Chump Car - John Allen Special USFail1 Race Team Build

[canakami]

Do my eyes deceive me? Or are you front tires on backwards :giggle:

[dinanm3atl]

1.22.2013 Atlanta, GA - For Immediate Release

John Allen Special USFail1 announces new strategic partners for the 2013 season, new rental program to begin at the 2013 Road Atlanta 14 Hour and expanded race schedule for 2013. Additional news, races and driver line-ups to be announced later.

The Rolex 24hrs of Daytona, The Daytona 500 and ChumpCar’s All Roads Lead to Atlanta mark the beginning of the 2013 racing season.

For 2013 we at John Allen Special USFail1 would like to welcome back several of our sponsors from 2012, and a host of new ones for 2013!

When we win, not if, it will be thanks to TRM Tuning, Harrison Motorsports, The Consignment Shed, M&S Logistics, Motorsport Hardware, MotorSportMedia, Mashup Designworks, Apex Performance, Heritage Motorsports and Bimmerworld! We can’t think of a better way to thank our sponsors other than to go out and run well this year.

Road Atlanta 2013 will be the standard 14 Hour format and it should be a cold race! Chief Engineer responsible for engine cooling, Chris, will be watching from the sidelines or at home on his comfy couch. When asked why he simply said "It's too damn cold". Filling in will be Sean, hailing from Georgia. Although his experience is mostly in an E36 when asked about switching to the E30 for his first wheel to wheel racing he replied "I was told E30s are loose in the rear end and all of our bushings are worn out. I plan to be gettin' it like Dale Jr. my entire stint."

The rest of the line up will remain the same with Halston, Rich, Blake and Takuma Sato rounding out the rest of the 5 drivers. Hipsters Alex and Josh will be handling fueling, Chick-Fil-A runs and being lazy. Rookie back up fueler Logan will be flying down for support if laziness or protein coma overcomes Alex or Josh. Logan's complete lack of experience should really lend well to conquering the 2013 assault on Road Atlanta.

Quotes:

"Since I am starting the race I am going to be trying to win it in Turn 1. If I cannot start winning at Turn 1 my goal will be to finish my stint in 1st place or bring it in on a flat bed. Rich | El Amazo | Driver

"Where the hell is my Snicker's bar? Damnit who the hell stole my cell phone again?" Blake | Lead Mechanic | Driver

"Why are none of the switches in Korean?" Takuma AKA Thomas | Ex-F1 Asian Ringer | Driver




As you’ve come to expect from us, a picture says it all. Good thing we got plenty!



JAS Logo - Of course this is staying. Now with super sweet hood pins!



John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 01 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Sponsor and friend Jon Mills sets up the new ChumpCar number panels. New rule for 2013.


John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 02 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Small Mock Up with a few stickers missing. Trying to fit everyone!



John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 03 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


And pictures to go along with the announcement. There will be changes here as some logos will be enlarged and added. We had a little different space use than originally though.



John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 04 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 05 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 06 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 07 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special BMW E30 ChumpCar Chump Car TRM Harrison Motorsports 08 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr

[dinanm3atl]

Yup. Favorite of mine.

[Kershaw]

that last night time shot is really cool man.

[dinanm3atl]

2012 is over. All the stickers are coming up. We will be announcing/revealing 2013 plans very soon with a new livery! New sponsors! Adding a new epic track mid season to this year!



BMW E30 ChumpCar John Allen Special 2012 End 01 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



BMW E30 ChumpCar John Allen Special 2012 End 02 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



BMW E30 ChumpCar John Allen Special 2012 End 03 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



BMW E30 ChumpCar John Allen Special 2012 End 04 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



BMW E30 ChumpCar John Allen Special 2012 End 05 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



BMW E30 ChumpCar John Allen Special 2012 End 06 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



BMW E30 ChumpCar John Allen Special 2012 End 07 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr

[dinanm3atl]

EPIC Update! Photos provided by Perry Bennet. I decided to focus on the car, driving and team. Relax and not do any photos! It was awesome.

3 weeks ago much of the team was out at Road Atlanta for an HPDE/Open Lapping. We needed to test our new late model fuel tank/setup. We filled the car up and it pukes out fuel! Wonderful. We diagnosed the issue and fixed it with a seal from a toilet. Thanks Home Depot!

Ran the car with 2 people. No problem. No starvation down to the fuel light being on! We loaded up the car and waited a week for Road Atlanta a race. All went well. Right through tech. No penalty laps. Gear checked. We were home by 2pm and relaxing. This is going great... until the race morning. We figured up the car to move it to pit lane and we now are down an HID. We have 2 out of 4 flickering and a pretty hard miss. Limp the car to pit lane and it dies.

The alternator has shit the bed. Our battery is dead. Fix? We steal a battery from a team member's car. Fire up the car. Charging at 11.26V. Dead alternator. So we start to change it. 38 minutes after the green flag we start. We are 85 out of 85 at this point.

Here is where we started the race...


JAS@RdAtl12082012-6 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-15 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-21 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


A smile? Is it fixed? You betcha it is! And I'm off for my hour stint!


JAS@RdAtl12082012-23 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-29 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


And now we are going racing. We ran until early afternoon without a hiccup!


JAS@RdAtl12082012-34 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-36 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-64 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-67 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-69 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Pit Stops. Driver changes. We keep soldering on!



JAS@RdAtl12082012-86 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-82 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-92 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


And we go back to racing. At this point our once tested fuel system seems to be starving. Starting about 1hr into 1hr30min stints. We soldier it out and carry on. Kind of disappointed since we tested this with quite good results. Racing is a whole different ball game!



JAS@RdAtl12082012-104 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-112 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-115 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Then it starts getting dark and things start getting fun...



JAS@RdAtl12082012-119 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-138 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Late pit stop. Fun in the dark... good thing we have some party lights!



JAS@RdAtl12082012-149 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



JAS@RdAtl12082012-145 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Checkered!


JAS@RdAtl12082012-152 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Look how cool our car looks at night?



JAS@RdAtl12082012-137 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr




Results? We clawed our way back up to 29th place and finished under our own power. The last stint was wet and dark. Down one headlight. It was an awesome experience. Using our math and lap times the 38 minutes late starting and extra stops because of the fuel starvation we had a much better finish in this car. 2013 is going to bring good things! Thanks everyone for following along!

[dinanm3atl]

Shake Down at Road Atlanta for 14 Hour race!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYXc9oaVkQk&list=UU2ym1n879A4-8rGEy-HIStA&index=1&feature=plcp

[Nygdup]

ChumpCar released their 2013 schedule yesterday. Dates of interest for you that follow the John Allen Special.


These three are confirmed races we will be attempting to run in 2013:
February 9th - Road Atlanta 14hr Enduro
May 26th - Daytona International 14hr Enduro
November 2nd & 3rd - Atlanta Motorsports Park Double 7 Enduros

A few other dates we are considering, pending 2013 sponsorships and team finances:
June 22nd - Charlotte Motor Speedway 14hr Enduro
August 9th-11th - VIR Grand Course 24hr Enduro
Sept 28th - Sebring International 14hr Enduro

I cannot express in words how excited we are about 2013. We hope to see you guys out there supporting us at some of these venues!

[cm0180]

This is awesome, congrats on finishing!

[silence]

Congrats!

[dinanm3atl]

Well it was race weekend again. We prepped the car. Went with a B25 motor. Lots of time and effort went into this race. We want to finished! Race was a 14 Hour at Atlanta Motor Speedway Roval. Start early in the morning and finish at 11pm! We rolled up early and were one of the first 5 teams to arrive. We are on a pretty strict and low budget but 100 bucks for a NASCAR garage? We are in!



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 01 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 05 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 06 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Blake does a final check on the underside. He'll be started so I guess he wanted to see if it was 'safe'! haha



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 02 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Loading up the cool suit... which didn't work. Diagnosed as a dead relay ~10 minutes before we needed to grid. No cool suit for this race!



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 07 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


How cool is this? Our car. On a NASCAR pit lane! Notice it is nice and clean. Looks too nice...



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 08 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 09 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Blake ready to rock! He is a DIVA... so we taped a Snickers to the dash in case he got hungry.



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 10 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 11 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


First pit stop and driver change!



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 12 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 13 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 14 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 15 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Later in race Blake holds the front left tire. We swapped tired ~11 hours in! Just was too risky to keep running on bald Falken Azenis.



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 16 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 17 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


Night time driver change. A photo of me actually!



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 18 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 19 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 20 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


On track photos! Racing hard day and night!



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 23 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 24 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 25 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 26 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 33 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 34 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 32 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 28 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 29 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 30 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 36 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



And we finished! We took the green flat in P1 and led two laps! We ran all 14 hours minus ~75 minutes while we replaced a radiator, lower radiator hose and motor mount. We turned consistent laps from top to bottom. All the drivers had fun. All got ~2 hours of driving. We let our Birthday Boy and Co-Captain get a third one hour stint and bring the car home and take the checkered. What an awesome feeling to bring it home under our own power! Starting to pack up... and the spoiler used to be clear!

Back on track in 2 months at Road Atlanta. Another 14 hour race!



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 22 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 21 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr


BATTLE SCARS! Amazing how much sand blasting you get in a single race...



John Allen Special NASCAR Garage Atlanta Motor Speedway 37 by Halston Pitman | MotorSportMedia, on Flickr

[dinanm3atl]

Awesome thread! I've raced ChumpCar for 3years in a 240sx. We melted our engine just like that at Road Atlanta race in Feb. Now I'm building an 85 eta for the Dec Road Atlanta race. I'm new to BMWs and expected the car to be slow but it was really quite good at Barber last weekend. Good luck at AMS and hope to race with you at Road Atlanta in December!

Will be at RA in December!

Wish I could could have gotten involved in this, would give me something to do with my massive amounts of free time.

We would love the help!

[hfabricius]

Wish I could could have gotten involved in this, would give me something to do with my massive amounts of free time.

[wanksta]

Awesome thread! I've raced ChumpCar for 3years in a 240sx. We melted our engine just like that at Road Atlanta race in Feb. Now I'm building an 85 eta for the Dec Road Atlanta race. I'm new to BMWs and expected the car to be slow but it was really quite good at Barber last weekend. Good luck at AMS and hope to race with you at Road Atlanta in December!

[vagus]

Oh no, I love it. Don't worry. Just not much to contribute. The ChumpCar thing is new to me and so far I am loving it. Looks a bit intimidating for average dudes, but I am enjoying the hell out of this thread, liked you on FB, and can't wait for the race report.