Following the parade by means of a when-wholesome South Carolina town and subsequent auto inspections on Friday, the racing began on Saturday morning. As the day progressed, we saw a mix of the expected and unexpected here’s how it went.
1st, the expected stuff: The one particular-of-60-built 1960 Ford Frontenac coupe of NSF Racing failed to be ready in time to catch the green flag, but then roared onto the track and looked great. Then it suffered from the fuel-program-contamination issues you get with a vehicle that sat for years and started producing frequent pit stops to deal with clogged-carburetor-related hassles. Nevertheless, the Frontenac was racing!
That is, it was racing until early afternoon, when the engine lost energy, started vomiting choking clouds of smoke, and exhibiting all the warning signs of a blown head gasket and/or negative piston rings and/or bent pushrods and/or poor rod bearings and/or a neutron star forming in the oil pan. Such complete engine failure hadn’t been seen because NSF Racing campaigned the worst car in LeMons history final year, but the very good news was that they’d brought a fresh-searching 170-cubic-inch straight-6 that they’d discovered on Craigslist prior to the race. Engine swap time!
This becoming NSF Racing, the swap approach has gone with sub-optimal smoothness, but they should have the new engine in location by the time Sunday’s race session starts. So far, the Frontenac has notched a total of 35 laps, good for P101 out of 109 entries.
Meanwhile, the Renault Fuego Turbo of Interceptor Motorsports also performed as anticipated (really, better than expected, at least when you go by the expectations of anybody who has any familiarity with the Fuego). The car wasn’t prepared for the green flag, which surprised no one. Then it clattered onto the track about midday. Hooray!
The Fuego was slow (the slowest car in the race, in reality) and it sputtered to a halt and had to be rescued by the wrecker about every 1.5 laps, but Interceptor Motorsports was competing!
Then the auto limped into the penalty box, spewed a vile-seeking engine-fluids milkshake out through the grille, and spat its thermostat onto the ground. Now that is a dramatic breakdown, even in the eyes of the noticed-it-all-prior to members of the LeMons Supreme Court. The Fuego managed 9 laps on Saturday, which is about 6 much more than most of us expected. We told the Fuego guys to go fix the first half-dozen troubles they identified below the hood and attempt once more in the morning.
Also expected— although far more depressing— was the sequence of events that took spot with Group SOB and their Volkswagen Golf. This group began out as South of the Border back in 2008, then junkyard-turbocharged their engine and became Screaming on Enhance a few years later, and now they’re the all-also-aptly-named Team Sick of Breaking. For 6 extended years, they’ve been coming to LeMons races at CMP, climbing to the very prime of the standings at every single race thanks to excellent driving skills… and then breaking the auto. This time, they grabbed the P1 spot early and started developing up a good cushion as the day went on. Then, a blown tire followed by a leaking oil cooler expense them about 10 laps, and they completed the session in 8th location and 6 laps back of the leader— nonetheless in the hunt but in need of some blunders by other teams to reclaim the top spot. The path selected by the Volkswagen racer is not an straightforward 1.
Now we’re going to veer off into unexpected territory, with the class leaders at the finish of Saturday’s race session. Leading Class A and in P1, we’ve got the Hong Norrth C 1984 Toyota Supra. Hong Norrth has been one of the teams to beat in the LeMons South Area for years now, but their string of victories came with a pair of well-sorted Mazda MX-3s, which the group now appears to have stuffed into The Crusher and replaced with one of the least-reputable vehicles in the series (2 Supras have won LeMons races, but the most recent such victory came in 2009). They’d completed quite poorly with this Supra since its debut a few races back, but right now they’ve managed to inch all the way up to the pinnacle of the standings. Can it final?
On the exact same lap as the Hong Norrth Supra, oddly sufficient, is Quick Al’s Race Team and their automatic-transmission-equipped Volvo 745. We don’t know how this is taking place, what with the Volvo 740′s propensity for mechanical failure in LeMons, but there it is.
Also with 225 laps, we’ve got the VW Golf driven by Hung South Racing, producing a 3some of notoriously breakdown-prone vehicle varieties inside seconds of 1 one more on the lead lap. Sunday is going to be fascinating for the spectators.
The Class B lead became the subject of much controversy for the duration of the latter hours of Saturday’s race session, with the LeMons Supreme Court attempting to appropriate a perceived classing screw-up by promoting the Halfast Racing Chevrolet Caprice from Class B to Class A (the final handful of races have been subject to a particular quantity of activism from the bench, which has caused a lot wailing and gnashing of teeth among some racers). After significantly agonized debate amongst the justices, the LCS has granted Halfast Racing the Class B/5-lap handicap we gave them at the Alabama race, placing them in P9, exactly where they will commence Sunday’s racing with a 5-lap lead in their class.
That indicates that the long-suffering Duff Beer team and their D-engined ’94 Honda Civic will be hoping for the Halfast Chevy to blow up… which it has carried out at each and every of its final 6 LeMons races.
Even if the Halfast Caprice sprays a mist of vaporized pistons out of its tailpipes on the first lap tomorrow, the Duff Beer guys will not be in a position to unwind, because just yards behind them lurks the Generar Ree Datsun 260Z. This plot has plenty of twists and turns.
The Class C leader will start off Sunday’s session with a comfy-seeming 12-lap lead more than its nearest pursuer, but how could any racers feel confident when they’re driving a wretched Cadillac Catera? The members of Cadillac Racing have been in this position prior to, only to see their dreams shattered by the reality of desperate 1990s GM badge engineering. Their powertrain sounds like a couple of sick bison trapped inside a shipping container full of plumbing fittings, but that’s regular for a Catera.
Somewhat a lot more reputable (but no quicker) than the Catera, the Slant-6 E30 (which is a BMW 3-series with a Chrysler Slant-Six swap) will be poised to take slow-motion advantage
The Penalty Box was fairly busy during Saturday, with justice dispensed by your LeMons correspondent, Judge Jason Torchinsky, and Judge Steven McDaniel. We had so numerous spinning/crashing/off-roading Mazda Miatas for the duration of the day that we made some of the offending Miata teams celebrate the Miata’s 25th anniversary.
The Speedycop-constructed Wagon Queen Household Truckster started off sturdy, but fried its brakes following the 1st hour and fell down to 78th spot. Not that any individual really cares, because just look at it!
The Knoxvegas Lowballers and their Duratec-powered, mid-engined Geo Metro have converted their Smokey and the Bandit 18-wheeler to a terrifying Maximum Overdrive machine. Unlike most LeMons cars of the absurd tiny-automobile/big-engine genre, the Lowballers have found a way to be (relatively) quick and (sort of) trus2rthy with their Metro, leading Class B for a couple of glorious moments on Saturday.
There’s a lot at stake on Sunday, so be confident to verify in later!
LeMons South Day 1: Supra Leads, Frontenac and Fuego In A lot of Pieces
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