LeMons Northern California Day One: 222 Cars Start, 200 Blow Up, Billy Beer Fairmont Top Class C

Soon after we inspected the biggest group of teams in 24 Hours of LeMons history on Friday, we knew that this swarm of wild-eyed racers would be really eager to attempt out the new, enhanced 5-mile course at Thunderhill Raceway Park. So eager, in reality, that a lot of could be counted upon to spin their long-suffering engines well into the “here there be monsters” portion of the tachometer, and to stuff their cars into concrete barriers, and to cook their brakes and melt their bearings and inflict all manner of mechanical torture on their junkyardy hardware. That’s precisely what happened on Saturday, and although we didn’t literally get 200 blowed-up automobiles, a fast stroll previous the endless line of dead cars on jackstands sure produced it look that way. The competitors in the 3 classes (A, B, and C) was fascinating, the dramatic stories kept coming, and we’re positive all the neighborhood junkyards got picked clean of Honda engines. Here’s how the day went.

We’re filling out all the types needed to get this race in the Guinness Book of Globe Records, as the largest endurance road-race in history. Here’s what 222 LeMons vehicles look like when they line up to enter the track.

And, of course, it wasn’t long ahead of numerous of the teams looked like this. Some felt that the Audi victory in last weekend’s Colorado LeMons race marked the starting of an era of Audi LeMons domination. Such optimism seems to have been premature.

So, let’s get right to the class leaders. In Class A, there was a lot of switching of positions amongst the usual prime-of-the-standings teams for the duration of the course of the day, but the checkered flag for the day’s race session waved over the usual suspects: the Cerveza Racing 1983 BMW 533i. The Cerveza drivers look to have a sixth sense for problems creating several corners ahead, and while other teams get caught up in 40-auto tangles and go spinning off into the weeds, the Cerveza BMW stays far from something approaching difficulty. At this point, they have a 2-lap lead over the P2 car.

That P2 automobile takes place to be the 1987 BMW 325i of The Faustest Group, and it’s much faster than the Cerveza E28. The Faustest guys have been racing the automobile recognized as “the Devil E30” in LeMons considering that the early days of the series, and they’ve been really high in the standings on quite a few occasions. This could effectively be The Faustest Team’s race, even though hold in mind that becoming rapidly is not as essential as being constant and mistake-free in this sort of racing the mighty Eyesore Racing Miata knocked off a very best lap a full 14 seconds quicker than Cerveza’s fastest lap, and they finished the day in P5.

Major Class B is the Tartan Brigade and their 1980 Datsun 280ZX. This automobile has been terribly slow and unreliable in previous races, thanks to its automatic transmission and common air of decrepitude, but every little thing seems to be going correct for the Tartans this weekend. The ZX has a 2-lap lead over a trio of Class B pursuers, so Sunday promises to be a very good race day for fans of this usually-overlooked LeMons class.

The Class C win most often comes down to the group that breaks the least, and somehow the veteran 1979 Ford Fairmont of Billy Beer Racing managed to stay away from throwing any connecting rods in its Ford 200cid inline-6 engine. The Fairmont has just a single-lap edge over the Repeat Offenders’ Volvo 244, and more Class C combatants lurk not far behind them.

The Hella Shitty diesel-engined Porsche 911 jumped out to an early Class C lead, but paid a time-consuming pay a visit to to the penalty box that set it back a few essential laps. This auto (which is the shell of a rollover-victim parts-donor 911SC with a Volkswagen TDI swap) is just slightly quicker than the ’79 Fairmont, a lot to the displeasure of each 911 and TDI fans the planet more than.

The Peugeot Daddy 1963 Peugeot 404 could not be contending for a class lead (at the moment in P176 and a enormous 41 laps behind the Billy Beer Fairmont), but it is doing extremely well for a vehicle that not lengthy ago was abandoned in an Oregon field. Even although it is running laps about 2 minutes slower than the other vehicles, the Peugeot Daddy 404 looks lovely on the track.

The Spank the Builder and the Can-Do Crew 1967 Cat 416F Backhoe Loader (really an oft-reduce-and-pasted Mini Moke) also gets a lot of spectator approval. P160 and 9 laps ahead of the Peugeot!

After all the automobiles had been off the track, absolutely everyone got busy eating, wrenching, and generally celebrating a good day at the race track. Verify in later to see what occurs on Sunday!

LeMons Northern California Day One: 222 Cars Start, 200 Blow Up, Billy Beer Fairmont Top Class C

LeMons Sebring Day 1: Porsche 944 Leads, Duff Beer Civic Close Behind

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