Tunachuckers Can-O'-Blog

What?

Really?

The drain plug did what?  Where is the spare motor?

When the cause of the last engine explosion, which happens to be bolted to the roof, starts to look like a viable option, you know the rest of the story.

I am truly sorry guys.

Unless you're a Monty Python fan, you're probably not a huge fan of Spam. Either the canned version or the electronic version.  However, lately on this blog we've been experiencing a bad epidemic of spam comments on all the posts.  I know there have been legitimate comments as well, but lately it seems every 4 hours or so we've been inundated with about 10-15 spam comments I have to keep deleting.  This is too much.  So unfortunately, until we can find a way to prevent this (or find out the reason we are getting all this spam), I am temporarily disabling all comments on all posts to try and curb this problem.  Hopefully, these cyber-whores will move on to another unsuspecting blog once they can no longer post comments here.  I also have a feeling perhaps we are getting hit from Twitter and RSS automatic feeds of the blog posts and we are getting bad traffic from there.  I will try to see if I can disable cross-posting on other boards and disable the RSS feeds to see if this will help.  Again, I apologize to anyone who wants to legitimately comment for the time being, but this is the next logical step in fixing this problem.

If anyone else has any questions or ideas on how to remedy this or where we are possibly getting hit from, etc. or why they are doing this, please feel free to contact Kevin about this matter. Thank you for understanding and again I apologize for disabling comments, especially over the LeMons race weekend!

If you've ever watched the cult-ish flick "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", you'll recall a scene where the intrepid Hunter S. Thompson is wandering around in the desert, dust blowing everywhere, his face so bundled up in rags all that is visible is his trademark cigarette holder protruding from within.  Motorcycles were roaring all about, it was ultimate chaos. 

Imagine now, a scene not completely dissimilar:  it's the dead center of South Carolina.  February.  Its pouring down rain, a sandy, silty mud pervading every horizontal surface.  Race cars thundering to life and everyone bundled up to ward off hypothermia.  This is the Southern Discomfort.  The 24 Hours of LeMons South, Winter 2010.

There is currently a flood warning for the town of Kershaw...which just happens to be where I am typing from right now.  As McCall says, that's a darker shade of green than we've ever seen before.  Never fear, the Tunachuckers are ensconsed within the comfortable, dry, propane-heated confines of a car port and several dozen blue tarps.  Katie and I arrived this morning around 9AM, to find Matt, Gary, Alicia, Anthony and Jamie crawling out of their pop-up camper and conversion van.  We immediately set to work erecting the carport, and set a World Record Time for putting the thing together.  We were motivated.  Rain, cold, and the real possibility of losing digits will do that.  Of course, as soon as we had some rudimentary protection from the elements, the grill was unloaded and breakfast preparations began. 

We weren't here for an hour and the fire department was notified of our presence.

Luckily, they were able to extinguish our bacon grease fire using good old fashioned South Carolina swamp water:

We were able to salvage most of breakfast; a carton of eggbeaters, and most of 2 pounds of bacon.  The bagels, however, ended up blackened.

On the plus side, the conflagration warmed up the carport considerably, and neither the tarps nor the carport cover got singed at all...probably due to them being manufactured in  the People's Republic of China, likely out of a special secret proprietary mix of asbestos and lead. 

Meanwhile, there were other, actual race events going on.  We passed tech with low-flying colors- the first time ever we haven't had to make any repairs to the car for the eagle-eyed tech inspectors to declare it (sort-of) track worthy.  BS Inspection was the usual -bye-, though the judges did take the time to instruct some other, possibly budget-busting teams that our car was the way to do LeMons proper.  Once again, we were honored, and presented the judges with a couple of jars of our Famous Apple Pie, which they seem to really like despite (because of) it being brewed in a radiator.

It continues to rain torrentially here.  Luckily, we have hot chili, cold beer, wi-fi, and several heaters.  Additional tarps have been added in an attempt to qualify our shanty for Obama's energy conservation tax credits.  We'll let you know how that goes.  Meantime, continue to check in here for updates throughout the weekend, as long as the laptop I'm typing on doesn't get waterlogged and short out. 

Chicago isn't a bad town.  But, at this moment in time, its not exactly where I want to be.  Luckily, in a few short hours, I won't be.  That's when my flight finally leaves O'Hare and makes a beeline for the Queen City- Charlotte, NC.  From there, I'll drive home, pick up the trailer and Katie, head to Rob's house, nab the Volvo, and head for Kershaw, SC. 

Home of Carolina Motorsports Park.  The future crime scene of Southern Discomfort: Winter 2010 24 Hours of LeMons South.

I've been here in Chi-town since Sunday night, and the timing of this little extracurricular couldn't have been worse.  I was afraid I might not make it back for the race.  But, luck shone upon me.  Still I have to leave again Monday morning and head back to Chicago.  But that's hardly worth worrying about.  I'll be back for the race. 

The rest of the Tunachuckers have been absolutely pitching in to make up for me being out of the picture.  Last night, Rob, Anthony, and McCall called me from my house to let me know they were picking up the grill, propane tanks, heater, and all the tools they could lay their hands on.  Katie's taken care of all the food.  Matt's landing in Kershaw first, the Shock Force of the Tunachuckers, to stake a claim on some prime real estate near the starting line and a power outlet.  He emailed me this morning from his Blackberry:

"Trunk is full of labatts, molson, hoffman hot dogs and camping gear. We should be good to go."

White hots and LaBatt's.  Man, I can't wait to get there.

I realize I must outdate my first post mere seconds after its glorious publication.  I found a large error in Mike's last post.  He neglected to include a team member.  Without further delay...

Mike Pittinaro: He has the out-of-control car control that one only gets from being born far above the mason-dixon line in snowy upstate New York, and the only stash capable of producing not one, but two spare engines for a Volvo Amazon.  Sometimes, he gets a little too excited, and sometimes he gets black flags, but he's the cap, and we are pleasantly stuck with him.  He has ambition that only Trump can match, even if things often require more time than there is in a day/month/millenia.  Without him, it wouldn't be.  What would Lemons be, without the Tunachuckers?

Well, probably just like it is now, but with one less car.

I'll bet that title has never been uttered in the blogododecahedron (recently changed from sphere - due to a term paper by a climate activist during her underwater basketweaving degree -http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ipccs-snow-melt-claim-based-on-student-essay-report/109510-11.html).

Politics aside, I sit as an outsider for this upcoming race in all of South Carolinas spring fury.  Yes, folks, February constitutes spring here in the foothills.  As a result, expect wild temperature swings, rain off and on, and lots of slipping and sliding around.  I beleieve that the track surface should be familair to those who've driven at Lemons before, as water seems to have little effect on the coefficient of friction for oil, transmission fluid or brake fluid.  I fully expect our team to come home with the win.  Of course, I expected that the first time, when we realized fuel was important, not only in the tank, but in the engine.  I also thought the second time would bring us glory, and it did, but mostly because of a transmission replacement and a mid-race engine swap.  The third race was also bound for glory, right up until we saw the flames and smoke.  This one, though, this one is it.  The engine is sort of brand new, the brakes are mostly good, the fuel cell is working and fire producing tendencies of the fuel lines under the hood has been reduced, if only slightly.  We've even though of ways to make our race car handle better.  Imagine that.

I will be at home for most of the race, being a Dad instead.  I might bring my oldest to the track for a looky-loo but I don't think I can walk more than 6" from his side given the pit conditions of the CMP weekend.  Picture this, your car has been black flagged three times in the past hour, you haven't eaten in a day, the brakes are barely there, and now the engine is smoking something awful.  You pull into the pits, trying to keep the engine alive long enough to get to your trailer and team, scraping over every bump, smelling the noxious fumes, hearing only the engine whimpering to you.  The cheapo plastic windscreen may as well be made of cardboard, as dirty as it is, and your helmet has an opening the size of two quarters, but was on sale.  Not running over children is the last thing on your mind.  Even if the brakes worked and the steering wheel was connected to the front wheels somehow.  I'll be holding hands with the lad the whole time, thanks.

So with this I wish my team good luck - it's a long road ahead, full of rain, cold, glory, blood and fun.  The last is most vital, "this can't not be fun" is the mantra.  Let's see to it, shall we?  1st place or last, shiny side up or smashed to bits.  100 HP or running on one cylinder.  Have fun out there guys - I'll miss being a major part of the team this time.

For whatever reason, when you tell people you're going to Chicago, 9 times out of 10 their first reaction is "Oh, the Windy City?"  This seems especially to be the case if you are going in the dead of winter. 

Like I am.

So, let me get this out of the way right off.  Greetings from Chicagoland!  Chi-town.  "The Windy City".  Someone give me a bowl of sausage! 
You know, the funny thing is, I don't even think most folks know the origins of the nickname "The Windy City".  They believe it has something to do with the weather here (hence, probably why they often say that when you go there in the winter).  In fact, as far as I know, it has nothing to do with the amount of wind Chicago gets.  My recollection (which may or may not be accurate) is that "The Windy City" refers to the copious hot air famously spewed by the various politicians that have effluenced from this metropolis. 

And now I am going to make the world's greatest series of segways in the history of the English Language.

Before we began competing in the 24 Hours of LeMons, I had never, ever used the word "effluence" in a sentence before.  Thank you, Jay Lamm, for increasing my vocabulary by nearly 0.01%. 

But LeMons hasn't only broadened our team's lexicon.  Thanks to this race series, the growing army nof people involved with the Tunachuckers have become veritable experts in everything Amazon.  We have rebuilt and modified the brake system.  Swapped engines and transmissions.  Upgraded the suspension.  We converted what was essentially a rusted-out relic of a parts car, headed for certain doom in the cold, steel jaws of the crusher, into one helluva little race car. 

We race again this weekend- and my work-required trip to Chicago could not have come at a worse possible time.  But thanks to 3 races worth of experience, we're actually ready.  No, really!  The spare parts have been loaded up, the car is together and running, hell, we even have a menu planned for the weekend and a shopping list compiled.  We are on the ball.  Come Thursday, we're going to hit CMP like the pros we envision ourselves to be.  LeMons veterans.

I figured I'd conclude this blog entry with a little rundown of the team members.  The great thing about our team is that everyone has their own specialized skills and contributes in a meaningful and critical way.  And as more people have joined the Tunachuckers, our collective talent grows and grows.  In no real order whatsoever, here are the Tunachuckers:

-Brian Bassett: tall and skinny, able to crawl under the car with the jack stand on their lowest setting.  Apt blown tranny changer, proficient welder, occassional black-flag getter, and all-around good sport.  Brian hasn't been as involved with the team for this next race, due to being a new dad (x2), but hopefully he will be able to rejoin at some point.

-Jamie Dewberry: Jamie started off driving for us, but after nearly killing Cartman in the first race, decided that he'd stick to crewing.  Jamie is a great team player, always ready and willing (if not able) to help out, and has tried, and failed, to give us both in-car communications and video. 

-Clinton Enzel: Despite being the youngest member of the team, and one of the most recent to join, Clint's willingness to help and curious disregard to his own well-being will serve him well on the team.  He's had a crash course on Amazon front suspensions, and is pretty knowledgable on springs.

-Anthony Fernandez: orinally a crew member, Anthony later took leave of his senses and decided he wanted to drive.  Besides driving, Anthony is a whiz at wiring, replacing transmissions, fuel cell installation, and changing the oil, but NOT the filter.  He's also incurably enthusiastic, and never ever seems to complain or get angry at anyone or anything.

-Katie Grau: Katie just joined the team for the last race.  But she brings a definite artistic balance to our male engineer-dominated bunch.  Katie oversaw the transformation of our little green Volvo into a bright red sled, and her creative touches can be seen all over the sheetmetal.  For the upcoming race, in tribute to the immolation of last Fall's race, she treated the front of the car to an old-school flame job.

-McCall Hemingway: McCall's joining of the team was incremental.  Slowly he was sucked in, and now he, like Anthony, has succumbed to the siren song of LeMons and drives the car.  McCall, along with helpo from Brian, orchestrated the conversion from Girling to Mustang front brakes, and has intimate familairity with all things hydraulic. 

-Matt Meyers: Our tranny savior.  Matt is new to both our workplace and our team, but that didn't stop him from wanting in on the hot LeMons action.  He's rebuilt our water-logged M40 tranny, as well as the burnt and busted M40 we limped to the finish of the last race in.  he never seems to tire of the "blown tranny" jokes, either. 

-Rob Scharpf:  his last name is a seemingly random assortment of consonants, and one gets the feeling the vowel was an afterthought, merely to appease the gods of the English language.  No matter.  Rob is the "steady hand on the tiller" of the team, the wise guru, the sayer of profound things, and (I think) the only driver to have never, ever gotten black flagged. 

-Marilyn Scharpf: Rob's wife, though no one holds that against her.  She's more enthustic about her significant other doing Lemons than any other woman has ever been.  No one is quite sure why.  She even surrenders her BMW's parking place in the garage for the Amazon, and cooks us fabulous meals. 

-Gary Scharpf: Rounding out the trifecta of Scharpfs, Gary doesn't drive, but helps out as often as his job allows with sundry wrenching tasks, dry wit, and beer consumption.  We've tried unsuccessfully to get him to allow us to swipe parts (ie the drivetrain) off his M3 for the car, but thus far leveller heads have prevailed. 

-Matt Scimone: The New York contingent.  We usually only see Matt aorund race time, but he stays involved with the emails and always does more than his fair share during the race weekend to help out.  For the upcoming race, we sent him the carburetors from the Volvo which he meticuously rebuilt, obtaining valuable parts and advice from actual Swedes.  Matt is also our fastest driver, though that isn't saying much. 

This list is by no means comprehensive.  So many people have helped or contributed to the team that to list them all would give me carpal tunnel.  So, consider this a thanks to all the wives, girlfriends, mistresses, friends, Romans, countrymen, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, lawyers, co-workers, surgeons, orderlies, nurses, biologists, and circus freaks that have made the Tunachuckers what they are today.  Whatever that is.

The race is on in 4 days.  Ready?

Since we "rebooted" the whole website concept, adding this blog and trying to make general team operations more open and democratic and transparent and whatnot, I've attempted to go back and chonicle events that have transpired since the last time I updated the original website, approximately 10,000 years ago, back when Al Gore first invented the intrawebs. 

But we've been making progress above and beyond what I've documented here, and strangely I can't seem to type as fast as we wrench.  So today I'm breaking chronological order and bringing you an UP TO THE MINUTE update:

We have achieved internal combustion.

After bleeding the brakes, swapping out all the old fluids for new, synthetic ones, fixing Matt's rebuild carburetors, bleeding the brakes, installing the carburetors, setting the timing, bleeding the brakes some more, installing the fenders...you get the impression. 

Unfortunately, today happened to be a rare day in South Carolina.  We woke up to something white and cold and crusty covering the ground and vegetation.  The roads didn't seem to have the coefficient of friction they typically do, either.  The backyard where _I_ lived looked like this:

Rob's house wasn't quite so ensconsed in winter, but the cul-de-sac on which they live had been transformed into a skating rink.  After getting the car together, Rob, Anthony, and myself took turns practicing reverse 180's, fishtails, sliding sideways stops, and other useful racing maneovers with the Volvo.  Anthony has some evidence of this, and hopefully he will post the pictures and videos.  I have only this picture, taken after the car was parked back in its space in the garage, and we were inside warming ourselves by the fire, drinking Rob's beer, and listening to whatever the hell it is they play on NPR radio on Saturday night. 

Some of the great progress we made was due to a post-work (our real jobs, that is) work session Wednesday night:

But a despite the weather, a good deal of progress was made today.  Gary, Rob, Anthony, and myself were all present.  Katie, aka "artcarchick" came along too, since the power was out at the house.  McCall started to come, but about 2 miles from Rob's house his Mustang (worst car ever in the snow) refused to make it up a moderate grade, and instead decided to make it into a large ditch, so he turned around and went home, after being retrived from said dish by a friendly Jeep. 

Marilyn made 17 different types of pasta for dinner, and we drank beer, wine, and fermented pine needles (I'm not making this up), and watched SPEED vision to round out the day. 

So we're ready to race...basically.  The hood still needs to go on.  And somehow, while I'm in Chicago this week (again, real job) the gear, spares, medical supplies and liquor all needs to get packed up so we can head out to CMP on Thursday night.  Yeah, the race is _next_ weekend. 

One last picture.  This is the wiring diagram that Anthony drew up for the car.  He rewired the entire car, since it had been pretty well charred up after the last race.  I think it took him longer to draw up the wiring diagram than it did for him to perform the rewire.  Simplicity rocks. 

When the 2010 24 Hours of LeMons schedule came out late in 2009, we were shocked and awed to find that the race organizers deemed CMP worthy and special enough to host THREE races in 2010.  One in February, one in May, and one all the way down in September.  Of course, if you look at the evolution of this race, you'd also see that prior to 2010, there have been only about 20 LeMons races in total, and for just 2010, there are fully 21 scheduled.

I guess you could say this LeMons racing thing is catching on.

After balding our tires, scorching our front suspension, and completely backwoods-engineering our fuel induction and brakes to finish the last race, we once again faced a laundry list of tasks to be completed prior to the first 2010 race.  Rob's garage was once again selected as the warmest and driest place to perform major car surgery, and the Tunachucker Volvo took up residence alongside Rob's 1959 Berkely and a half-half dozen motorcycles. Then the disassembly began....

Front suspension: off

Brakes: off

Transmission: off

Carburetors: off

Fuel cell: off

The front suspension was treated to all brand new poly bushings.  $58, courtesy our enablers at IPD (www.ipdusa.com).  The lower A-arm on the passenger side (and its corresponding retaining bolt) was bent and toasted; some time in my shop press brought it back to par.  The bent mounting bolt took some (ehem) *creative* wrench usage to remove.

The new bushings should keep alignment aligned and make tossing the old Swede into the bends at CMP much more rewarding and consistent.  We even replaced the shock bushings with some cheapey poly bushings from Autozone.  The shock mounting studs were badly bent from a wheel-loss incident prior to the spring '09 race.  Luckily, Rob's mystery collection of pre-Nixon-era tools yielded a nut splitter and a die that set the shock stud threads right again.

The front springs were another matter.  During the course of the last race, I casually went around bouncing on the front bumpers of other teams' cars and came to the highly scientific conclusion that our car was way, way too softly sprung.  Stiffening up the front would help alleviate some of the omnipresent oversteer, as well as prevent diving during braking and listing (hard to port!  hard to starboard!) during turning.  McCall sacrificed his old Mustang front springs, which, cut down, yielded the desired ride height and much, much less compression per weight applied.  Cutting was accomplished in much the same way as we'd done before with the original springs.  That is, with a lot of fire, sparking, spinning blades, uninsulated wiring, and unguarded grinders.  But this time, we had an actual, real-life spring manufacturing engineer helping us.  So we were _sure_ to be successful!  Right, Clint?

Now that we've (sort-of) gotten our wheels back on this internet thingie, I figured I might as well play a bit of catch-up for our loyal (and few) fans who have been occassionally checking the ole website and finding, well, squat.

The Tunachuckers finished off the 2009 season with a rousing 40-something-th place finish at the 24 Hours of LeMons South Fall race.  However, unlike past races where the car's occassional fits of non-running-ness have played a large role in our midpack finishes, this time we had only ourselves to blame.

Well, _mostly_ ourselves to blame.

We got black flags.  A lot of 'em.  As captain, I have to take the blame for setting the standard here- a mere THREE laps into my first driving stint and I'd gone "wheels off" and was thusly penalized by having this welded to our roof:

More black flags ensued.  Only our eldest, and thus by extension most conservative driver, Graybeard was able to escape the blight of the penalty box.  Of course, he never once reminded us of this fact.  Naw.  Not Rob.  Never.

But there was more.  Not only did I set the precedent of black flag attainment for our team, but at the end of the first day, I somehow managed to get the car to catch on fire.  Of course, this had to happen at the point on the track furthest from any possible help.  This was one of the more exciting moments of my life.  I can recall it vividly in my mind's eye, including the running internal dialogue I was having.  Basically, it went something like this:

"Hmm, there's smoke coming..."

"Why is there orange?"

"Oh shit, those are flames shooting out the hood!"

"Oh crap, why don't the brake work?"

*steers car into the dirt and spins out*

"Let's see if I can get out of this flaming pile in less time than I had to during tech inspection."

"I really hope my mom doesn't find out about this."

Luckily, racing was almost over for that day and we had all night to fix the damage incurred by the (either brake overheating or caburetor leakage-induced) immolation.  The repair consisted mostly of me feeling really, really bad about breaking the car and drinking beer while Katie and Rob rewired it, and Brian went out for Arby's.  I recall there being some drama about melted SU carburetor parts that we had to fabricate out of RTV, and *hope* they'd be set come morning.  Anc come morning, they were, and we were back out racing again.

Despite having a lot of effort tied up in rebuilding a fresh B20 engine prior to the race, nobody thought the new engine ran particularly well, and especially after the fire, nobody seemed to feel the car handled particularly well, either.  This was likely due to the suspension bushings which were turned into smoldering chunks of mishapen ash, resulting in Camber, Caster, and Toe that could best be described as "variable".  But we soldiered on, taking the checkered flag Sunday night and also taking home the covetted "Highest Placing 70's (or earlier) Car" trophy.  This marked our 5th award in 3 races, which if nothing else, proves that the folks who give out the trophies have a twisted sense of what constitutes "achievement".

After a post-race dinner Sunday at a Chili's somewhere in a very flat part of SC, during which we tried to figure out how much we'd all spent on the race and deciding we'd be better off just drinking Margueritas, we all returned to our respective domiciles, to shower, sleep, and dream about...the next race.

Which brings us (in a roundabout sort of way) to where we are now.  And that seems like a pretty good stopping point for tonight.  I will leave you with a URL where you can find all sorts of LeMon-y pictures, including many of the pictures I'll use in this blog.  Point your browser at: http://www.roadflares.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=395 and browse around a bit.  Its a good way to kill some of that overly productive time you've been having lately.  Promise.

Wow, our very own blog.  This is...amazing.  Now I can type things into the intranets and anyone, anywhere will be able to read them.  Truly, we live in an enlightened age.  Now, let me find some fart jokes and pixelated kinky porn to post...

Well, in case you're too lazy to read the header, this is "volvoclearinghouse", and I, my friends, have somehow been voted Captain of our band of crapcan racers.  I also go by "Mike", (and several other choice nicknames) which is what my brother wanted me to go by here, "to avoid confusing the readers", but, eh, screw 'em.  I like my handle.  I sometimes abbreviate it to "VCH", 'cause I'm kinda into that whole brevity thing.  If you stumble around the tunachucker website (www.tunachuckers.com, conveniently enough) you'll discover how I happened upon my moniker. 

This is a quick post- no pictures, no embedded video, or anything...just something to get this blog-thing rolling and whet your appetite for more.  I can't promise daily updates or anything obscene like that, but I will definitely endeavor to update this more often than I had updated the website.  And besides, I'm giving out authoring priveleges like an internet startup gives out stock, so (hopefully) there'll be some other voices heard 'round here than just mine.  Its the Democratization of the Tunachuckers.  Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid. 

--VCH

Yes, I know, very original title.  And to all you post whores out there (who may or may not refer to themselves as "P05T WH0R3S", or some variant thereof...) who are desperate to have the first post or reply in a thread - Jealous much?  I mean, it doesn't get much better than creating your own board and then having the first, fresh post on it.  Almost as good as cracking open a fresh bottle of Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey and having your first glass.

Plus, after many hours of downloading and uploading files, install scripts, editing php and CSS files, image editing, and all the other things that go into hatching a new custom blog site (as well as the majority of a 12 pack of Miller lite...), I'm a little short on creativity right now.  So, hence the pathetic title.

But, on to the point of this pointless post.  A while ago (post-Christmasey time), my bro (and Tunachuckers team captain, so I've been told?) Mike asked me to make a bloggey-type-thingie for his website (he's not so technically gifted when it comes to computers and technology...)  So, some research and virtual elbow-grease later, I came up with this blog for the Tunachuckers LeMons racing team!

Now, the whole team (and several other contributors, as well as their 3 fans) can post all about their adventures without requiring any knowledge of HTML, FTP, or any other computer-related acronyms!  I'm sure at some points I'll have to update the main site for them as well, but for the day-to-day minutia, feel free to come here to hear all the rantings of several mad-men as they hammer away at their Sweedish engineering marvel!

Also, Mike has been posting some Tunachuckers-related articles over at Roadflares.org that I will be re-posting here for continuity and your reading enjoyment. Unfortunately, I can't repost comments though. Still, I suggest you head over to that site once you are done here as there is a lot of other good stuff over there (even if it's not Tunachuckers-related).

Well, that's all for now.  T-Minus 13 days and counting until the LeMons Southern Discomfort race at the Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, SC!  So, stay tuned and see what happens!

Link: http://www.roadflares.org/blog/?p=2244

As part of our Wall of Blame (WOB) induction, our team was asked to come up with a team quote, which would be inscribed into our plaque for posteriors. In the end, we went with “This can’t not be fun.” – simple, to the point, and memorable. But there was Comedy Gold in them thar hills, my boy. Below, a list of the contenders for Tunachucker WOB Plaque Quote:

TUNACHUCKERS 24 HOURS OF LEMONS QUOTES:

“When life hands you LeMons, go racing.”

“More fiber is more important than fewer calories. Fiber makes calories go out your butt.”

“We got no brakes! OK pump them up. STOP pumping, STOP pumping they’re on fire!”

“Who is that on fire over there? Is that us? Yep that’s us.”

“Only use the brakes if you absolutely have to.”

“Next driver change, we’ve got to check the gas and fill the master cylinder.”

“I am NOT spreading that Dana diff again.”

“I had no choice but to go in the grass”.

“THAT came out of the transmission”.

“You can either hold it in fourth and drive with one hand, or just leave it in third and keep an eye on the tach”.

“I think you hit him pretty hard. There are pieces of the Miata in the car”.

“Yeah, I’m 2 seconds a lap slower, but it’s gonna take a lot of laps to make up for that half-hour penalty”.

“I’m surprised it would fire at all with the distributer 180 out”.

“Does any other car here even have points?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but, um, I peed in the seat”.

“We can watch the Curse on you-tube, we need to change this engine NOW”.

“1966 Volvo 122. Runs, good brakes, some rust. $500″

“We are doing this. We are so doing this.”

“Bonjour. That’s about all the French I know. Oh, I also know “Citron”, which is apparently the French word for “lemon”, though it sounds suspiciously like “Citroen” to me. Of course, to anyone familiar with French automobiles, that’s probably not a coincidence.”

“How much fun can a tuna chuck?”

“Hey, We Had to Call Ourselves Something….”

“The lack of creativity here is staggering. “

“Its amazing how much easier it is for a team to work together when no one has any idea where they’re going”

“Ran when parked, my ass”

“Fang apple pie stealin good for nuttins”

Link: http://www.roadflares.org/blog/?p=2221

Three, count ‘em, three of the best links you’ll click on all week:

Link #1: Engines. Porsche. Audi. Cosworth. Renault. Peugeot. BMW. F1 Engines. This is the pinnacle of IC engine development today.

Link #2: Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot and Trade Show, or “OFASTS”. Oklahoma! Where the ammo comes raining down the plain! O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A Oklahoma!

Link #3: Finally found it- this is the autoblog posting of the first six inductees to the 24 Hours of LeMons Wall of Blame- and guess who’s got the lead photograph?

The Tunachuckers are now even more (in)famous! The 24 Hours of Lemons has officially added us to their ignominious Wall of Blame! What an honor. Now we have to come up with a quote, to be engraved forever into a cheaply made Chinese plaque, to be hung on the wall at LeMons HQ.

From The 24 Hours of LeMons:

Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 11:52 AM

LEMONS GREATS IMMORTALIZED ON THE WALL OF BLAME

LeMons stuff never lasts: Cars explode or are hauled off by angry wives. Teams break up due to Sawz-All fights and/or prison terms. Brilliant themes become tired after the fifth time around for a Mr. T costume.

But starting today, a rarified handful of LeMons over-underachievers will be immortalized forever through the LeMons Wall of Blame. Each inductee will be honored with a plaque made of Chinese lead, to be hung at LeMons HQ next to such other priceless artifacts as the original Noch Einer Scheiß-E30 stencil and Judge Jonny’s first powdered wig–an object equally redolent of history, stale tobacco smoke, and scalp smegma.

Our first six W.O.B. inductees, in no particular order, are presented below. Round Two will be determined by public voting next weekend on Jalopnik.com.

THE TUNACHUCKERS: An unbeatable HOB combination: terrible Volvo 122, Index of Effluency winner, and propensity to burst into flames.