24 Hours of LeMons Chicago: A lot of Porsches, A lot of Former Winners, and a BMW-Powered Geo

We’re back in the Midwest when once again, for the fifth check out of the 24 Hours of LeMons to the Autobahn Nation Club and this year’s operating of the Doin’ Time In Joliet race. With a lot more than 100 teams entered, we’ve got a total of 5 former all round LeMons winners on the premises (a Camaro, 2 BMW E30s, a 300ZX, and an MR2) and several much more potential contenders. You can study LeMons Supreme Court Justice Judge Eric’s race preview for much more information on the probably class contenders proper now we’re going to look at some of the much more intriguing automobiles and teams that showed up for the classic car inspections right now.

With a excellent half-dozen or so Porsche 924s and 944s right here, we anticipate to see a lot of errant engine parts scattered over the tarmac and numerous teams staring blankly at 20-hours-to-replace dead transmissions. This race will be run in 1 long session that starts Saturday morning and ends at midnight, so challenging-to-repair cars such as these will be at a disadvantage without the usual Saturday night wrench-fest.

Of course, this 944 has General Motors 4.3-liter V6 power… and the Porsche transaxle. This ought to be intriguing.

German cars with ill-advised Detroit-sourced engine swaps are nothing new in this series. Here’s a Mercedes-Benz C230 that showed up at the wrecking yard owned by a single of the team’s members. Following promoting off every thing of worth from the car, they rummaged by way of the yard for a appropriate replacement engine.

Which, naturally, turned out to be a “Pinto 2300″ out of a Ford Ranger.

Japanese cars also get strange engine swaps in LeMons racing. Here’s the Pabst Blue Racing Nissan Maxima, which characteristics mid-mounted Cadillac Northstar V8 energy.

Pabst Blue Racing has suffered from repeated transmission problems in past races, mostly brought on by nervous breakdowns of the transmission’s electronic manage unit. The poor transmission ECU thought it was still installed in the Cadillac STS drivetrain-donor vehicle, and it was not content with the inputs it was receiving from its new home. As a result, the team replaced— or possibly supplemented, we’re not sure— the shifter with this set of switches. With this new rig, the driver merely reaches more than with his gloved hand for the duration of the whirling chaos of wheel-to-wheel road racing, fumbles at the switches in the hope of selecting the appropriate gear, and overrides the tranny ECM by actuating internal transmission solenoids by means of direct electrical stimulation. This must function perfectly.

The Pabst Blue Racing automobile is a gloriously bad idea, but it’s positively sane subsequent to what LemonAid Racing has completed with their Geo Metro. This automobile won Class C and the Index of Effluency with its original 3-cylinder Suzuki engine, but then the team decided that they wanted much more energy. Rather than go the boring route and drop in the “big-block” 4-cylinder Suzuki engine, the members of LemonAid Racing lost their presence of mind and went huge crazy.

Yes, that is a BMW 6-cylinder engine out of a late E30. The Metro also received a narrowed E30 rear suspension the driver had to be moved back a few feet to make area for the cruelly butchered firewall. Somehow, this auto ended up weighing more than the team’s E30 race vehicle, so we’re not expecting it to run away with anything this race.

Soon after finishing in the leading 5 in what appears like a dozen Midwest Area LeMons races, the Small Lebowski Urban Achievers and their naturally-aspirated Volvo 245 are back for yet another shot at that ever-elusive overall win.

Soon after installing a Fat Man atomic bomb, a Little Boy atomic bomb, and a covered wagon atop their Civic, the Group Formerly Known As Oregon Fail now has a gigantic Led Zeppelin installed.

The BRIBED stencil employed by the LeMons Supreme Court this race attributes an homage to the fantastic Brougham Edition vehicles that had been as soon as so common in this part of the country. BROUGHBED!

Why don’t more teams race V12 Jaguars? You can get a running XJ-S for much less than scrap worth these days, we love British vehicles, and no LeMons engine sounds as excellent as the massive twelve.

Sure, there may be some drawbacks to this approach, but what other automobile with this a lot power gets place into Class C?

The Union of Pentastar Racers have brought their confusingly Soviet-themed Duster, or perhaps it’s a Shadow or a Sundance, back for another shot at Mitsubishi-powered Chrysler glory.

As Billy Dee Williams would say, the Mitsubishi 6G72 virtually operates every time.

Great themes abounded. Here’s the “Cougar” (truly a Ford Probe) of Burnt Rubber Soul Racing.

We also have a actual Cougar, covered in blinding orange reflective tape for added irritation.

Zero Price range Racing redecorated their Class C and Index of Effluency-winning Chevy Chevette Diesel with this patriotic Domino’s Pizza-influenced theme. Why?

It turns out that Domino’s utilized a fleet of specially configured Chevettes as delivery cars in the 1980s.

Domin8′s Pizza: “Sluggish, Surly, ‘Splodey Delivery.”

The RUN-EXP Ford EXP has returned for another try at Class C victory. Can it beat the Jaguar?

That and several other pressing troubles will be settled Saturday. Check back later for the race results.

24 Hours of LeMons Chicago: A lot of Porsches, A lot of Former Winners, and a BMW-Powered Geo