After inspecting the machines of a small but devoted band of racers on Friday, the initial race session of the initial-ever Humidi TT 24 Hours of LeMons took place on Saturday at Sebring International Raceway. Even even though a wild afternoon lightning storm blasted many pieces of track infrastructure and forced the evacuation of the flag stations, we had many hours of good racing. When the checkered flag flew, German and Japanese marques owned the upper element of the standings, with the leading 5 going Porsche, Honda, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Honda. Meanwhile, the Class C battle gave us intense drama throughout the day. Here’s what occurred.
Even though Porsche 944s have been really frustrating LeMons automobiles in the previous, the first-ever Porsche all round LeMons win final year might have changed the rules a bit. At the end of Saturday’s race session at Sebring, the Floridiot Motorsports 1986 Porsche 944 owned the P1 spot. This team had to rebuild their engine’s cylinder head on the night before the race and went via a last-feasible-second tech inspection on Saturday morning. The crew spent the day chewing their fingernails to the swift with be concerned more than their questionable engine, but the red Porsche refrained from dumping its connecting rods onto the tarmac.
On the quite identical lap as the Floridiots, however, was a team that has spent a lot of years mired in the lower portion of the standings in a variety of southern LeMons races: the Duff Beer Honda Civic. We’d grow to be so accustomed to seeing the Duff Beer crew up to their armpits in broken Honda engine parts more than the years that we believed there must be some mistake when we saw the familiar ’94 Civic sweating the overall leader for the race lead. Positive, the Duff guys are excellent drivers, but all the racing ability in the planet will not assist you when your 19th D16 of the year just spun another main bearing. Since the LeMons Supreme Court placed the tough-luck Duff Beer auto in Class B, the group is leading their class by an intimidating 8 laps.
Major Class C is the slow-but-trus2rthy 1964 Dart of Escape Velocity Racing. With 225 cubic inches of Slant-6 energy and a pushbutton-controlled automatic transmission, the Escape Velocity Dart holds a 9-lap lead more than its 1964 Ford rival.
The Group Fairlylame 1964 Ford Fairlane isn’t a lot quicker than the Dart about the Sebring course, in spite of its 64-cubic-inch engine-displacement edge, so the Ford racers will require to be prepared to take benefit of a driver mistake or mechanical difficulty on the portion of the Escape Velocity group.
The larger worry for the Dart team, however, have to be the Group Idle Clatter 1979 Mercedes-Benz 300SD. Though the huge oil-burning Benz is a great 10-15 seconds slower per lap than the Dodge, the team’s black-flag-cost-free driving and the car’s impressive fuel economy have them locked just a single lap behind Escape Velocity Racing. Neither group has ever earned a Class C win, so expect no quarter asked nor given between these 2 on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the considerably-anticipated race-within-a-race between the Chrysler Sebring of Speedycop & the Gang of Outlaws and the Chrysler Sebring of NSF Racing sorted out about as absolutely everyone anticipated: both vehicles suffered a number of mechanical ailments in among bouts of creaking around the course in the fashion we have come to count on from unloved 1990s Chrysler front-drivers. When the checkered flag came out, the Speedycop 2000 Sebring was in P18, with 64 laps, great for a 6-lap edge more than the 1999 NSF Sebring.
Each Sebrings are depressingly stock, neither team even bothering to modify the oil or install decent tires. Nevertheless, the Sebring-versus-Sebring-at-Sebring race has diehard LeMons fans worked into a competitive frenzy. Which of the 2 legendary teams will see their Sebring via to victory in the 12 Hours (in fact 14-1/2 hours) of Sebrings? Verify in later to find out!
Photographs by Nick Pon and Murilee “Judge Phil” Martin
LeMons Sebring Day 1: Porsche 944 Leads, Duff Beer Civic Close Behind
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