2. Lemons to Lemonade
"Look guys, the race is only two weeks away, and we're nowhere near ready. Let's just enter, have some fun, and see about competing seriously next year."
The ice-cold stares from James and Jay signaled that I said something wrong-very wrong. I had uttered words so antithetical to SCC, I think they were waiting for lightning to strike me dead. SCC doesn't race for fun-we race to win.
Just getting the car and team to Altamont Raceway for the inaugural 24 Hours of LeMons should have been considered a victory. I remember dry icing and pounding out the sound deadening in teammate Bob Hernandez's backyard; wondering who in the world cuts ounces in an automatic Celica ST. I recall driving away from Alex Pfeiffer's welding shop with a cage that cost as much as the car. But one of the best memories is of that drive up I-5, tired, but full of anticipation. I remember looking over and laughing at a stony-faced Jay, one hand on the wheel of our $500 race car-with no A/C, radio, or interior-the other holding a limply lit cigarette.
Boy, did we make a lot of mistakes. I still wake up sometimes in a cold sweat, thinking of how we raced for thirteen hours in a caged, but doorbeam-less Celica, with helmets-but no firesuits. And I still kick myself for poor race strategy. As team leader, I sent out everyone that first day; short 1-2 hour stints so that each driver could get a taste of the competition. That meant half a dozen time-consuming driver changes. Had I known we'd end up in Sixth Place by that evening, would I have done things differently? Probably not. Everybody got to drive and we still managed to finish in Third Place, with a car that could have made it home had we had enough energy to put the windows and headlights back in.
Podium finish aside, that first LeMons was sweet on many levels. Not only was it a great stress reliever and team builder, it was the first time I got to work side-by-side with the current editor of SCC and realize that he's better suited for this gig than me (Aww, thanks Ed - JL).
-Edward Loh
June 2006 - August 2007