Chump Vs. Lemons

[Murph Tang]

Just curious of those who have run both what you think of them.

We are thinking of running chump this year.

[aggie97]

tired of the BS penalties at lemons for other idiot's mistakes that collect you and the lack of memory about what is covered in driver's meetings....details and rules change on the fly = bs.

Chump should be renamed "cheat" car. I've seen some seriously well built and engineered cars at chump races....a REAL $500 car has no chance. Hell, a $5000 car has no chance. when an E30 BMW can't hang at the front, something is wrong with the formula.

that being said....I'm also tired of racing against SHO's that aren't getting laps....nudists or not.

Overall, I'd run chump but rules changes regarding fuel cell size screwed us. We are probably just going to sell our car and concentrate on the two big cars this year.

[Aceman85turbo]

last LeMons at eagles canyon we blew thru tech like we had done 5 times before. After the drivers meeting and while we were staging before the race Jay comes over and says our headrest is too high and we have to fix it or leave.

We took the rails off the seat and bolted the seat to the floor solid (which made it rough on the tall drivers).

Lost 30 mins of drive time right off the top. Last LeMons we will go to.

On the same token at chumpcar at TWS that SHO powered RX7 went for 4 hours at about 140 decibles before enough people complained that they couldnt hear themselves think and they got black flagged. There were countless cars on full coilover/30mm sway bar/10" tire/cammed....

[Murph Tang]

tired of the BS penalties at lemons for other idiot's mistakes that collect you and the lack of memory about what is covered in driver's meetings....details and rules change on the fly = bs.

Chump should be renamed "cheat" car. I've seen some seriously well built and engineered cars at chump races....a REAL $500 car has no chance. Hell, a $5000 car has no chance. when an E30 BMW can't hang at the front, something is wrong with the formula.

that being said....I'm also tired of racing against SHO's that aren't getting laps....nudists or not.

Overall, I'd run chump but rules changes regarding fuel cell size screwed us. We are probably just going to sell our car and concentrate on the two big cars this year.

We decided to run Chump this year and not Lemons. Not sure if we will make Eagles Canyon or just wait for 24hr at TWS.

Not sure on the SHO tired of racing against. Our SHO car club has a few cars that race here in Texas. Few hard cores guys left over from the old club days. Don't know why we should get any laps either. There is virtually no aftermarket for these cars. If anyone is thinking we are doing anything special anyone can come by my shop, we'll put it the car up on the rack and let you take a looksey. The one think we don't cut corners on is brakes. We run stainless steel lines, dot 4 and raybestos st43 pads (which are awesome.) Rears are autozone ceramic metallic. The Yamaha motor was based on the indy car motor design which loves high rpms for long periods of time. All of our motors are stock however they are 20 year old and they do let go. We are on our third motor and countless transmissions. I have a built motor in my supercharged SHO and would never spend that kind of money on a lemons/chump car.

I drove last MSRH Lemons all day Sunday with only 5th gear. Talk about boring. At last Eagle's Canyon lost third then fourth gear on Saturday, did a tranny swap Sat night.

Good thing is we bring our street SHOs and rob them for parts at the races. Effectively having parts cars onsite.

Hoping Chump will treat us better than Lemons.

[Murph Tang]

last LeMons at eagles canyon we blew thru tech like we had done 5 times before. After the drivers meeting and while we were staging before the race Jay comes over and says our headrest is too high and we have to fix it or leave.

We took the rails off the seat and bolted the seat to the floor solid (which made it rough on the tall drivers).

Lost 30 mins of drive time right off the top. Last LeMons we will go to.

On the same token at chumpcar at TWS that SHO powered RX7 went for 4 hours at about 140 decibles before enough people complained that they couldnt hear themselves think and they got black flagged. There were countless cars on full coilover/30mm sway bar/10" tire/cammed....

Maybe we'll go to the Eagles Canyon Chump car race and see what flies in tech and how it works.

Same thing happen to us on the seat at MSRH! Same seat we had ran at 12 lemons races gets poo poo even though by the rules we are ok. We had to pull a seat out of one of our SHOs in Dallas, drive it down to Houston and spend all Friday night cutting and pasting to race Sat. GRRRRRR

Lemons at ECanyon they barely looked at our car. Consistency was so frustrating.

[jw33]

About the same as above. The Lemons tech is really hit or miss. We've had to change our battery hold down from plastic to metal and back to plastic all because different Lemons tech inspectors. It's not a big deal, but I just get the feeling they are starting to look more like they want pick you apart for piddly shit even though the major stuff (cage/seat/belts) are good. On the flip side with clean driving and a slow car you can do well in the overall race if that's your goal. We did the Chump car race at TMS in the summer of '10 and the Eagle canyon race last Fed. It is a miracle no one got killed at TMS. IF they would have had a larger turn out the would have been a major incident due to the fact that they have some legit fast cars. Car that are overtaking us at 30MPH+ when we were touching 80-90mph at night. We did get treated a little better by the chump people although we've never had an issue with anyone on the staff at Lemons. At the end of the day all you can hope for is tons of track time and hope your car stay together and at the racing speed to at least have a good time for the weekend.

[Baron Von Crowder]

I'm not a fan of Chump, and they have asked us repeadedly to come race with them. I don't like that our cars every now and then have something that gets spotted in tech, but I guess its their insurance to pay, and its my safety, so I just fix it.

I will not be going to a chump race in the Mustang, they have a "no glass" rule, and I like to roll up the windows and keep it dry inside and try to keep the critters out. We have talked about racing the Miata, but we would need a turbo to be able to keep up with the cheaters.

Lemons is more fun in the pits after the track is cold, I'm told and have seen. I guess I'm out to have fun, rather than be in a serious race. Who seriously wants to race a $500 car?

[Murph Tang]

I'm not a fan of Chump, and they have asked us repeadedly to come race with them. I don't like that our cars every now and then have something that gets spotted in tech, but I guess its their insurance to pay, and its my safety, so I just fix it.

I will not be going to a chump race in the Mustang, they have a "no glass" rule, and I like to roll up the windows and keep it dry inside and try to keep the critters out. We have talked about racing the Miata, but we would need a turbo to be able to keep up with the cheaters.

Lemons is more fun in the pits after the track is cold, I'm told and have seen. I guess I'm out to have fun, rather than be in a serious race. Who seriously wants to race a $500 car?

Chump does have "Lemons" glass exception.

http://forum.chumpcar.com/index.php?/topic/3352-extending-a-lemon-tree-branch/

We are probably going to check out the Chump Eagles Canyon race and see what we need to at least compete at the TWS 24hr race in May. We are not running Lemons after this year. Not happy with them after the pittance grand prize offering.

[Baron Von Crowder]

Chump does have "Lemons" glass exception.

http://forum.chumpcar.com/index.php?/topic/3352-extending-a-lemon-tree-branch/

We are probably going to check out the Chump Eagles Canyon race and see what we need to at least compete at the TWS 24hr race in May. We are not running Lemons after this year. Not happy with them after the pittance grand prize offering.

Did I miss something? Is chump handing out more money?

[Murph Tang]

Did I miss something? Is chump handing out more money?

Not more money.

Team SHOTime won the National Points Championship for 2011. Last two years the winning teams got a full trip to France for the 24hr at Lemans race. This year we were offered $600 for tickets to the F1 Austin race.

We added it up and our team has spent $38k in entry fees with Lemons over the last three years with 3 and 4 cars at each race. Last race we brought 5 SHOs and my brother in laws Probe GT which was $6k in entry fees. Then we were offered $600 for tickets to the F1 race. Didn't sit well with us.

[Baron Von Crowder]

Not more money.

Team SHOTime won the National Points Championship for 2011. Last two years the winning teams got a full trip to France for the 24hr at Lemans race. This year we were offered $600 for tickets to the F1 Austin race.

We added it up and our team has spent $38k in entry fees with Lemons over the last three years with 3 and 4 cars at each race. Last race we brought 5 SHOs and my brother in laws Probe GT which was $6k in entry fees. Then we were offered $600 for tickets to the F1 race. Didn't sit well with us.

Last year, I don't remember there being two years offeering the trip.

$600 is more than was advertised to be prized. I wasn't aware of any prize offered at all.

Ill share a short story of my first dealing with Chump: We signed up for the overnight TMS race the first year they had a CHUMP race in Tx. I had the probe sitting beside the shop, and we started prep on it for the chump rules. Shit happens, and 3 teamates couldn't come up with the cash to run, leaving myself and one other. We sent an email to the promoter, letting him know we weren't going to have enough drivers, and wouldn't be sending an entry fee.

Then shit got screwed. Seems they have a group from one of the big car mags that they wanted to put in a car so the mag could do a writeup. If we wouldn't mind, they will put us togerthe. I agreed, and was having a chat with the editor a few hours later. They were excited, booking tickets, lining up transportation to the track, etc. We were stoked, this sounded like a great deal! A couple of weeks later I got an email, the deal want going to be as planned. We needed to pony up the cash for the team, and work it out with the mag men to pay us. I ended up taking with that editor, and they weren't supposed to have to pay for this ride originally, but apprently CHUMP couldn't afford to bring them down and such. I offered a soulution: I will eat the costs of the car, fuel, brakes, tires, etc for the event, but don't have the cash available to pay the entry for the car and drivers. If CHUMP will wave the fee for entry, ithen these guys have a ride, and everyone has a good time (and CHUMP gets a nice write up in a natonal car mag) AND I was going to bring the. MIATA too, just in case the Probe broke, so that these guys all got a seat and werE happy. The mag guys were ready to do that, so we were all good.

CHUMP declined.

[Murph Tang]

Last year, I don't remember there being two years offeering the trip.

$600 is more than was advertised to be prized. I wasn't aware of any prize offered at all.

Ill share a short story of my first dealing with Chump: We signed up for the overnight TMS race the first year they had a CHUMP race in Tx. I had the probe sitting beside the shop, and we started prep on it for the chump rules. Shit happens, and 3 teamates couldn't come up with the cash to run, leaving myself and one other. We sent an email to the promoter, letting him know we weren't going to have enough drivers, and wouldn't be sending an entry fee.

Then shit got screwed. Seems they have a group from one of the big car mags that they wanted to put in a car so the mag could do a writeup. If we wouldn't mind, they will put us togerthe. I agreed, and was having a chat with the editor a few hours later. They were excited, booking tickets, lining up transportation to the track, etc. We were stoked, this sounded like a great deal! A couple of weeks later I got an email, the deal want going to be as planned. We needed to pony up the cash for the team, and work it out with the mag men to pay us. I ended up taking with that editor, and they weren't supposed to have to pay for this ride originally, but apprently CHUMP couldn't afford to bring them down and such. I offered a soulution: I will eat the costs of the car, fuel, brakes, tires, etc for the event, but don't have the cash available to pay the entry for the car and drivers. If CHUMP will wave the fee for entry, ithen these guys have a ride, and everyone has a good time (and CHUMP gets a nice write up in a natonal car mag) AND I was going to bring the. MIATA too, just in case the Probe broke, so that these guys all got a seat and werE happy. The mag guys were ready to do that, so we were all good.

CHUMP declined.

uuuuggghhh! I know they had problems getting the series rolling and not having many cars. Seems like Chump is doing well with all the races. Few exchanges I've had with the regional guy seems to be cool. We'll see. We are going to go watch the Eagle's Canyon Chump race in March and check out all the cars going through tech and see how it goes. I do like that it seems that have one guy responsible for tech at all the races instead of different people at different races looking for different things with Lemons. Dunno still may be the same with Chump. We are going to gear up for the 24hr at TWS with Chump.

Its ok on the grand prize thing. We asked for $3600 to go to the Indy car race at TMS since F1 race tickets haven't been announced. Included tickets and pit passes so we could wear our Lemons shirts for pics. Thought that was reasonable compared to last years grand prize cost over three times the amount but was declined. True he didn't have to give us a prize and we also don't have to race our 5 cars this year. Pretty simple.

[Baron Von Crowder]

The region's tech guy is Mike from the ZX2 team that did a barrel roll off our Miata and the Gremlin at MSR a couple yeas ago. One of our teamates worked with him, and we are still somewhat friendly with him and his team. We get invited to Chump races by them a couple times a year.

I understand your frustration and feeling a bit cheated on the points championship, but taking your toys and leaving seems a bit childish. Its not like you are going to get anything from Chump for it either, and once again, nothing was promised to you ahead of time. Its not like you guys started racing lemons because you wanted to get a trip to France.

[Murph Tang]

The region's tech guy is Mike from the ZX2 team that did a barrel roll off our Miata and the Gremlin at MSR a couple yeas ago. One of our teamates worked with him, and we are still somewhat friendly with him and his team. We get invited to Chump races by them a couple times a year.

I understand your frustration and feeling a bit cheated on the points championship, but taking your toys and leaving seems a bit childish. Its not like you are going to get anything from Chump for it either, and once again, nothing was promised to you ahead of time. Its not like you guys started racing lemons because you wanted to get a trip to France.

We don't think we are being childish. Doesn't mean we aren't going to race Lemons in the future we just not going to race this year. Lemons doesn't have to give us anything and we can race or not race if we want. We are just taking our business elsewhere this year to Chump. Its not like Lemons is the only game in town and we have to only race with them. We have choices. Race Lemons, Chump or not at all.