The 24 Hours of LeMons has been coming to Thunderhill Raceway in Northern California since 2007, and this time we’ve managed to set the record for the most entries in any LeMons race so far: 194 teams! The justices of the LeMons Supreme Court inspected most of those racin’ machines today, and we saw some excellent examples of innovative low-buck road racers. Let’s check out the highlights!
The former Dungeons & Dragsters Capri became the Mad Maxeltov Capri became the Beevil Mnieval Capri, which is now equipped with a Ford 302-cubic-inch V8, 5-speed transmission, and big wheel flares to fit the junkyard Mustang rear end. On paper, this car should dominate. On paper.
The NSF Plymouth Reliant-K wagon, which has been passed from team to team all year, has traveled the length and breadth of the United States during the 2013 season and showed up at Thunderhill after a Maryland-to-Florida-to-California trek. Will this be the race that sees the “K-it-FWD” car finish in the top half of the standings?
When you decide to race an Olds 88 Brougham that sat in a field for decades, what do you do to fix up the icky-looking paint? Why, cover it with fur, of course!
This Chevy Corvair competed in Thunderhill and Reno-Fernley races a few years back and has now returned to the fray this weekend. We’ve seen a few Corvairs in LeMons, and they haven’t been as slow as you might expect (though they’re still pretty slow).
The Corvair’s four-carburetor setup wasn’t working so well, so the team removed two of the offending carbs and replaced them with blocks of wood.
Now that’s LeMons-style problem solving!
Five years ago, a team of very talented body-and-paint guys turned a Volvo 240 into a very credible ’57 Chevy. This weekend, The Flakes are back with the same car… which is now a ’55 Chevy, complete with 350-cubic-inch Chevrolet V8.
It’s a Bel Air, of course.
Class C is reserved for the best (i.e., least likely to belong on a race track) cars, such as this Hillman Imp.
Class C is also reserved for certain V12-equipped German cars that sold new for over $100,000. The smart money will be betting on the Imp to get more laps than the 850 this weekend.
The Hello Grumpy Kitty organization now boasts two BMW E30 3-series cars plus a Subaru-engined VW Beetle.
Modern German cars are too complicated! That’s why this BMW 325i team decided to remove all instruments and controls in their car, other than an ignition kill switch and a starter button. Not much to go wrong here!
This Lincoln Mark VII team went with a Hot Rod Lincoln theme: “The guy beside me was white as a ghost.”
Stick Figure Racing, creator of a pair of Corolla/MR2-mashup twin-engined cars, showed up with the cars dressed as “LeMonite” pioneers’ covered wagons, in honor of their Utah home base.
Here we see the team using a three-dimensional teaching aid to explain their tribulations at race tracks in California, Nevada, and Colorado.
Dead horses and new wives!
We’ve seen plenty of Volvos in the 24 Hours of LeMons, Amazons, 200s, 700s, 800s, 900s, even a couple of Bertones, but today was a first: our first LeMons P1800! It’s going to be a great weekend of racing, so be sure to check the 24 Hours of LeMons wrapup page to see what happens.
Source: CarAndDriver
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