You never know what's going to happen at a 24 Hours of LeMons race. Two Mitsubishi products in the top ten of the standings? Amazing! We also saw the oldest car in LeMons history: a 1956 Renault 4CV.
We were hoping— without much basis in anything resembling reality— that the L28ET-powered 3rd-gen Firebird would utterly dominate this weekend's LeMons race. Sadly, a roaring engine fire ended the aptly named FireKats' run at a major trophy.
The Rocket Surgery Racing '56 Renault 4CV was, in the words of LeMons Chief Perp Lamm, "three weeks from being ready" when the race started... yet the Rocket Surgeons last-second frenzy-o-wrenchin' got the car onto the track Saturday afternoon.
What's the winningest marque in 24 Hours of LeMons history? Mazda! With today's win by the Ghetto Motorsports RX-7, Mazda now has eight overall LeMons wins (Toyota and BMW are tied for second, with five wins apiece).
I just drove 70 miles from the track to civilization— yeah, it's called the B.F.E. G.P. for a reason— and can't dredge up the energy to write much here. Let's just look at the end-of-day Top Five Lemons:
When a team decides to build a 1956 Renault 4CV race car with mid-mounted VW Fox engine and BMW 1800 suspension, for 500 bucks... well, sometimes such an ambitious project isn't quite ready when the green flag waves.
Eyesore Racing, the only three-time LeMons champions in history, looked like the favorites to take the B.F.E. G.P. race... but then they racked up a couple of penalties in the first few hours. Chain-gang time!
I don't have time to shoot many photos of the cars while I'm sniffing out Cheatonium-239 components in LeMons cars, so I let my CHDK-hacked camera shoot a photograph every 15 seconds. Enjoy.
Somewhere between Denver and Kansas— actually, at High Plains Raceway in Colorado— the LeMons Supreme Court spent Friday checking alleged $500 race cars for possible cheating and/or general awesomeness. Some of the former, vast quantities of the latter!
As we get closer to the aptly-named B.F.E. Grand Prix 24 Hours of LeMons in Colorado next weekend, I decided to pay a visit to the team building the first-ever LeMons Marlin. All I can say is: Ho-lee shit!
