At the Vodden the Hell Are We Doing? 24 Hours of LeMons race in September, 242 teams registered, 228 managed to get their hoopties onto the Thunderhill Raceway track, and 216 have been counted on the 1st lap soon after the green flag waved. Why are those numbers considerable? Nicely, that race set the record for the world’s biggest endurance road race, and the Guinness Book of Planet Records folks are in the approach of certifying it as such. With so many entries, an individual need to come in DFL, and that team was the Killer Rabbit Racing Team (KRRT) and their 1986 Volkswagen GTI. We think these guys are heroes deserving of recognition, and here’s why.
Most of the time in these races, some group gets hammered with a staggering quantity of penalty laps by the LeMons Supreme Court, and then that team’s automobile throws a rod on its 4th lap and finishes a couple of hundred laps in negative territory and thus in last place. At the record-setting race at Thunderhill, this did not occur.
The KRRT VW rolled into the inspection area during the pre-race inspections, and the LeMons Supreme Court was faced with the kind of dilemma that happens with Rabbits (and Civics) all the time: even though some examples of this kind of auto can be quite rapid on a road course, this GTI had a squishy, worn-out suspension and a track record of sluggishness in previous races. In Class A, exactly where the quickly vehicles compete, the Killer Rabbit would be eaten alive . . . but it was a tiny bit too great for Class B. So, we gave the team a choice: Class A, or Class B with a couple of handicap laps to even items out. Wisely, the team took the latter option. We have been pleased by their Monty Python & the Holy Grail theme, too.
Class B with just a couple of laps to overcome would give the KRRT guys a good shot at beating the P71 Crown Victorias and slushbox-equipped GM F-bodies. There was much optimism in the KRRT camp on Friday night.
When the huge race got going on Saturday morning, the KRRT GTI looked excellent, at very first.
Then, as so often happens with 16-valve Volkswagen engines, a terrible noise issued from below the hood, oil and smoke gushed out, and the vehicle had to leave the track behind the wrecker. The group struggled to uncover yet another engine at neighborhood junkyards but did not succeed in obtaining their automobile in working order.
The Killer Rabbit Racing Group finished one particular lap total, which gave them a total of -1 laps completed with the 2-lap class handicap factored in. That meant 228th location out of 228 entries. Who got P227, you ask? The Pit Crew Revenge “Honda Corvette” (a Civic with C4 Corvette body elements attached) also turned a single lap, but in Class A with zero handicap laps.
The Killer Rabbits refused to give up after this disappointment, and the team will return to a future California LeMons race. They’re not dead yet!
This Is the Heroic LeMons Team that Finished in 228th Place—So, Last—in the Biggest Endurance Race in History
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