,
You’re wrong about two things at this point.
1: You think this epic journey through fabricationland took a long time. In reality, these guys slapped this contraption together in only 3 months!
2: You think this picture shows the the car weeks from completion. Actually, this is how it raced. The only parts missing in this picture are the FIA fuel cell (it bolts to the cage right behind the driver), and the aluminum panels that separate the engine from the driver’s elbow. The open floor is how they roll.
So did it work? Sort of…
The Hamster was one of the last cars to arrive at Thunderhill, having still been under construction through most of registration. Then it was sent home when the FIA certification on the fuel cell couldn’t be found (if you’re gonna mount the fuel cell next to the driver, don’t expect any slack on fuel safety!) Around 11pm, the night before the race, and 3 hours from the track, the FIA tag was found and the car was finally ready to race. The Hamster, at this point, had never been on a track.
To everyone’s amazement, hours went by without major mishap. Things were going so smoothly, in fact, they were ready to offer me a stint in the car for some mid-race suspension tuning input. I nervously suited up, eager to experience the nuttiest car LeMons has ever seen, when they were black flagged. The car was smoking, which of course is normal, but it apaprently it was smoking slightly more than every other shitbox on the track.
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| Is that a Hamster in your pants or are you just happy to be racing? |
The root cause turned out to be a leak from the fancy drive-reversing gearbox. Closer inspection showed the four bolts holding the box to the bike’s output had sheared. The bolts were tiny, only 6mm, and the delicate motorcycle casting didn’t leave enough meat to enlarge them. The torque reaction from the offset gearbox was simply too much and they snapped.
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| Pssst… Your starter is showing… |
At this point I stopped offering my services.
A few hours from the checkered flag, the Hamster rolled into the pits for the last time. The shift selector inside the gearbox had failed. There were going to be no miraculous fixes for that unless someone showed up with a Magna.
An ignominious debut for such a spectactuar machine? Perhaps, but not half bad as a first shakedown test. Relatively minor tuning and tweaking is all thats left before we see the true potential of the Hamster. Expect to see that potential at Sears Point in March.
Back to The Best Engineered Cars of Lemons…
