John Edwin Mason: Racing Photography

ChumpCar World Series at VIR, 30 March 2013, Part 2

Three weekends ago, I got up at the crack of dawn to drive down to Virginia International Raceway [VIR] for the ChumpCar endurance race.  It was my first race of the season, and it was just what I needed.  Wacky teams and cartoon-like cars that were improbably fast.  Well, some of them were fast.  Others were just plain weird.  And, sadly, some were pretty boring (but you won't see them in these photos).

I posted some iPhone photos from VIR (yes, iPhone racing photos) a day later.  You can see them, here.  But as much fun as I had shooting motorsports with an iPhone, what you really need at a road course like VIR are a big old camera and some very long lenses.

Fortunately, I had those things with me.  Here's some of what I got.

 

USS Enterprise (right) and MR2 Biohazard (left).  Bryan Settle is driving the Enterprise.  Don't know who's behind the wheel of Biohazard.  [Photos copyright John Edwin Mason, 2013. Click on any of the images to see larger versions.]

What's ChumpCar all about?  It's endurance racing for cars worth no more than 500 bucks.  That $500 excludes safety equipment, and officials -- savvy folks who know BS from BHP -- try to keep cheating to minimum.  Races last anywhere from seven to 36 hours.  (VIR's was a 10-hour race.)

The only exception to the $500 rule is the Exception Class.  There are a few of them in these photos.  From a spectator's point of view, they aren't very much fun.

But all of that only partly describes ChumpCar.  The rest is passion, ingenuity, and, usually, a good sense of humor.

Passion?  There's almost no money to be won and little in the way of press coverage.  These folks are racing for the thrill and the competition.  Ingenuity?  You bet.  Building a good cheap race car is a whole lot harder than building a good expensive one.  Humor?  Check out the photos.

 

Junk Male Racing (left) and H&F Racing (right).

The photo above will give you a pretty good idea what ChumpCar is all about -- a tight, (reasonably) fast battle between a right-hand drive Japanese econo-wagon and a mid-'80s Old Cutlass that's dressed up to look like a police car.  But as much as I like these machines, they're not my favorites from the race.

That honor goes to the cars in the first photo -- the USS Enterprise, which started life as a 1972 Ford LTD (with a roof) and MR2 Biohazard, a Toyota MR2 with a preposterously big rear wing.  Coming in third on my list was Sanford and Son, a '64 Chevy pickup with a GMC tailgate (photos below).  Each of these machines is seriously quick.  The Enterprise and Sanford and Son are a bit demented, like ChumpCars should be.  (In fact, the Enterprise and S. and Son are teammates.) 

 

USS Enterprise entering Oak Tree turn.

I'll come clean and admit that I couldn't get enough of the Enterprise.  Everything about it seems to defy the laws of physics and rules of commonsense.  It's clearly too long and far too heavy to be any good on a road course.  Having lost its roof and, therefore, having the structural integrity of a wet paper plate, it could only be an ill-handling beast.  All of which is wrong.

 

USS Enterprise happily drifting through Oak Tree turn.

Very wrong.  The Enterprise had the fastest lap of the race -- 1:22.508 on VIR's south course.  Pretty darn stout.  That means it was hauling ass as much in the turns as on the straightaways and putting the sports cars and Bimmers to shame.

 

MR2 Biohazard leading a pack out of Oak Tree turn.

Biohazard was the second fastest car on the track, a fraction of a second slower than the LTD.  For the last 30 minutes or so of the race, B-haz and the Enterprise fought it out nose to tail (see first pic), putting on a hell of a show.

At that point, I was photographing from the top row of the bleachers opposite Oak Tree turn.  Seven or eight experienced racers were sitting nearby, enjoying the proceedings and offering a running commentary.  The two cars were as different from each other as Budweiser and single malt, but they were surprisingly evenly matched.  Lap after lap, my fellow bleacher bums expected Biohazard to get past the Enterprise, and lap after lap it didn't happen.

When Biohazard finally made the pass, it was at the other end of the track, so none of us saw it.  But the fight was great entertainment while it lasted.

 

It was a long race on a sunny day.  Folks found shade wherever they could.

In the end, both the Enterprise and Biohazard finished the race in mid-pack, done in by having had to spend too much time in the pits, fixing various mechanical gremlins.

 

Biohazard in the pits.

A good race car is fast and reliable.  A ChumpCar also has to be cheap.  Trouble is, a racing machine can't be fast, reliable, and cheap at the same time.  Racers being racers, the choice is obvious and reliability goes out the window.

 

Ruke Boy Racing in the pits.

The teams tend to know what they're doing.  And, if they've been to more than one ChumpCar race, they've had plenty of experience making repairs on the fly.  I saw a team that was running a Mazda Miata make a complete engine change and get back on the track.

 

Thunder Chicken in the pits.

This Thunderbird is a good example of a car that broke, got fixed, and kept racing.

 

Thunder Chicken (left) leading Sanford and Son (right).

And there's the T-Bird back out and, temporarily, running in front of Sanford and Son, my favorite road racing hot rod pickup truck.

 

Sanford and Son (but you can see that for yourself).

 

Bunch O' Chumps (a '70s Saab Sonett) being refueled in the pits.

 

Sri Racing 3 makes a driver change.

Sri Racing 3, a 3-series BMW, is an Exception Class car.  It's worth noting that it was seven seconds off the pace set by the USS Enterprise.

 

My favorite pickup off in the distance, an Exception Class 3-series in the foreground.

 

Bunch O' Chumps.

It was a large field.  Sixty-four cars registered for the race; 63 made it out onto the track.

 

Sanford and Son, again.  Looking good, too.

 

TR3 Performance (Honda).

The TR3 Performance Honda was running well every time I saw it.  Its best laps were within a couple seconds of the times that the Enterprise and Biohazard were laying down.  That's fast.  It finished 19th, however, which means it spent time in the pits or received penalty laps for some sort of rules violation.

 

Falling to Caprices Racing says good-bye.

So the racing season is off to a good start.  It's all about seeing cool cars, meeting good folks, and having some fun.  With luck, I'll get to a lot of different tracks this summer.

*

ChumpCar World Series at VIR, 30 March 2013

It's been over a year since I posted something new on this blog.  In blogging terms, that's a very long time.  The problem is not what I've been doing, although my day job has its stresses and strains.  No, the problem is what I haven't been doing.

My cameras and I haven't been having fun hanging out in the odd nooks and crannies of American car culture.  For instance, in 2012, I barely got to a racetrack at all, let alone any of the many other places that gearheads gather.

This year, I've decided, that's going to change.  I'm not getting younger, and life isn't getting longer.  Or easier.  So, last Saturday, I headed down to Virginia International Raceway [VIR] for the ChumpCar World Series endurance race.  And, yes, it was fun.

 

ChumpCar at VIR, 30 March 2013.  (Click on any image to see a larger version.)

ChumpCar isn't the best known racing series in the US, but it sure enough qualifies as one of the odd nooks and crannies of car culture.  The point is pretty straightforward:  build a car (or truck!) that's fast, safe, and durable enough to compete in races that last anywhere from 5 to 36 hours.  And, oh, one more thing.  Make sure that the vehicle isn't worth more than 500 bucks (safety equipment and tires are excepted).

The result is a series that requires passion, mechanical skill and creativity (lots), a good sense of humor, and relatively little money.  (Truth be told, there's no such thing as relatively little money in racing.  But racers go broke slower here than elsewhere.)

 

Sanford and Son (that's the truck).  ChumpCar at VIR, 30 March 2013.

Sanford and Son, a '60s era GMC pickup truck, is a good example of ChumpCar's virtues.  It's a surprisingly well sorted racing machine.  Big, heavy, and with a center of gravity higher than the roof of most of the other vehicles on the track, it still managed to record lap times that put it among the front runners.  (That is, when it was on the track.  It spent a little too much time in the pits.)

 

USS Enterprise.  ChumpCar at VIR, 30 March 2013.

The same team that put Sanford and Son on the track was racing the USS Enterprise, which started life as a late '60s or early '70s Ford LTD (with a roof, which has mysteriously disappeared).

The idea of running something like this in a sports car endurance race is patently absurd, which is probably why the team wanted to do it.  And they did it very well.  This damn thing ran the fastest laps of the event.  It's a serious race car, despite its looks and its low budget.  Alas, like Sanford and Son, it was in the pits way too often.

 

Bryan Settle takes the USS Enterprise for a spin.  ChumpCar at VIR, 30 March 2013.

If these photos look a little funny to you, you're right, they're wrong.  I shot them with my iPhone.

Shooting motorsports with an iPhone is a pretty stupid thing to do, so I figured it was just right for a ChumpCar race.

 

USS Enterprise headed in the right direction again.  ChumpCar at VIR, 30 March 2013.

Stupid, but also fun.  With enough luck and big enough crops, you can make something that looks reasonably like racing photography (or would to a drunken one-eyed sailor).

Of course, the point of iPhone photography isn't to make pictures that look like they came from a Nikon D4.  It's to make something that you can post immediately on Twitter and Instagram.  And to do something that's blissfully unencumbered by the thought process, as the philosophers Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers would put it.

 

MR2 Biohazard in front.  ChumpCar at VIR, 30 March 2013.

The best racing action of the day came during the last half hour or so, when MR2 Biohazard (above) and the USS Enterprise put on a heck of a show, slicing and dicing with each other while working their way through heavy traffic.  The Enterprise had the advantage in a straight line; Biohazard loved the twisty bits.  In the end, Biohazard prevailed.  A bunch of folks sitting in the bleachers near the Oak Tree turn were hugely entertained.  (I was one of them.)

 

ChumpCar at VIR, 30 March 2013.

I didn't go to VIR carrying only my iPhone, of course.  Fun comes in many varieties, some of which involve very long lenses.  More, different, and possibly better pictures are coming later this week.

*

The Capitol Offense 24 Hours of Lemons at Summit Point, 18-19 June 2011

I'd been at the track for only a few minutes -- this was my first 24 Hours of Lemons -- and I was already preparing to be disappointed.  The cars on the track seemed so... ordinary.  Grassroots Motorsports and AutoWeek, my favorite car magazines, had told me to expect to see strange and wonderful beasts racing down the track.  But I found myself asking, "Where's all the weirdness?"

 

 

Team Funky Kong's 1980 Fiat X1/9.  The team swapped the engine and God knows what else, during the race, earning it the Most Heroic Fix award.  [All photos copyright John Edwin Mason, 2011.  Click on any image to see a larger version.]

The cars were cool, that's for sure, and so was the course, all 23 turns of it.  But that was only to be expected.  Summit Point Motor Sports Park, which was hosting the race, is one of the finest race tracks on the east coast.  On the whole, however, it was beginning to look -- disappointingly -- like just another day at the races.

 

 

Goldbrick Racing's 1968 MGB GT passes the Day Go Fast Racing 1985 Mercedes 190E.

There's nothing wrong with that, especially.  The action on the track was entertaining enough.  The drivers clearly knew what they were doing -- most of them anyway.  So, I settled in to enjoy the  race in the same way that I'd appreciate a sports car club track day.

 

 

The Nascar-style 1967 Ford Galaxie 500 of team Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws.

Or maybe a race for vintage machines... 

In any case, I was definitely be impressed by the way that some of the cars were turned out.  That lovely Ford in the photo above, for instance, looks like something that Parnelli Jones might have raced at California's late, lamented Riverside International Raceway, back in the '60s.

As wonderful as all this might have been, I was still looking for weirdness.  Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long. 

 

 

The Morrow's Auto entries play tag, with the Toylet Supra leading Snoopy's Revenge, a 1995 Mitsubishi Mirage.

What came around the corner next was so wrong, in so many ways that it made be blissfully happy.  Here was the weirdness I'd  been looking for.  Race cars zipping by with Snoopy and Woodstock perched on their trunks...  A orange blur that looks like the misbegotten spawn of a tragic encounter between a Pontiac GTO and a Toyota Supra...

This was the 24 Hours of Lemons that I'd been reading about -- where the absurd meets the ridiculous, and everybody has a good time.  I knew that I'd better hang on tight, it was probably going to get even worse, which would be a very good thing.

 

 

Here's a better look at the Snoopy's Revenge.

What is the 24 Hours of Lemons?  One way to answer the question would be to say that it's the fastest growing racing series in the nation.  But that's not what you want to know.

Lemons is a nationwide series of endurance races for cars that cost $500 (or less!) to buy and prepare for the track.  I know that doesn't make any sense.  It's obviously impossible to buy and build a race car for only 500 bucks.

Impossible, but 102 teams managed to do it for the Summit Point race.  It helps, of course, that safety equipment (like roll cages), brakes, and tires are exempted from the $500 limit.  But it still takes a truckload of mechanical ingenuity to make a cheap car safe, fast, and reasonably reliable.

 

 

Woodstock and the Toylet Supra.

Here's how the Lemons folks describe the concept:

The 24 Hours of LeMons is restricted to cars that were purchased, fixed up, and track-prepped for a total of $500 or less.  At most venues, the racing consists of tech inspection and track testing on Friday; long-ass endurance-race sessions on Saturday and Sunday; and breaks for sleeping, eating, and Band-Aid application every night.  At least once a year, we also hold a straight 24-hour endurance race.  Count on plenty of noise, prizes, water fights, and questionably civilized fun before, during, and after the track sessions.  Finally, assuming you're still standing, there's the gala awards ceremony, wherein we present trophies, plaques, and winner's purses paid out in nickels.

 

 

Team Rust in the Wind's Saab-powered 1987 Nissan 300ZX.  Yes, that wing works, and it's adjustable on the fly.  Those unsightly bulges on the hood cover the hand-built plumbing for the engine's turbocharger.

What that description doesn't say is that a Lemons race is a great place to be a spectator.  The cars are fast (sorta) and funny (mostly).  The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, and you can get close to the action, on track and in the pits.

For all of those reasons, it's also a fine place to be a photographer.

 

 

Rusty Bolt Racing's 1984 Porsche 944, masquerading as the Porsche 962 that Mario Andretti drove in the late 1980s.  It wasn't particularly quick, but you can't beat that wing.

You're probably wondering how the folks who run the series know that the racers stayed within the $500 limit.  They never know for sure, but they do their best to root out cheaters.

The cars get inspected twice, once for safety and a second time for BS.  The second inspection is designed to catch cheats.  The guys scrutinizing the cars are all experienced racers and builders.  They expect the teams to document their expenses, and, more importantly, they know when something just don't look, smell, or taste right.

 

 

Booby Prize Racing's "Save the Yellow Ducks" 1996 Nissan 200SX.  Oddly enough, the duck finished just in front of the Rusty Bolt Porsche.  That proves something, but I'm not sure what.

A car that seems too good to be true -- egregiously so -- will be awarded penalty laps to even the playing field.

 

 

Team Cardorks looks over its Integra Type Arrrgh!, which started life as a 1990 Acura Integra.  When the ship car was on the track, it looked as though it could fly.  [Remember, you can click on any photo to see a much larger version.]

 

 

Like I said, flying.
 

 

 

A member of the Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws team checks for mysterious fluids emanating from its Galaxie 500.

 

 

Guys under cars -- a common sight at any endurance race (and especially at Lemons races!).  In this case, the boys from Ziegel Scheisshaus Racing are tending to the needs of their 1986 Mercedes 190E 2.3.

 

 

I mentioned that the Funky Kong team won the Most Heroic Fix award.  Here they are earning it.

 

 

I think that this is the team of Dumb 'n Dumber 'n Dumberers Racing, working on its 1991 Chevy Corsica.  But I could be wrong.  If I am, let me know and I'll fix it.

 

 

24 Hours of Lemons teams use the most modern techniques to convey information from the crew to the driver.  This is part of the crew from Misfit Toys Racing.

 

 

And here's Misfit Toys Racing's 1991 Honda Civic Wagovan (4WD).  It finished 29th (out of 102), which isn't shabby at all.

 

 

And the overall winner is...  the 1998 Mercedes S500 of team Opulence We Has It.  Believe it or not, the drivetrain is bone stock.  So is the chassis, except for cut springs and wheel adaptors.  The car has been substantially lightened, however.  The team took about 1,000 pounds of this, that, and the other out of the car.  Now the Merc weighs a mere five or six tons.  Or maybe a couple pounds less.  It wasn't the fastest car on the track, but it turned lap after lap after lap, with hardly a hiccup.  That's a giraffe on the roof, by the way.  It's got something to do with something, but I couldn't follow the team's explanation.

 

 

Team Pro-Crash-Duh-Nation and its 1987 Alfa Romeo Milano finished second overall and won the Judges Choice award.

 

 

Team Vermont Volvocheros and this gastly creation (it entered the world as a 1992 Volvo 240 station wagon) won the much lamented Index of Effluency award, which goes to the team that goes the furthest in the most absurd machine.  (In truth, the I of E is highly coveted.  Doing the most with the least is a very big deal.)  By the way, the Vermonters finished a stout eighth overall.

 

 

The 1986 Nissan Stanza station wagon of team Sputnik had a top 25 finish and won Class C, "The Ugly."  That seems about right.

 

 

Anti-EPA Racing and its 1985 Mercury Cougar won the much avoided Least Horrible Yank Tank award.  The car doesn't look like much, but it finished in the top 10.  Pretty slow, but surprisingly reliable.  [Update:  Oops.  Turns out that I got that entirely wrong.  The car wasn't slow and it wasn't reliable.  See comments.]

 

 

Don't know much about this team -- Rally Baby Racing -- and its 1987 Audi 4000 CS, but I was horrified to see that tiny child strapped to the roof and forced to use a cheap cigar as a pacifier.  The poor kid was there the entire race.

 

 

A portrait of an abused child (who, I will admit, looks oddly content -- must be the nicotine).
 

 

 

Team Howrey Doody's 1994 3 Series Bimmer didn't have a great finish, but it looked cool, so I took its picture.

 

 

The Keystone Kops 1984 Volvo 244 chases the Duck.  The car is a regular on the Lemons circuit.  This was its 10th race.

 

 

Judge Phil.  Respect him, for he is The Man.  Approach him with trembling and awe, for the penalties that he imposes for bad driving, unsafe driving, and other forms of malfeasance beggar the imagination.

 

 

An aggreived team Cardorks driver and his Integra Type Arrrgh! enters the penalty box to await Judge Phil's decision.

 

 

Yea, Judge Phil hath turned laps in Speedy Cop and the Gang of Outlaw's Big Yellow Donk and now must atone for his sins.
 

 

 

Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws ran this 2001 Mercury Cougar to raise awareness (and money) for the Wounded Warrior Project, which offers support to military men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, as they recover and adjust to civilian life.  Good job, folks.

 

 

The Dukes of Hazard raced "The Buckeye Bandit," a 1985 Honda Accord.  This was the team's first Lemons race, and they had their problems.  But, as team member Jeg Coughlin, Jr., told me, they "learned a lot."   Most importantly, they discovered that there's nothing easy about building a $500 endurance racer.  (Yes, it's that Jeg Coughlin, Jr., the four-time NHRA Pro Stock World Champion.  I wrote a separate article about Jeg, which you can read here or on Drag Racing Online.)

 

 

I'll close with a photo of the Toyota Lemons' "Dai Mondai I" ["Big Trouble"], a 1987 Corolla FX16.  It was one of my favorite cars, for the simple reason that it was representing my alma mater, the University of Cincinnati.  The team grows out of  a collaboration between Toyota (its North American headquarters are located in Erlanger, KY, a Cincinnati suburb) and UC's engineering school.  Toyota offers advice; students turn the wrenches and do the driving.  The team finished 6th overall.  Go Bearcats!

* * *

For a list of all the winners and the full results of the race, visit the 24 Hours of Lemons website, here.

NHRA Drag Racing Champion Jeg Coughlin, Jr., at the 24 Hours Lemons. Believe It or Not!

I expected to meet a lot of interesting people at the Capitol Offense 24 Hours of Lemons, last weekend, but four-time NHRA Pro Stock World Champion Jeg Coughlin, Jr., wasn't one of them.  Yet there he was, with three of his buddies, racing the "Buckeye Blitz" -- an '85 Honda Accord covered with 100 Ohio State University football helmet stickers.  When Jeg gives up drag racing and moves to Formula One, you'll know where his road racing career started -- right there at West Virginia's Summit Point Motorsports Park.

Jeg and teammates Scott "Woody" Woodruff, Kenny Underwood, and Jay Roberts didn't have the finish they wanted.  They were done in, twice, by a busted wheel bearing.  But the team wasn't singing the blues.  As Jeg said, they "learned a lot" about endurance racing and, just as importantly, "had a blast."

 

 

Jeg Coughlin, Scott "Woody" Woodruff, Kenny Underwood (standing, left to right) and Riley (sitting), pose with the "Buckeye Blitz" at the Capitol Offense 24 Hours of Lemons, Summit Point Motor Sports Park, 19 June 2011.  Not pictured is co-driver Jay Roberts.  [All photos copyright John Edwin Mason, 2011.  Click on any image to see a larger version.]

Fun is what it's all about at the 24 Hours of Lemons.  This relatively new racing series just might be the fastest growing motor sport in the country.  Combining outrageous humor with serious racing, it's part circus and part sport.

The most important rule is that the car can't have cost more than $500 to purchase and prepare (with exemptions for anything related to safety, tires, and brakes).  If the end product looks like something Daffy Duck would drive, so much the better.  Can you really call it racing?  You bet.  It takes more than a little mechanical creativity to build a cheap car that's safe, goes fast, and holds together for a very long race.  As for the drivers, they range from near novices to pros.

 

 

Jeg Coughlin's "Buckeye Blitz" (car 28) goes wide to stay out of the way of faster traffic at the Capitol Offense 24 Hours of Lemons, Summit Point Motor Sports Park, 18 June 2011.

Jeg's fiancé, Samantha Kenny, gets the credit for introducing him to the Lemons racing.  She took part in a race, last year, and had so much fun that Jeg knew that he wanted to get in on the action.  Even though the Capitol Offence 24 Hours of Lemons was the team's very first road race, Jeg and his co-drivers weren't complete neophytes.  They've all worked with instructors and done hot laps at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, which hosts IndyCar races.

 

 

This shot will give you an idea of what the 24 Hours of Lemons is all about -- hard racing and good times.  Car #11 is the race winning '98 Mercedes 500S of team Opulence-We Has It.  Capitol Offense 24 Hours of Lemons, Summit Point Motor Sports Park, 18 June 2011.  [Click on the photo to see it big.]

Has drag racing lost Jeg forever?  Not a chance.  He may not be racing Pro Stock this season, but he's been winning consistently in big bucks bracket races.  It's probably only a matter of time before he's back in the pro ranks.

On the other hand, Jeg's not the kind of guy to walk away from unfinished business.  He said that that the team plans to enter the American Irony 24 Hours of Lemons, at Michigan's GingerMan Raceway in July.  The other teams had better watch out.  Jeg knows a thing or two about competition.

2009 Rewind: The Vintage Racer Group's Turkey Bowl @ Summit Point

One of the best races I went to last season was the 13th annual Turkey Bowl at Summit Point Motorsports Park, in West Virginia.  The action on the track was one of the reasons that I enjoyed myself so much.  So was the hospitality of everyone connected to the Vintage Racer Group.  It was also the first time in many years that I'd photographed racers on a road course, and it was nice to discover that I still knew what to do.

Most importantly, however, I was there just for fun.  No assignments, no deadlines.  Just fun.

The GT40 is a heck of a machine, but Robert Andersson had to work hard to get past Fred Pfeiffer in this very quick 1974 Porsche 914-6.  (All photos copyright John Edwin Mason, 2009.  Click directly on any of the images to see larger versions.)

I'm spending this weekend (with no races anywhere within driving distance) inaugurating my new racing photography blog, by looking at personal highlights from last season.  The racing photos had been sharing my main website with my documentary photography and musings about photo history.  It seems to me that they deserve a home of their own.

No joke, this is the quickest Volvo I've ever encountered.  It's a 1963 122 Amazon, driven by Rich Kushner.  It was very competitive in its class.

But back to the Turkey Bowl...  It was great to be reminded that road racers, like drag racers, will hot rod anything with wheels.  (Scroll down to the next post to see a drag racing minivan.)  I really like the looks of this flying Swedish taxicab.

There was a lot of terrific on-track dicing in every class.  Here Bill Schwacke, in a '55 Corvette, tries to hold off a mid-60s Mustang.

You can read my original write-up about the Turkey Bowl and see many more photos (and many more wonderful cars), here.