The 24 Hours of LeMons Traveling Circus has returned to The Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington, for the 4th annual Pacific Northworst 24 Hours of LeMons. Due to scheduling issues with the venue, we had to do the car inspections beginning at oh-dark-thirty on Saturday morning and then drop the green flag for the race itself instantly afterwards. That signifies we’re mashing the traditional inspection post into the standard first-day-roundup post, in much the same way that a Corolla can be mashed into an MR2 to develop a twin-engined race automobile. Right here we go!
In honor of a well-known Washington-primarily based firm, the conventional BRIBED stencil incorporated the face of Clippy the Workplace Assistant.
Junkyards are full of low cost superchargers these days the easiest to find is the Eaton unit installed on various GM cars with Buick 3800 V6 engines during the 1990s. Here’s one particular on a Buick 215-cubic-inch V8. Fast, guess the vehicle!
That is appropriate, we’ve got the third Rover SD1 to make its LeMons debut for the duration of the summer season of 2014. This one particular features an Eaton blower, draw-through carburetor fuel-delivery system… and a spot in Class C. We expected Group Odin’s Rover to spray a lot of pounds of finely granulated engine parts out the tailpipe within a number of laps of setting tire to track, but that is not what occurred. By the end of the day’s grueling race session, Group Odin was in P34 all round (out of 63 entries) and second in Class C.
Leading Class C was the Saturn SL2 of Team Car Error Panamericana, a vehicle that is been competing in West Coast LeMons races for a lot of years and has but to bring residence a trophy of any sort for its group. With a massive 33-lap lead more than the Rover, the Vehicle Error Panamericanas appear to be in quite very good shape, but you just never ever know what will occur in the most exciting LeMons class.
The ADO17 “Landcrab” of Silversleeves Racing was the quickest of the Class C entries, what with its Mazda V6 yanked out of a Ford Probe, but… effectively, it’s a Landcrab. Nevertheless, P46 isn’t so poor for a auto like this.
We had high hopes for the 1974 Ford Mustang II of Low Road Racing, figuring that an automatic-equipped, 2.8 V6-powered Pinto sibling may well have a shot in Class C, but there’s a purpose that Mustang IIs sell for a tiny fraction of the price of slightly older Mustangs. P55 at the end of the race session.
The “Megadethdrap” graphic on the Mustang’s hood pleased the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court quite considerably.
We’d only had 2 Chevrolet Corvairs in LeMons prior to this weekend, and so the sight of the ’60 of Team Transcontinental Drifters was an fascinating 1.
Unfortunately, 54-year-old Detroit compacts with loose engines aren’t in their natural element on a road course, and the Transcontinental Drifters left an alarming trail of smoke behind their Chevy every single time they limped onto the track.
27 laps, good for 57th spot out of 63. The group has all night to fix their Corvair, so probably Sunday will be a far better day for Corvair race fans.
The really Bondo-ized ’52 Hudson Hornet of Chase Race won the Index of Effluency trophy at the 2013 Pacific Northworst race, but a hub failure place the old Hudson on the trailer right after a mere 84 laps on Saturday. Hudson components aren’t effortless to uncover in Washington state on brief notice.
The Flying Baldini Bandits thought they’d improve their chances in Class B by adding a Toyota Previa supercharger to their Honda Civic’s lackluster D15 engine.
Sadly, the Baldinis neglected to do enough investigation about the path of rotation of their engine versus that of the Previa blower, and it turns out that their enhance levels weren’t so higher on a backward-spinning supercharger.
Really top Class B, and in an astonishing P3 all round, the Jeep Cherokee of Petty Cash Racing proves that independent front suspension is overrated for road racing.
On the exact same lap as the Cherokee, the ONSET/Tetanus West ’89 Chevy Cavalier will not require significantly of a stumble on the part of the Jeep team to take the Class B lead.
We’ve seen many LeMons automobiles sprayed a quickie coat of pink paint and labeled as “Barbie’s Corvette,” but finally we had a group locate a real Corvette (a C4, of course) and Barbie-ize it. The Silversleeves Racing ’84 Corvette (yes, this is the identical team that runs the Landcrab) is the perfect Barbie Corvette, appropriate down to its dreaded Doug Nash 4+3 transmission and its even-more-far more-dreaded Cross-Fire Injection fuel technique.
Best of all, this Corvette comes with Barbie’s Racer Buddy Kate, total with pink cardboard box! Sadly, the vehicle had all the expected reliability problems you’d anticipate from a worn-out ’84 Corvette, and it completed the day in P36.
Of the fast Class A cars, although, somebody wants to be major, and this time it’s the old familiar Model T GT, a auto that often ventures to the LeMons races with smaller auto counts and requires the “shark in the aquarium” function. This time, the LeMons Supreme Court issued a 5-lap handicap to the T GT, which the team managed to overcome by the end of Saturday.
4 laps back of the Model T GT, we’ve got the Ford Thunderbird of the Killer Whales. This Class A battle will come down to which team’s drivers are far better at avoiding black-flag-triggering errors.
The Fox Mustangs? Most of them blew up in quick order.
In fact, even much more than the usual quantity of race cars have been up on jackstands as the day wore on. Some will get back on the track on Sunday, some won’t. Verify in later to see how this madness sorts out!
LeMons Seattle Day 1: Ill-Advised Superchargers, Barbie’s Corvette, and a Landcrab
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