We knew we were in for a strange weekend of racing when we saw that we had more Austins than BMWs, and such has been the case at the third annual Pacific Northworst 24 Hours of LeMons. Several former long-suffering wallflowers have become instant contenders after years of LeMons obscurity, mechanical failures have sidelined even more than the usual number of teams, and Class B cars make up five of the top ten. Let’s see how the day went.
The Model T GT, which took the overall win at the Button Turrible race a few weeks back, came 1,000 miles north to do the big-fish-in-a-small-pond thing (50 cars here versus nearly 180 at Buttonwillow) and finished today’s race session with a six-lap lead over the P2 car. A familiar story: no black flags, almost the quickest lap times of the field (Balto, the snowmobile-engined Miata was nearly two seconds quicker per lap), and no mechanical problems.
The car that ended the day six laps back of the Model T GT will be familiar to those who followed the very earliest LeMons races, back in 2007: the Snowspeeder Pilots Association Toyota MR2. This car has the dubious distinction of having broken down, blown up, fallen apart, or otherwise collapsed into a heap of smoldering Toyota parts in ever single race it has entered for the last six years… until today! Today, things were different; the Snowspeeder MR2 climbed high in the standings and stayed there all day. If the Model T GT stumbles— and this car is definitely a “break down or win” sort— the Snowspeeders will be poised to jump into territory even more unfamiliar to the team’s drivers than P2.
Another car that has been around West Coast LeMons racing forever, averaging a nuked engine per 1.5 races but managing to pull off an amazing Index of Effluency win at the 2010 Goin’ For Broken race, is the Dust n Debris 1994 Dodge Shadow. This car is fairly quick when it’s not spitting valves out the tailpipe, but the LeMons Supreme Court couldn’t put a Dodge Shadow in Class A. When the checkered flag waved, Dust n Debris was in fourth overall and leading Class B by six laps.
In the “how is this even possible?” department, we have the SpankSpeed 3 Austin America leading Class C by 11 laps and sitting in P14 overall. There must be some mistake!
Speaking of Austins, we had this 1970 Austin 1800 “Landcrab” show up a day late for tech inspection on Saturday morning.
The Silversleeves Racing Landcrap doesn’t have the usual BMC B engine under the hood, however— this car sports a powerful Ford Probe V6 engine and manual transaxle. Sadly, the car’s Hydrolastic suspension popped a displacer after just ten laps and the Landcrab limped back to its pit space with a queasy-looking body lean. We’re all hoping that this car will scuttle out of dead-last place shortly after the green flag flies on Sunday morning.
The Silversleeves’ other car, a 1973 Austin Mini, suffered catastrophic engine meltdown after 73 laps and spent the rest of the day getting a swap. A typical day in the life of a British Leyland team!
The Petty Cash Racing Jeep Cherokee has been struggling ever since the team ditched the AMC/Jeep six in favor of a Chevy Vortec V8. Its Vortec 4800 ran fine at first, but a slight misalignment of the adapter used to bolt the Jeep transmission to the Chevy engine resulted in a hole in the transmission’s oil pump, which caused all manner of unpleasantness. Petty Cash finished the needed repairs just before the checkered flag on Saturday and will start Sunday in 48th.
The Freewheelin’ Pikers and their Saab 96, winners of the Index of Effluency at the 2012 Pacific Northworst race, shed a wheel late in the afternoon on Saturday and had to be flatbedded off the track.
The ’52 Hudson Hornet looked and sounded every bit as great as we expected once it hit the race track. It wasn’t fast, but that didn’t bother anybody.
After just a few dozen laps, however, the Hornet developed a maddeningly undiagnosable ignition problem and spent most of the day in the eye of a wrench-spinning hurricane. Late on Saturday, the team got the old flathead fired up again and we expect to see many more Hudson laps on Sunday.
The much-traveled NSF Racing Plymouth Reliant-K wagon had no problems driving to the track from Northern California, but a cascade of fuel-system and transmission problems limited it to a mere 50 laps on Saturday. We’re still waiting for this car to show its true potential. Perhaps Sunday? Check in to see what happens!
Source: CarAndDriver
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