Day one of the 2015 24 Hours of Lemons Real Hoopties of New Jersey (did you notice how races always have long names?) is done. To say that it was a great would be an understatement; beautiful, if hot, day, an air show at a nearby airport, no accidents, no breakdowns, no penalties!
We are currently in 20th place overall (out of 112) and 8th in our class (B). And I’m super happy with that. Our top secret plan is working! That said, everything can change tomorrow.


I met Stef from Jalopnik, who is racing with the Three Penal Mafia, but unfortunately all cars on that team have had some kind of an issue today. There were not nearly as many accidents and cautions laps as last year but there were a few accidents which resulted in some significant damage to cars. Some teams went some, some teams were forced to leave, or so I hear.
We had two problems: radio and refueling. First, our walkie-talkies have been working intermittently, which resulted in me and my teammate pulling into the paddocks to communicate with the rest of our team the that we had no fuel. Second, we are only getting about 80 to 90 minutes of racing from a full tank of fuel, which limits our driving stints and increases the number of pit stops by at least one per day. We need a fuel cell but fuel cells are pricey.