Penalties:
1) I got flagged for creaming a barrel. I got one of those rare clean shots at the chicane and simply came into it too hot... not giving much thought to the bump in the middle, which really didn't help with the whole late-braking thing. Slid straight through the row of barrels on the other side. That would have been a 10-minute penalty, but Jay gave us a freebie because we loaned them our welder for the Arc Angel. This was our FIRST flag, and it was over 6 hours into the race... not bad at all.
2) In the wee hours of the morning, one of our guys got flagged for "aggressive driving", 30 minutes. (they didn't do any of the silly stuff after dark, probably to keep the noise down) It was my fault. Because we were running 2nd gear and had no speed, a lot of the guys were running an "autocross line". Very tight, shortest distance. Smart, but in one place it was making it FAR too easy for the cars that were passing to the outside. So, I told them to "make the car wider" in that place. Travel just far enough off of the inside to not give them enough room to pass on the inside, just to make them work a little harder for the pass. Well, he took it further than that and was diving in on people in the turns... not good. Oh, well. He learned.
3) Somebody spun when the handling started to fade Sunday morning, 15 minutes. It was our only spin of the entire race. The shocks went to complete shit about half-way through the race. When the front shocks gave up, the oversteer took a little more care to keep in check.
What really killed us in this race (take note... I can't preach this enough... and so many people don't seem to "get it") was reliability. An hour to try to diagnose and fix the transmission problem when the team captain KNEW there were issues with the transmission and had opted to not replace it before the race. 20 minutes blown on tracking down a coolant leak at the waterpump because the team captain didn't have a proper gasket and opted to use sealant instead. (stop-leak fixed it, fortunately) 10 minutes blown tracking down a bolt to replace the lower alternator bracket bolt that was lost because "it's a pain to get to" and wasn't tightened properly. At least two extra stops made for oil due to leaks that were known, but not fixed. 15 minutes fixing a crippling vacuum leak from a cracked rubber cap on the intake manifold. 15 minutes unplugging the fuel pump from loose foam in the fuel cell. One black flag and several 5-minute blocks wasted due to the fuel tank vent/overflow tank being poorly designed and needing to be emptied.
If we'd had a truly reliable car, with a functional 3rd gear... even with 5/6 of our drivers being completely inexperienced, we could have finished top-5 with that car. So, one more time, my advice to aspiring LeMons racers: Forget "fast", settle for "not painfully slow" if necessary. Concentrate on RELIABILITY, then on good handling and good brakes.
Would I do Toledo again? Yeah. For such a simple little track, it was really fun. And the LeMons format has become really good, too. For the most part, everyone drives with "respect" for other drivers. Nobody's trying to punt you around, even the big cars. And if they are, they don't last long... just stay out of their way. 24 hours is a long, long time to be racing.
I need to get in with a team that really "gets it", though. If I wasn't already committed to driving with these BMW guys from Ohio, the team in the Orange Plymouth Fury was looking for a driver at the last minute... THAT would have been a fun team to be on. Helluva big car, but it's well set up and stayed on track.