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Image source: [ Autofiends ]
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There have already been some casualties, including the current contender for the We Got Screwed award: the Hot Rod Lincoln, which threw a rod driving off the trailer . The Rubber Biscuit Racing Caprice , which was seriously fast at LeMons South , was the early leader, but then it… threw a rod. Lots of connecting rods flying around Toledo tonight! Now we've got the Shar T Attack Racing BMW in the lead; make the jump to see the rest of the Top Five! galleryPost('LT08Hour5', 5, 'Hour 5 Leaders At LeMons Toledo'); 2nd place: #5, Junk Player Special 3rd place: #08, Squeeze My Lemon Part Deux 4th place: #67, Size Matters Chrysler 5th place: #22, Everybody Poops
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Before all you statistics freaks start screaming "small sample size," relax and accept these graphs for what they are: the result of many hours of painful labor trying to extract meaningful data from official race results from a year of races cross-referenced with our LeMons Über Gallery posts to determine car make/model. What we learn is quite interesting: Japanese cars tend to do the best (RX-7, CRX), but the Chevy Caprice comes out on top as the LeMons car most likely to take the checkered flag. Mercedes-Benz, VW, and Porsche? Bottom-feeders! Make the jump to learn more, and be sure to check in this weekend for our coverage of the New England LeMons event! [ WastingTimeWithMikeAndAri ]
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As we've seen before , pissing off your competitors in the 24 Hours of LeMons tends to backfire in dramatic fashion. Here's how it works: at the end of the first day of racing, each team votes for the team whose car they most wish to see destroyed the next day. The team with the most votes gets a date with a large piece of construction equipment. Today, the "winner" was Team Salazar Racing and their BMW 325. Make the jump to see the whole gallery and get the rest of the story. galleryPost('PeoplesCurseSouth', 9, 'Salazar Racing BMW 325 Faces The Jaws Of The Excavator'); When these guys came to us for the BS Inspection judging , we were pretty sure they were cheating like crazy on the budget numbers (hint: NASA stickers on your intentionally beater-ified BMW don't help), but that's just racing. Sure, there was some grumbling from the (allegedly) more legit BMW teams about perceived high-buck engine mods, but it was the very enthusiastic- some might...
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We're a few hours into the 24 Hours of LeMons South, and the lap leader is a team that had a really good story during the Bullshit Inspection phase... so good, in fact, that we dinged them just a single lap. We gave out a one-lap BS Penalty when we knew a team had cheated on the $500 limit in some manner, but we couldn't quite figure out exactly how. The Beertech guys had a story about how they got a '91 BMW so cheap, and we could smell the lies... but in the end we finally let them get by with their symbolic penalty- after all, what chance does a 4-banger BMW have with all those big Bavarian sixes out there? You fans of Swedish steel can rejoice, because the second-place car is a Saab 900 Turbo. Yes, those guys from Saabs Gone Wild had us believing their tales about what a hopeless rustbucket they had the misfortune to be driving and we gave them zero penalty laps. Let's see if that fickle, force-fed akvavit-burner can keep it up for two long days of racing!
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We followed the exploits of LTDScott and his Team Porcubimmer during the run-up to the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont, and some of you are probably wondering how it went for the "Pricks Outside" guys when the real deal went down. Well, we have good news and bad news for you: the good news is that the car looked amazing (as did the coordinated team outfits), but the bad news is that a cascade of mechanical woes kept the Porcubimmer off the track for much of the weekend. Fuel system, clutch, you name it. When it was on the track, however, it was fast; for a glorious- if regrettably short- time on Saturday, the spiky 325e was in the #1 position. Take heart, Porcubimmer fans- we're pretty sure we haven't seen the last of this car's angry face! [Porcubimmer.com] galleryPost('PorcubimmerAltamont', 9, 'The Porcubimmer At Altamont');
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When you spend all your spare time for months beating a sub-$500 car into a 24 Hours of LeMons racer, you develop a powerful thirst. Team Porcubimmer decided early on in their build that their thirst would be quenched exclusively by those red cans from Mexico, and then they decided that the smell of stale beer in the garage was so good that they'd save all the empties. So now the question: how many cans did they guzzle? You can submit your guess at their site, and the winner will get a team "Pricks Outside" T-shirt. [Porcubimmer.com]
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Now, we love the Carpet Pissers' theme for their 24 Hours of LeMons race car, but even those marmot-stuffing micturators are going to have a tough time competing with Jalopnik tipster extraordinaire LTDScott's Team Porcubimmer for the coveted People's Choice Award. You know the old joke about BMWs, of course... well, Team Porcubimmer is turning a mid-80s 325e into a rolling porcupine! [Team Porcubimmer]
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That's right, folks- rumor has it that Jack Baruth, journalist, member of the winning team at the Flat Rock 24 Hours of LeMons , R8 driving instructor to yours truly , and our very own ViergangFuchs , will be swapping lives with controversial BMW designer Chris Bangle, as part of a new reality-TV series entitled Wait'll The Shareholders See THIS! Look for rollcages and 6-point harnesses as standard equipment on the 2010 models. [Dubspeed Driven]
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You can only hope to document it. Hey, it's day 2 of an endurance race where you can't spend more than $500 on your race car. You know the pits are where the real action's at. Like the #56 car, which is most likely an '84 Bimmer. No one was really sure/too busy to talk to us. Here's what we know. The left rear wheel fell off. Looks like all four shafts failed from where they connected to the hub. In other words, pop ! The wheel is still out on the track, but in the true spirit of the United Colors of Thunderhill, another BMW lent a wheel. Their head wrench is saying 30 minutes and they'll be back at it. The wheel loss is a shame, too, as #56 has been running hard the whole race, and probably left in sixth place. galleryPost('3bmw', 6, 'Non Isetta BMW 3 Wheeler');
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We've seen seen some great in-car video from the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont in October (including stuff from the Team Carpet Pissers CRX and the Team Santa Cruz Porsche 944 ), but this latest from RNair , member of Team SFF1 , may be the best yet... Team SFF1 had front- and rear-facing cameras in the car, which is cool enough, but then the members of #10 finishers Team Group of Fools (the BMW with the baby seat on the roof ) contributed their in-car film. Naturally, a means was found to sync up all three video streams so that we can watch Group of Fools slipstreaming in SFF1's wake from multiple perspectives. Be sure to turn the sound up really loud. No, louder than that! 3 camera action from the 24 Hours of Lemons from rnair on Vimeo .
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After we put up the 400 photos of the LeMons Über Gallery , we heard from rnair , who was a member of Team SFF1, whose 1986 BMW 325e finished in the Top 44 . Team SFF1 has documented the heck out of their LeMons experience, with tons of photos and action-packed in-car videos. It's definitely worth checking out. [The Racing Geek]
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One of the traditions of the 24 Hours of LeMons race is the People's Curse award, in which participants vote for their least favorite car. The "winner" of this vote is then destroyed early in Day Two, and let that be a lesson to jerky drivers and/or cheating teams who spend far over the $500 limit on their cars! At the Altamont LeMons race a couple weeks back, the People's Curse award was bestowed upon this silver '97 BMW 7-series. The story was that the car was abandoned at the Orange County BMW dealership at which Poly Orchid Racing team members were employed, and was thus free. However, much grumbling ensued from members of teams who weren't able to obtain free V8-powered German übermobiles, with the results you see here. Thing is, this team's drivers weren't jerkolas on the track, and their car wasn't blowing away its hapless competition to the extent one might expect (though it was pretty quick). Still, voice of the people and all. Here's some...
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First of all, I'm sorry to disappoint anyone who interpreted the photo above as an indication that a late-70s Mercury Cougar and an early-70s AMC Hornet actually finished in the top 44 at the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont over the weekend. They did not; I used this photo because I wish they had so triumphed. Second of all, I got plenty more photos to post of this Incredibly Jalop-Approved Event™, but it took me so long to prepare the ones you see below that you'll have to wait for later to see the rest. Jump like a gutted CRX sliding sideways into a tractor tire to see the Top 44... One thing we should make perfectly clear to those of you who haven't actually attended a 24 Hours of LeMans race: this is real racing ! Don't be fooled by the $500 spending limit (which, uh, we think may have been exceeded by a few teams) or the often-whimsical appearance of the cars- the contending cars drove fast, spent a lot of time sideways, swapped a lot of paint with other cars, and left a trail...
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