Race Report: LeMons New England 2009

OK this is way past due, but there you go. My first official automobile race was at the LeMons New England (in Stafford Springs CT) last July, and it was an absolute blast. I even slept in the race car the first night, which was great until the fire extinguisher acidentally went off and... well nevermind. Explaining it to the EMTs was embarrassing enough.

We held 5th, 6th and 7th place (out of 56 cars!) pretty much the whole first day, until the back concrete wall decided to merge with our front fender

Sunday we started in 13th place (time lost spent repairing car after wall) and held 13th until the VERY LAST LAP when we let someone by we should not have (it's a long story).

Video news story here: http://www.fox61.com/news/­wtic-lemons-story-0713,0,­5382994.story

More pictures here: http://cid-ecf7ab830246e19f.skydrive.live.com/albums.aspx

Here we are, car #22 on the second day of racing. The white Impala next to us would eventually pass us to claim 13th place - it was a fight all the way and very very fun. The turn you see is at the end of the high-speed straightaway and it's quite the pinch point - everybody waiting to brake until the last possible moment and throwing their cars into that turn. At least one car lost a wheel on that turn...




Ever see the movie "Days Of Thunder"? It's kinda like that, only without the Scientology:




Here is the car being towed off the track after kissing "The Wall Of Shame" Saturday evening. Coming off the high-banked 180 turn at the back of the track the driver tried to whip it around to gain on another car but got a mouthful of concrete wall instead. No injuries. We worked on the car the rest of the night and couldn't make much progress with it; drove it Sunday in it's wounded state and did our best to hold position. The handling was nearly dangerous at times, and we kept it pretty slow most of the day, just trying to reach the finish line.

Tentative 2010 Racing Calendar

Tentative 2010 Racing Calendar:

Car: February 5-7 for the DRTy eThirties LeMons Southern Discomfort race @ Carolina Motorsports Park

Car: April 3 for the DRTy eThirties Chump race @ Virginia International Raceway

Bike: April 10,11 for the CCS Motorcycle race @ Carolina Motorsports Park

Bike: April 30-May2 for the CCS Motorcycle race @ New Jersey Motorsports Park (only if BKSR is a FAIL)

Contraption: May 1 for the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race

Bike: May 26-29 for the CCS Motorcycle race @ Summit Point Raceway West Virginia

Car: June 18 for the DRTy eThirties LeMons Capitol Offense race @ Summit Point Raceway West Virginia

I have not yet marked the Kart or Lawn Mower racing schedules yet - they have not been posted.

HattenBus Alarm System - Poll

We are now deciding which pair of gargoyles we should invite to guard over the HattenBus.

Which of the following three would be best for mounting on the front top, where the painted over 4 inch lights are? (the "eyebrow" lights)

Please leave a comment ... Will it be Gargoyle Bachelor 1, 2, or 3?


Gargoyle Bachelor 1: 19 inches high, 13 wide:





Gargoyle Bachelor 2: 9 inches by 9 inches, we could add many things to be "held" in its claws



Gargoyle Bachelor #3: 15 inches by 14 inches, and the globes light up (we can wire them to turn signals or rowdy light sequencers) :




Not sure what to feed the beasties - I hope bugs collected at 60 MPH will be enough. Squirrels, maybe.

"Between The Races" Update

Dad here again. Just a quick "between the races" update. I successfully survived my first big motorcycle race weekend (3 races), and while I proudly came in last each race (pride saver: my bike weighed more and had a 1/3 the horsepower of the others) I did NOT crash out as several others did each race... i.e. race 1 turn 1, three bikes go down in the fight for the slot. Here are the results if you want a laugh: CCS VIR June 20. Next set of races should be better as I'll be able to stay for the races in the proper class. Unfortunately, none of the 3 photograph companies that were there taking lots of photos have posted them yet, so these I snapped at the track will have to do.

The HattenBus did spectacularly well by the way. The odometer rolled over to 300000 about 4 miles from the race track (at 12:30 at night).


During the day however, it was a might-bit-toasty, as you can see from the pic of the thermometer (105 degrees). But hey: at least the humidity had fallen down to 42%. The screens on the windows and a powerful fan were life savers.



Next up: the July 11th 24 Hour of LeMons race in Stafford CT, with a car this time. w00t!

Kitty!

Juno! This is a lovable, fuzzy, kitten. Our relatives are very happy. They got her when she was 8 1/2 weeks old. Her name is Juno. She is either a love-ball or a fur-ball. We cant tell the difference. This picture was taken by C.A.R.

Airsoft

it is amazingly awsome.

Airsoft+tank=AWSOME!!!!

The DRTy e-Thirties Race Team

Dad's car race team, the DRTy e-Thirties, are officially entered into the 24 Hours of LeMons Series, first race is July 10-12 in Stafford, CT. Some of us hope to be camping in the HattenBus... join us - we have cookies!

Shirts etc available now, here: http://www.cafepress.com/DRTy_eThirties

April snow showers bring May frozen flowers

Spring is here... or so they say.

It snowed the other day and into the evening, a nice light snow onto the flowers & poor besieged honeybees.

It is exciting to ride the motorcycle home while it's snowing... very pretty.... very pretty dangerous!

HattenBus, in skivies

We cleaned up, scrubbed, and grinded(?) the rust & grime off the HattenBus last Saturday. Antonio & Grandpa & Grandma made a surprise visit - and there was much rejoicing!

Here is the beginning of the rust-grinding fun:

"He just wants a Hog-eyed girl!"


K-Girl fills out the Sodoko puzzle while Mom peels off the paper used to mask off for painting...

The priming went pretty well; about 8 hours to tape off the bus (it started raining partway though!) and another 5 to paint. Eight cans of Rustoleoum Primer later... The Gray Lady is born! We did not clean or primer the roof, and good thing we didn't try because we were going until 10pm when we finally ferried it over to the inspection station...

LOL cat sez

the next picture will be when we primer-painted it. also a poem will be submitted!

The Walking Machine blog

Dad here, again.

The Walking Machine building posts have been moved to their own blog so as not to flood the HattenBlog.

http://thewalkingmachine.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Nutritious Accoutrement's

Dad here again; thought I'd show off the the cool birthday presents I just received for turning 30 for the 16th time. Appearently my Awesomeness is only exceeded by the nutritiousness of my dinnerware. Mums made the plate with built in sprinkles; K-girl made the everlasting sugar-cone coffee cup.

My girls: they look out for me!

Introducing the Walking Machine

Dad here. Still trying to build a race vehicle for the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race which is on May 2nd this year. To the right is the inspiration for the design. The race requires that the vehicle be human powered, complete the 13 miles course, and even swim through part of the Baltimre Inner Harbor... which as you can imagie causes many, uh, unintended baths.

I've got a book full of design details that I've been working on for almost a year now (since 'K' and I cheered on last years race) however we just now started building... oonly about 3 weeks to go, and some of that time is already taken for gymnastics, bus conversion, soccer, etc.

Here is a pic where you can see the quality engineering that is going into this monster... anybody out there know the sheer streangth of duct tape? We are building beams from drywall studs for lightness; duct tape for the prototype / layout, rivit & welding for the build. Stay tuned for more disasterous details! w00t!

Mini-Motos

Exhilaration, one of the most unique feelings on earth. when you combine it with riding 45 miles per hour on a motorcycle that is only 28 inches high while on a small track with 20 other people. this is awesome. We peoples are thinking of taking up this radical sport. Sandy-Hook speedway is the nearest minimoto race track.

Here is the wikipedia entry on MiniMoto.

Foam Weapons building

(edited to use public domain photo from tiradora - Maethodoron Winter Invasion )

If you are interested in dagorhir war games, but there are no groups in your area than you can always get together with your friends in your bacyard! it's as simple as that so get out there and start pummeling each other, right? wait, you have to use something to battle with! if you go to this site (DAGORHIR) than it will show you how to make every leagal dagorhir weapon available! these weapons are only hand-made so there is no shortcut to building weapons. personally, I think arrows are the easiest to make but the only downside to that is that you have to have a bow to shoot with.

Coolest Shirt Ever

This is Dad reporting on the story of the hunt for The Most Awesome Shirt Ever.

While at the beach, scrounging around in a second-hand shop I was blessed with the sight of my niece's visceral reaction to a an old 1950's shirt, the fabric of which is pictured here, you can click on it to get the full beauty of the weave.

Her reaction was so ghastly that I think she almost threw up! So, of course I bought it! She won't talk about "The Incident", will you A?

So anyway, it was such a treat to harass the poor lass that I decided to make it a lifes mission to acquire ugly shirts to present at appropriate times (or better yet, inappropriate times). With that in mind, we headed to the fabric store. Unfortunately we were all distracted by cool patterns. I started making this shirt, but once I hit the complex collar and was reduced to a snivilling pool of lameness, Mom stepped in, pushed me aside, "stole my hammer", and saved me. You have to look really close to see the awesomeness of the tiny symbols.

Close-up of collar area: Whole shirt:

Kira's Bus

Here is Kira's proposed paint scheme:

Dad thinks the dots should flash randomly. This is Kiras design. The black lines at the top are an angels halo and wings. maybe it should have more purple and neon green. The back windows will have a stained glass border. The back side of the smiley face pop out stop sign will say "Don't worry be Happy"

Dagorhir summary

(Edited to include video)

Dagorhir, a place where you can get out your anger on people you don't have a clue are while at the same time, making friends with your company. So you ask "what the hell is dagorhir?' well, hold your horses, i'll tell you. Dagorhir is medival warfare where you can hit people as hard as you want with foam weapons. in order to play in the big games, you first have to join a company, such as Orks, Elves, Narnia, Mongouls, humans and romans. If you are interested,You can find a company in your area if you click on this hyperlink . once you have found a company and are in contact with them, you must make your weapons of foam. there are many utinsels for THWAKing with so pick which one suits you. if you are the action type, you should choose a sword, axe flail or club. if you aren't really that anxious about bieng hit a whole lot than a pike or an archery bow would be your choice. the good thing about Guard is that they have practice every week in Olney, MD and thier practices are for all chapters/groups and they also have weapon-making workshops.

If only...

HattenBus Makes it's Debut

Here's the school bus that we've captured from the wilds of New Jersey.

We are still in heated discussion on the paint job, theme, and accessories. All we know for sure is that it can't stay International School Bus Yellow (yes: that's an officially registered color!), so we need to paint it before getting license plates.

That nifty stop sign that pops out has to be removed as well, but we plan on converting it to something else, such as a smiley face or some such.

We have many and many more plans for this puppy!

• RV Camper
• Motorcycle hauler for races
• Gymnastics Team hauler for far-away meets (and they all are it seems!)
• Walking Machine hauler for Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race
• MiniMoto race pit bus
• PartyBus for group trips to Orchestra events, RobotFest, Dagorhir, Nashville, RollerDerby, Hershey Park, etc etc...

Welcome to HattenBlog!

When you are on this page, you can check out some of the things that we peoples do for our past time. On the sidebar to the right, you can see what the heck we're up to. if you have any questions, leave a comment. Thanks, we peoples hope to hear from you!