ENGINEERED TO SURVIVE… HOPEFULLY
The four members of “Priority Fail,” who all work in the metalcasting industry, met at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Platteville.
“24 Hours of LeMons” is a series of one-day, around-the-clock endurance races for cars that cost less than $500. (The name plays off France’s famed Le Mans
endurance road races.) Billed as “breeding grounds for morons,” the races attract all sorts of characters, including a group of engineers from the metalcasting industry. Priority Fail is a team of four Univ. of Wisconsin-Platteville engineering graduates and their not-so-trusty 1997 Volkswagen Golf, designed to look like an old postal delivery vehicle, complete with mailbags tied to the roof rack. Henry Frear, Applied Process, Livonia, Mich.; Dan Kaul, Signicast, Hartford, Wis.; Patrick Kluesner, Magma Foundry Technologies Inc., Schaumburg, Ill.; and Nathan Schlawin, Metaltek, Waukesha, Wis., rotate in their roles as drivers and pit crew.
At last year’s Doin’ Time in Joliet (Ill.) race, the team temporarily climbed to 11th
place in the 96-car fi eld, before a series of mechanical complications left the vehicle spending too much time on the sidelines. Sponsored by both Applied Process and Magma, Priority Fail hoped for a better fi nish than 64th with 188 laps completed in 14 hours, but—perhaps most importantly—the car was still running when it cruised past the checkered fl ag.
The team’s 1997 Volkswagen Golf completed 188 laps of the Joliet, Ill., race course in 14 hours. 56 | METAL CASTING DESIGN & PURCHASING | Mar/Apr 2015
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