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So the deed has been done, and all the extra work we put into the car really paid off. After a few minor issues on Saturday, we kept the car on the track all day Sunday, and managed to finish in 45th position, completing almost 90 laps more than the last race! Obviously, we still have some things to iron out, but at this point, I would consider everything we’ve accomplished infinitely improbable.

The car handled incredibly well – just doesn’t have any speed on the straights. A little more horsepower and we would be chasing the nickels.

Also – we’ve been accepted for the May race at No Problem, so all you other truly craptastic cars beware. The IOE will be ours! Probably. Unless we explode, or randomly turn into a whale and a pot of petunias. Or decide to take a year off dead for tax purposes.

Some good news to report. We’ve been shown a little more love on Jalopnik.

We’ve been accepted to the next race at MSRH in February, and are starting to work on getting the car running again. We’ve ditched the mechanical fuel pump for an electric – hopefully that will take care of our biggest reliability problem. We’ve got a little more work to do, but we’ll be ready to contend for IOE.

So we ran our first race this past weekend, and other than being slow (really slow on day one), we had a great time, and couldn’t have had a better outcome.

We had a little trouble with the engine on Saturday – apparently when one of the intake valves refuses to open, you’re a little down on power. On the bright side – the engine runs cooler. We also had a bit of trouble with the fuel pump. Or rather pumps. We went through three this weekend. The last one almost made it to the end of the race – quit with about 3 or 4 laps to go before the checkered flag.

Once we got the engine sorted out, we had a whole new set of problems; mostly in the brakes and suspension and steering – all those other things that become more and more important once you start going fast. But we (almost) finished the race, and kept the car on the track most of the weekend.

Ended up 72nd overall, 5th in class 3, and won a couple of awards. Not only did we outlast the other aircooled cars (Thanks to a wreck that took out the VW fastback – that thing had too much power with a type 4 engine), we also managed to impress the 24 hours of LeMons staff. So we took home the Best Aircooled VW award – and even better, the Organizer’s Choice. I guess it takes being a lunatic to recognize one!

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