NMS South is RACE READY!

Wow, it's been 9 solid months of work on the Coronet but we're finally ready to race!

All stickered up and ready to race.

This was the big final weekend to prep the car and ourselves before the team's first wheel-to-wheel road race.  I kicked things off this weekend by playing on my strengths and pulling together all of our vinyl graphics for the car.  The layered colors of the Super KGB logo were particularly challenging but I think it turned out pretty good.

Stage 1: three separate colors of vinyl cut and ready to layer for the final look. 

All three layers combine to form: Super KGB!

We loaded up that new panel sealing the trunk with a bunch of the stickers from the car's heritage. We've got one of the official Lemons stickers from each of the three races it's previously competed in as well as a few others that represent previous teams.

Rear panel with lots of cool stickers.

We were still struggling with the car pulling to the left when test driving it so we decided it was time to cash in on that street-legal status and take it to our local Firestone store for an alignment with a computer. The local guys did a killer job and now the car is handling better than ever!

Showing off the car to a few people while waiting for an alignment.

Back at the CEC Racing shop, Luke and I dug into John's electric scooter/moped/motorcycle that he couldn't get running and donated to the team to use as a pit bike to get around paddock at the racetrack.  Luke is a total pro at working with electrical systems and had it mostly figured out in minutes. We stripped it down to the bare minimum weight and I hand build a custom front panel.  Hopefully with a special borrowed power charger we'll be zipping through paddock on our new bike.

Pit Bike of DOOOM!

Back to real work, we had everyone go through safety drills to practice escaping from the car in the event of an emergency.  Disconnect the 5 point harness, turn off the master kill-switch, disconnect the radio and cool shirt connections, drop the window net or open the door, and hop out!  All under 15 seconds if possible.

Team Effort: Luke straps John into the car for escape drills.

Happily, everyone on the team easily escaped through doors and windows under 15 seconds. Safety First.

Like a flash: Kyle escapes the car in a hurry while wearing full race gear.

Continuing our safety theme, we have opted to exceed the minimum required safety equipment for the 24 Hours of Lemons. We've got our required five point harness, head and neck restraints, a solidly supported racing seat, window net and middle safety net along with an on board fire extinguisher right at the driver's finger tips. Everything has been tested and is up to date on certifications.

Looking cool, staying safe: Luke straps in with his full gear. You can see both the window net and the middle net in place to prevent us from getting flung from side to side in an incident. 

At the end of the day we loaded up Landon's trailer with all our gear. All that's left is to meet up at the track Friday and have fun next weekend!

All tucked in and dreaming of late apexes. 

Stay tuned for up to the minute race updates at: facebook.com/coronautski