling me it was time to come in. A few more laps I thought, since I really wanted to pass this car. Eventually I got past the Ford and came in. Phil went out next and after a few laps getting used to the car his lap times started coming down. He figured out romping on the gas wasn't the right thing to do and looped it coming out of 10b. A quick trip through the penalty box and he was back out for the rest of his hour-long stint. The guys were surprised at how much fuel cost at the paddock pumps. Eric goes out for a while and tries to stay out of the way of two cars flying up the hill off of turn one. At the top of the esses he realizes how slick the painted gatorstrips are and goes off. The penalty box isn't as lenient this time, suggesting we change drivers. They were also concerned about the fender damage, but all of that took place at the Barber race. Eric keeps pumping the gas trying to get it to start not realizing the carb is flooded. McDaniel gets annoyed at this repeated cranking and shoves the car out of the penalty box with an electric wheelchair, to the amusement of everyone standing around. The car coasts down to the lower skidpad where our paddock space is and we discover that the end of the throttle cable has broken off. This was the same problem theE30 /6 BMW had right at the end of its last Barber race. ({Note to self - make a gas pedal stop that will prevent this. Make a gas pedal instead of just having a lever hanging off the fire wall) I run up the hill all the way across the paddock up to where my van is parked to see if I have an extra or something that could be used to fix it. I have a BMW cable that we adapted to use with the carb on the old race car, but nothing that would help here. I walk back down the hill sad that it would take over an hour to go back to the shop to get a replacement, and it’s about an hour till the end of the race. When I get back down there Frank has discovered there’s enough cable to work with and by cutting back the sheath and looping the cable the repair is almost done. The 4th driver, Brian is suited up and goes out to finish the day with no issues.

I can't believe the day we've had. Rob, another slant 6 nut who showed up at the track, referred to it as boringly reliable. The tires aren't great, but they are holding up. I have a new set of sticky rubber waiting at the Porterfield Tire in Athens, but they close early on Saturdays.

Day 2, much the same; Put gas in and send the next driver out. Once we didn't put quite enough in and had to be towed back to the pits. I wish the sending unit for the fuel cell didn't cost so much!
Frank goes out first since he's driving the Rambler at the end of the day. At the quiet hour I rotated the tires, putting better BFGs on the back, a bit of a cheat so I have an easier time going after Frank’s FTD. During the rotation I noticed a lot more wear on the driver’s front brake pads. Oh well, send it back out, the extra pads are back at the shop. We had caliper problems at Barber and I'm hoping this time it doesn't get worse.

All of our drivers get back out on Sunday and I get in to take the last stint to the checkered flag. In the back of my mind is the mostly used up brake pad, the bluing heat marks on the rotor and the repaired throttle cable. I don't have to save the car for another driver after me, but I want to conserve it till the finish. The oil pressure isn't as high now, barely 40, sometimes as low as 35. Is there a problem, or is the engine just hot? Take it easy, stay out of people’s way. I am easing off and coasting the second half of the back straight past the black flag station because of what is hopefully just a driveshaft vibration somewhere over 100 mph, although if you push past that at some point the vibration goes away. That’s eerie, the car goes from shaking and buzzing to perfectly smooth and quiet. Then I start to get a headache. I've been squinting into the sun and even if I had my sunglasses, they wouldn't have helped much. It also feels like there’s a knot in my helmet pushing hard into the top of my forehead, I try wriggling around but can't get comfortable. This hasn't happened before and it really hurts. Then things get worse as the sun is in a horrible place, completely blinding turn 5 which is uphill out of the esses. I had already put the car completely on the wide rumble strips here at track out. It’s not a good feeling. This goes on for laps, watch the mirrors trying to count the cars behind me and remind myself to fix the mirror situation.

This car has never had a passenger door mirror and it just has a wink panel attached to the cage, not the best visibility. With the now-required head-and-neck restraint there is barely any neck motion allowed so a driver can’t turn his head to see what is next to him, making blind spots bigger. I don't think I have ever had the thought "I'm not having fun" while in a race car. Finally the sun went far enough down that I could see the track again and things got better. How much more time was there, I didn't know. We had a clock in the E30 /6. I need to put batteries in it and mount it in this car. With no idea how many more laps there are to go (the checkered drops at 5). I'm enjoying myself again and catch up to a Neon. Still trying to conserve the car by short shifting and braking early, I pass him. He gets by with a bunch of other traffic and I'm chasing him again for a few awesome laps. I've got him on power, but he is fast through the corners. When I talked to him after the race I find out it’s basically a stock car and their first time out with it. The race ends before I can get past him again and my car is shuddering horribly every time I let the clutch out. It’s a bit of a traffic jam, single file up pit road and up the hill between the bleachers. The lane is lined with people applauding all the cars that made it to the end and high fives for drivers coming off the track. Stop and go, I have to let the clutch out a bunch of times in a short distance. It occurs to me it could either be the clutch or rear axle but I make it back to the paddock and onto the trailer. This is the trailer that had a tire coming apart and made it home on a borrowed spare.

At the awards ceremony they describe the Heroic Fix winner as a team that shows up with a cage that doesn't pass tech. It goes to the 666 Mustang team, still running on drum brakes, for rebuilding their engine and then their transmission without giving up. At the end, right before the Duff Beer pair got the biggest award, Jay describes another team that showed up with a bad cage. As he describes their plight further, I realize it is us! For one team and another car owner, they show up at one race with bad luck and another with no luck at all. For bailing them out and a good time by all despite the freezing weather we won the Organizers Choice Trophy. I thank the corner workers for braving the elements, everyone else not at the track that made this possible, and Wheel Team 6 for their service to our country.

_________________
Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser