LeMons Northern California Inspections: Plentiful British Automobiles, Harold & Maude&rsquos E-Kind Hearse

The 24 Hours of LeMons organization has descended upon the after-upscale Race Sonoma aka Sears Point in California’s Wine Country, for the eighth annual Arse Freeze-a-Palooza race. We’ve got the usual hordes of Mazda Miatas, Honda Civics, and BMW 3-series vehicles amongst the 180+ entrants (verify out Judge Eric’s preview for a far more detailed crapcan inventory), but we’ve also got more British vehicles than we’ve ever observed at a single LeMons race. We often have some Union-Jack-flying machinery at California races, but never ever the broad assortment of marques that we’ve got in shop for this weekend. Along with that, there’s also a not-quite-fully-British-but-nevertheless-remarkable replica of the Jaguar E-Sort hearse from the film Harold and Maude.

This “E-Type” began out as the In-a-Gadda-Da-Speeda Datsun 280ZX, then received some thrashed-but-genuine Jaguar body components and some creative sheet-metal perform to grow to be Harold’s hearse. The group even place collectively some exceptional costumes for the occasion.

As for the fully British cars, we’ve got at least one particular instance apiece from Austin, Rover, Jensen-Healey, Humber, MG, Jaguar, Sunbeam, and Lotus in the house (strangely, we do not have a single Triumph). Here’s the Pit Crew Revenge “RoLex” Rover SD1, which characteristics a Lexus 1UZ-FE V8 swap.

Would you think 2 Jensen-Healeys? Not only that, both have correct Lotus 907 engines!

Here’s a Lotus that does not have a Lotus 907: the “Chotus” features Chevrolet 350-cubic-inch V8 energy. The B-Team’s Chotus has turned in previous LeMons performances that run the gamut from execrable to disappointing, but the team has swapped in a Jaguar XJ-S rear suspension and worked Ford Sierra front hubs into a homemade front suspension that might let the B-Team to get a full weekend of racing out of their automobile.

Bonus points for this so-geeky-we-nearly-can’t-stand-it Chotus badge.

Of course, you cannot have British vehicles with out at least one particular French vehicle, and here’s the Peugeot Daddy 404 to remind us that they make automobiles on the other side of the Channel.

Also from the Continent, 2 Teutono-GM Opel GTs.

Classic Detroit machinery was also nicely-represented. Verify out this battered-but-proud Chevy El Camino, comprehensive with genuine Chevrolet rally wheels. With its squishy suspension and tired 350 engine, this vehicle will compete against the Jensen-Healeys, Peugeot 404, and Humber Super Snipe in Class C.

Ford Pinto Cruising Wagon? Yeah, we’ve got one!

This Ford Crown Victoria team showed up with a classed-up “ASSCAR” theme, full with umbrella girls.

Hella Shitty Racing, which operates on the premise that guys should be objectified as humiliatingly as girls in racing, contributed some of the team’s own eye candy to the ASSCAR presentation. Only in LeMons!

The final time LeMons came to this track, the LeMons Supreme Court’s BRIBED stencil featured a stencil primarily based on the Grateful Dead’s “Steal Your Face” logo. This time, we decided to remain psychedelic with a diagram of the LSD molecule.

One particular team brought a game of Brain Surgery Operation for the LeMons Supreme Court to use as a penalty for miscreant drivers. Here’s Judge Mary (who performs as an emergency-room doctor for her day job) trying her hand at Brain Surgery Operation.

Teams continue to do Breaking Bad themes, and they maintain getting greater.

This group picked up an Audi wagon that had produced the news for a dramatic police chase prior to receiving LeMon-ized. Such provenance!

Yet another team brought this boombox constructed into a trash bin. We admire this sort of ingenuity.

The Killer Rabbit Racing Team, which finished in 228th spot in the world’s biggest road race earlier this year, is back. We really feel particular that they will not be DFL this time.

Following the inspections, the teams got busy with the cookin’ and wrenchin’ in the cold, rainy evening hours. Check in Saturday night to see what occurs in the course of the initial day’s race session!

LeMons Northern California Inspections: Plentiful British Automobiles, Harold & Maude&rsquos E-Kind Hearse

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