We’re back at northeastern Colorado’s Higher Plains Raceway for the fifth annual B.F.E. GP 24 Hours of LeMons, and we may possibly have the highest percentage of excellent race vehicles we’ve ever seen at one particular of our races. The quantity of teams could not be so high— just 42 teams have been willing to make the trek to this aptly-named occasion in the far reaches of rural Colorado— but the top quality is prime-notch. Let’s take a appear at some of the highlights from Friday’s inspections.
For the initial time ever, 2 Hyundais are competing head-to-head in a LeMons race. A proud day for Koreans!
In truth, each cars are 2002 Accents. We hope to see a Scoupe, XG, or Tiburon soon.
Numerous teams drove up from Texas, such as Wine-O Racing and their Toyota Solara. You’d feel that a 21st-century Toyota would be quite swift on the race track (compared to, say, an ’82 Datsun Maxima), but we’ve discovered (following many races) that such is not the case with the Wine-Os.
After I was heard on-camera referring to this automobile as “astonishingly sluggish” at the Sebring Race in July, the Wine-Os’ case for acquiring place into Class C (with the slowest, i.e., best LeMons vehicles) became significantly stronger. They’d began out in Class A, completed in the cellar, then “competed” in Class B, completed in the cellar, and importuned the LeMons Supreme Court to please put their damn-close to-new Toyota into Class C.
Considering that they had such excellent Colorado-themed finish plates on their decklid wing, the Wine-Os ultimately got Class C, although with a bit of a lap handicap. You will see the reason for the handicap in a moment.
Speaking of the things that make my property state particular, the BRIBED stencil for the 5th B.F.E. GP incorporated numerous Colorado icons: legal cannabis, beer, and Subarus.
Back to the fine Class C automobiles of this race, at extended last we’ve ultimately got one particular of the cars we most want to see in our race: an Opel Manta.
The Manta will be competing in Class C against the Grumpy Cat Racing 1950 Dodge pickup, complete with flathead Chrysler 6-cylinder engine, winner of the Index of Effluency at the Return of the LeMonites race in Utah a handful of months ago.
The Grumpy Cat’s 218-cubic-inch engine ran the Utah race with about zero oil pressure and an increasingly catastrophic oil blow-by issue. The team found a replacement engine (Chrysler flathead sixes are worth scrap value these days, much more or significantly less), but didn’t have the rebuild accomplished in time for this weekend’s race. Knowing that we have outlawed fire-hazard jug-and-hose blowby-recovery systems, they rigged up this innovative blow-by condenser technique. According to Grumpy Cat Racing logic, the fine oil particles getting spewed into the crankcase will be directed into this old automobile radiator atop the engine, where the oil will condense back into a liquid and flow back into the oil pan instead of being sprayed onto the track.
We expressed skepticism about this admirably ingenious but extremely janky rig, and so the Grumpy Cats managed to score a comprehensive, running engine-donor vehicle on the day just before the inspections: this early-50s ex-TWA airport tug, with Chrysler flathead 230 power and 17:1 differential gearing. Simply because it weighs about 3 tons (the “body” is produced from inch-thick cast iron), the scrap worth of the shell should make this spare engine free of charge. When the 218 gets black-flagged for smoking/spewing/exploding (as we feel specific it will), the Grumpy Cat crew simply yanks the 230, swaps it into the Dodge, and gets back on the track. No weak points in this strategy!
The fantastic thing about Class C in LeMons is that you can win it even if you do have to swap an engine, sometimes even if that engine is a couple states away. Even with that in thoughts, the Manta and the ’50 Dodge teams may possibly be worried about the Blue Flag Particular AMC Pacer wagon. This Pacer won the Index of Effluency trophy at the 2012 B.F.E. GP, where it was glacially slow, but now it has a secret weapon under the hood.
Yes, that’s a Jeep 4. straight-6 engine with an Eaton supercharger yanked off a junkyard-ubiquitous mid-90s GM 3800 V6. It is already searching like a excellent-yet-terrible concept, correct?
It gets even greater! Feeding this engine is a Hitachi SU carburetor, originally a single-half of the carb setup on a Datsun 240Z. So, a carburetor meant to offer fuel for 1200 CCs of naturally-aspirated engine displacement is now feeding 4000 CCs of blown engine.
At least there’s a homemade relief valve to spare the fuel/air-delivery system in case of backfire.
And, naturally, a Flavor Flav-size boost gauge, pulled off some large piece of stationary industrial-approach equipment.
The automobile that produced jaws drop the lowest, though, was the Sordick Racing Renault R5 Turbo replica. Based on a Le Car that was buried beneath tons of river silt in final year’s Colorado flooding and featuring livery in homage to the Calberson-sponsored, Ragnotti-driven WRC Group 4 R5 Turbo, this vehicle turned out to be a masterpiece of low-buck engineering and fabrication.
In the back, where a actual R5 Turbo would have a 158-horse hair-dried Renault Cléon engine, there’s a 190-horse Nissan V6 drivetrain out of a flood-victim Infiniti I30t. We’ve observed really a couple of tiny-automobile-with-mid-engine-swap rigs in LeMons, and they often take a race or 3 to get the significant bugs sorted out. This auto has never ever driven a lot more than about 50 feet with the Nissan engine, so the LeMons Supreme Court place it in Class C. Will it run away with the class? Maybe, but that’s not the way to bet.
Speaking of ill-advised engine swaps, how about a late-70s Toyota Celica with supercharged GM 3800? This auto actually went into Class B, because some of the team’s bigger troubles may have been solved by now.
We saw some good team themes, such as these pretty well-executed Bill and Ted costumes.
Rocket Surgery Racing was back with improved Fifth Element outfits.
Here’s a first: a single of the quite couple of manual-transmission-equipped early-90s Toyota Camrys sold in the United States.
The preferred to take the general win has to be the Back To The Past group, whose Nissan 300ZX has won 3 prior races. Their car will be down on power at this mile-high elevation, but BTTP tends to make few blunders and hardly ever breaks their automobile.
Be confident to verify in Saturday night to see how the initial race session goes!
24 Hours of LeMons Colorado Vehicle Inspections: Opel Manta, Renault R5 Turbo, and an Airport-Tug Engine Donor
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