Trackday Diaries: Cost is No Object for My Race Team, Help Us Choose a New Name.

What did you do this morning? I spent $101.78 at the local Pick-N’-Pull, using a completely inadequate set of hand tools to remove the last twincam Neon head to be found in any Columbus, Ohio – area junkyard. I removed the power steering reservoir by beating it to pieces with a crankshaft damper from a Chrysler LHS. I imagine Adrian Newey is doing something similar right now on the Red Bull RB6.

The reason for this outrageous expenditure is simple: NASA (the race sanction, not the folks who no longer build rockets) has partially come to its senses. In previous years, the minimum weight for doublecam Neons was 2650 pounds, while the twincam Sentras and single-cam Neons were both 2450. Needless to say, our single-cam Neon has never successfully beaten a Sentra in a Performance Touring race unless it was raining (I’m the Jenson Button of club racing, including pre-trophy-ceremony makeouts) or the aforementioned Sentra has made a major mistake.

This year, two interesting things have happened. First, NASA dropped doublecams to 2550 and raised the Sentra to 2525. Now we have a fighting chance. Second, the fellow who owns the other half of my race team acquired his racing license last week. Finally, I have a teammate! So we need a new name, and I’m taking suggestions.

The race team is currently called Green Baron Motorsports. I named it this to spite some wanna-be half-German “Baron” who has conveniently forgotten that we don’t use titles in the America, yo. If he wants to drag his extremely questionable baroncy out of a rather dusty closet, I’m going to do the same thing. (For the record, the list of people who would have to die to make me “Baron Baruth” is slightly longer than the list of excuses Jalopnik handed out during the CTS-V Challenge.)

Now that we have two drivers, one of whom is half-Egyptian, I am thinking we should have a new name. I will take your suggestions. If it helps, here are some details about us:

• We drive a 1996 Plymouth Neon Sport, as seen here:

We are hoping to debut the newly-twin-cammed Neon at the August 14 NASA Mid-Ohio event. In order to do this, we need to buy a variety of accessories, have the head polished and 3-angle-valve-jobbed, find some decent cams, and, last but not least, build, install, configure, and tune a “Megasquirt” setup. If you live in Ohio, feel free to stop by our shop in Westerville to help out! With fewer than five shootings in 2010, the Route 3 and Route 161 intersection has never been a safer place to work on a car past midnight!

Some of you may be familiar with “Courage Wolf”, “Advice Dog”, and other instant memes. Green Baron Motorsports has our own instant meme, the Crashing Neon, as seen here:

http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i15/viergang/memes/

Sadly, they all refer to actual incidents.