Welcome to the team!

Alright, so what's going on here?  Don't I already have a team and a car?  Indeed, I am team captain for Lab Rats Motorsports, racers of the Colt E.  So how can I be posting about another team?  I have not left LRM.  As a matter of fact, our next race, Lemons South Fall is less than two weeks away.  That team continues on and I will continue to write about it's successes and failures.  But that's just it, LRM is a team.  We built that car together and race it together, so I don't believe in injecting new and additional members to it.  Which brings me to Ramrod Racing.  My wife Andrea has expressed interest in racing as has my brother Kevin and his wife Nikki.  I decided that the best way for all of them to race would be on their own team.  No pressure from outside members who are in it to "win".  No one (other than family) to criticize and make fun of their driving.  And perhaps most importantly, this would give us all a chance to spend time together. 

So where do we start?  We need a car.  And where does one look for a car?  Craigslist of course!  After having screwed around with the Colt E for quite some time now, I decided to go with something a little more common, cheaper, easier to work on, sporty and American.  Translation: Camaro.  Take a look on Craigslist any day and you're sure to find plenty of cheap old Camaros.  Missing parts, wrecked, worn out and almost definitely sans title.  Along those lines I'd like you to meet our new race car.

What do you mean she doesn't look like much?  She's perfect!  Here's the details; 1987 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, 305 4bbl V8, 700R4 automatic (more on that later), never been wrecked, no title and most importantly $500 or best offer.  Keep in mind that she had no keys and hadn't run in at least a year.  Nobody knew what problems, if any the car had.  After doing a quick inspection on it, I decided that this was going to be our new race car.  Now to get it for less.  Turns out the car was a repo and had been sitting in an impound lot for a year.  Perfect!  The owner wanted it gone in a hurry so after a quick $250 offer, Team Ramrod had a car.

Backup a little here.  There may be some of you asking why I was looking at such cheap cars.  Both the Colt E and Camaro race in what we call "crap can" series.  The primary rule here is that the car must be no more than $500, which includes everything except for safety gear.  Repair parts, mods and decoration must fit under that $500 limit.  Go over and there will be penalty laps.  For complete rules see The 24 Hours of Lemons and ChumpCar.

Alright, so back to our new Camaro.  What do you think?  Yes it's an automatic.  Personally, I would have chosen a manual, but I had other "less experienced" drivers to consider.  I assumed that the girls would back out at the last minute once faced with the reality of shifting a car in traffic at high speed.  Therefore I decided I'd deal with the auto so that the girls could join us.  I've actually come to grips with it and believe that it will be fine.  I'll want to dig up a tranny cooler from the junk yard though.

So we've got the usual work to do here.  Strip the car bare, weld in a cage, get the seat and belts installed, and a few other required safety items.  Obviously I have to go over the engine and bring it back to life, but it's a small block Chevy.  No problem!  I'm really excited about this car and I can't wait to get it out on the track.

This should also be a great way to teach everyone on the team a little bit about working on cars.  Andrea has always expressed an interest on learning, but there just hasn't been the right opportunity.  Team Ramrod's first race is in March so we've got plenty of time.  By the way, the rules require the car to have six drivers and we only have four.  So if you're looking to get a chance behind the wheel, drop me a line!

Stay tuned for updates on Ramrod Racing's progress with our Camaro.  In the meantime, if you've got any good ideas on a team theme / paint scheme, let me know!