24 hours of LeMons - Collie WA

M1474 · Postby **M1474** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:37 am

http://24hoursoflemons.com.au/event/collie-motorplex/

There seems to be pretty strong interest for this.

Let's get the ball rolling...

If you have a feeling you would like to pilot, wrench, watch, hurl abuse, dress up or throw wads of cash at this project, this is the place to register your interest.

M1474 · Postby **M1474** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:41 am

My intention is to do all of the above.

M1474 · Postby **M1474** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 2:57 pm

Flick me a msg if you want in on the fb group chat, that's where it's all going down. I'm sure it will devolve into dick pics soon but whatever.

We need

Drivers
1
2
3
4
5

Some where to work on the thing
1

Shell
1 Richards SE $0
2 Lyalls (Hansons) NB8A $carton

Engine
1 Astina 1.8 $120
2 Barn find 1.6 $0

Cage

Sponsorship
1

People to come and camp down at collie for the weekend
1 Tilson fam
2 Grigsby fam
3 Ellisons?

gslender · Postby **gslender** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 7:20 pm

Was looking at this in QLD but was put off by the high driver entry fee. Seems odd that a $999 car to keep things low cost comes with such a high fee for drivers. The entire weekend is probably gonna be close to $10k for 5 drivers, more if you need a pit crew on top of that!

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madjak · Postby **madjak** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 7:42 pm

Yeah $880 entry per driver gets the price up. I'm happy to pay half that as an entry for 3 days of motorsport. I think it wont be too hard to find a sponsor(s) to cover half the entry costs for the drivers.

$1000 car
$1500 cage
Race seat, harness, fire extinguisher out of race car
Try and find a tire sponsor or run second hand ones
$500 Pads rotors, brake lines etc
5x$880
Fuel etc...

At the end of the event we could probably sell the car to recover some costs. Depends if there is damage etc.

I'm interested so add me in as a driver. I'll see if I can find some sponsorship.

oztrackdays · Postby **oztrackdays** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 2:09 pm

They include value of Sponsorship in the $999

emailed the promoter he admitted nobody spends less than $6k
on the car (safety, brakes, wheels tyres exempt) but it has to be a $999 shitbox to start with.

it's also a bit socially awkward for sober grown ups,
punishments for exceeding track limits etc ... are

- singing a song
- holding hands with all your team mates and doing a dance
- other lame sh*t they can think up.

A true minimum spend of $10k to drive a shitty slow car for potentially
30 minutes if it breaks, I will pass.

gslender · Postby **gslender** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 2:28 pm

oztrackdays wrote:A true minimum spend of $10k to drive a shitty slow car for potentially
30 minutes if it breaks, I will pass.

Yep, seems a pity as the idea and concept seemed good. I guess greed and profit have made it into something else.

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mr bender · Postby **mr bender** » Sun Nov 15, 2015 11:11 pm

A bunch of mates and me are thinking about doing it, after two days of trying to do the sums, it looks like we will each (6 of us so far) have to spend about $2300 and that doesn't include fuel , food for the weekend etc.

most of the cost will be safety stuff eg: 6 point cage, seat , brakes, tires , harness , racing suit ,shoes and gloves and of coarse the entry fee.

I think the aim of the weekend is to have fun and it will make a great memory for you and your mates.
(and its supports Prostate cancer)

if there are still 6 of us keen in 6 months time, we will be in the race.

madjak · Postby **madjak** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 2:37 pm

Personally I think the event will be great fun. I especially like the challenge of trying to fix and run old cars and also meeting and chatting with or even helping the other entrants. The entry costs aren't that crazy, considering most the safety parts for the car can come from an existing track car.

The only real cost is in the cage which has to be done right. The car itself can be put together cheap with parts scavenged / borrowed from wherever as long as it looks like like it could be purchased for under $1k. Get in there and be creative to lighten the chassis or run some DIY aero. Half the fun is building the car.

Also with sponsorship, you just need to get the entry for the drivers covered which doesn't count to the $1k car cost.

I'm looking forward to it, hopefully there will be enough teams to have a decent event.

mazmad · Postby **mazmad** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 7:56 pm

oztrackdays wrote:A true minimum spend of $10k to drive a shitty slow car for potentially
30 minutes if it breaks, I will pass.

haha Agreed.

And: You are out there on track with a bunch of other old s$$tboxes with questionable brakes, dodgy suspension and steering, and 'lightened chassis's'.

Cheap - Debatable. Safe - Nope.

madjak · Postby **madjak** » Mon Nov 16, 2015 8:14 pm

I see it in reverse... It's a great opportunity to do some door to door racing without it all being too serious. Most of the other competitors I would expect to be reasonable drivers and if you have a look a the 24 Hour at Wakefield, most the cars finished with no damage. There won't be any need to block or drive hard against a faster driver, given it's such a long endurance event.

Also given the entry price, I think most cars will be fairly safe. I know if I build an MX5 for this event it's not going to be far from what I first raced except much safer given it has a full cage.

Aiming Faster · Postby **Aiming Faster** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 2:12 am

I like your attitude Madjak, and you're an experienced ideas man, which is great.
I do see the validity of the other posts too, but to put together a banger MX5 from bits, with 6-10 people contributing parts and ideas seems a goal in the making.
Then we get to drive a nice car, for maybe even an hour at a time, of door to door (gentle-or-not) racing on the Collie track! It might even be nice weather!
Fuckit yes! I'm going to budget for a cause like this, could be a life memory for the lot of us.
Pros and Cons of an NB?

gslender · Postby **gslender** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 6:46 am

How do you get an MX5 for under $999 ?

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madjak · Postby **madjak** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 12:15 pm

We've already got one... chassis and engine cost less than $500 and will look like it's worth less than $1000.

So unlicensed NA rolling chassis. It has multiple miss matched panels, most of which have been bogged and then covered with military green vinyl wrap which is now peeling off. No interior, dash, wiring, softop. Perfect for a LeMons!

Gearbox and diff will be out of a 1.6. Diff is free and we'll weld it up. Box will be a loaner from someone. I have spare CV axles.

I ripped a 1.8 engine out of a Mazda Astina for next to nothing. Just needs a sump which I have spare and new head gasket as I pulled the head off getting it out. Might even reuse the head gasket... Will see if it leaks or not!

I have a wiring harness, well most of one anyway and a spare ECU. We'll use the race seat, QR steering, Fire extinguisher out of my race car. The cage will be a copy of the one I've just installed in my race car which is CAMS certified... The main hoop and windscreen hoop will get professionally mandrel bent, then we can probably fit the rest of the tubes and get it professionally tigged.

I think we could even run a ply board front splitter and my 3D printed rear wing to make it really epic. Might need to cut the springs to get the car lower, or maybe we can find some lowered ones cheap.

There is almost budget in there to slap on a turbo and ECU... but I think reliability trumps speed at these events.

gslender · Postby **gslender** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:24 pm

madjak wrote:We've already got one... chassis and engine cost less than $500 and will look like it's worth less than $1000.

So unlicensed NA rolling chassis. It has multiple miss matched panels, most of which have been bogged and then covered with military green vinyl wrap which is now peeling off. No interior, dash, wiring, softop. Perfect for a LeMons!

Gearbox and diff will be out of a 1.6. Diff is free and we'll weld it up. Box will be a loaner from someone. I have spare CV axles.

I ripped a 1.8 engine out of a Mazda Astina for next to nothing. Just needs a sump which I have spare and new head gasket as I pulled the head off getting it out. Might even reuse the head gasket... Will see if it leaks or not!

I have a wiring harness, well most of one anyway and a spare ECU. We'll use the race seat, QR steering, Fire extinguisher out of my race car. The cage will be a copy of the one I've just installed in my race car which is CAMS certified... The main hoop and windscreen hoop will get professionally mandrel bent, then we can probably fit the rest of the tubes and get it professionally tigged.

I think we could even run a ply board front splitter and my 3D printed rear wing to make it really epic. Might need to cut the springs to get the car lower, or maybe we can find some lowered ones cheap.

There is almost budget in there to slap on a turbo and ECU... but I think reliability trumps speed at these events.

Rules are pretty clear that anything "donated" or given or obtained for free will be judged as the market price... so if your complete MX5 looks like it might be worth $2,500 when complete (excluding safety gear) then it will be deemed to be over the $999 limit.

Otherwise, you'd have people having "free" BMW M series engines and stuff all stating it was given to me and I only parted with $999 so I'm within the rules.

Not so from what I have read.

Happy to be wrong and if so, then maybe the "sh*t box" can be more than what I thought.....