The easiest day of BS inspection the LeMons Supreme Court was wrapped up fairly early on Friday afternoon, with only about 20 vehicles showing up at Firebird International Raceway for the first-ever Auction Weekend Gavel-Tap 24 Hours Of LeMons.
The terrible weather in the Southwest kept a number of California teams from braving the mountain passes to get here, but mostly the turnout is small because it's the first race at a new track. That's good news for the teams that did show up, because they'll have a nice wide-open track and about an eighth the amount of competition they'd get at a West Coast event. We've got some great cars here, including this Chuck D-grade, dirt-track-veteran Olds 98, which features Olds 403 torque and looks quick on the track.
Since the LeMons Supreme Court had plenty of time to devote to scrutinizing each car for cheatism, we had a fairly heavy hand with the BS Penalty laps. For example, this BMW E9. We loved the idea of a LeMons E9, but this one was just much, much too nice and had too many high-buck new parts to be anywhere near credible as a $500 car. 30 laps. The same team brought an Opel GT with a GM 2.8 engine, 5-speed, and Miata rear subframe: 15 laps.
We saw plenty of old friends, including perennial Sisyphian favorites Viva Las Vegas (seen above) and Team UNDERGROUND. Both these California-based teams roam the country to attend every LeMons race possible, in much the same manner as Deadheads going on tour, and both the Las Vegas B16 VTEC-powered CRX and UNDERGROUND 300ZX adhere to a tradition of massive mechanical failure wherever they go. Maybe this will be The Race!
Of course, Eyesore Racing made the drive from California, and their Ghettocharged Miata now has an Alice In Wonderland theme.