During Friday’s car inspections at the fifth annual Southern Discomfort 24 Hours of LeMons, we found that we had a full sixteen Class C entries, out of 86 total teams. That gives this weekend’s race the best True-Lemons-To-Boring-Cars Ratio (TLTBCR) we’ve ever seen, and so we geared up for an exciting all-out Class C slugfest during the first race session. While that was going on, some faster teams tried to get more laps than everyone else. Here’s how it sorted out.
Mock Grass Racing and their 1998 Kia Sephia have been struggling to get on top of Class C for quite a few races now, and it must have taken the menace of 15 parts-shedding, 45-minute-driver-change, 500-treadwear-tire-equipped rivals to spur on the team to claw their way to the pinnacle of our most beloved LeMons class. At the end of Saturday’s race session, Mock Grass Racing owned a single-lap lead in Class C.
That one-lap edge can’t feel too safe, though, because the 1996 Geo Metro of Gotta Go Fast is right in the Kia’s rear-view mirror. This team has the “big-block” four-cylinder engine in their GM-badged Suzuki, which gives them an eyeball-flattening 70 horses with which to pursue the 125-horse (and much heavier) Kia on Sunday.
One of the dilemmas faced by justices of the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court is what to do when classing a theoretically quick car with an extensive history of failure and defeat. Such was the case when the Generar Ree 1974 Datsun 260Z went through the car inspections on Friday; early Z cars have a pretty poor LeMons record, and this one in particular has lived its LeMons career in the mud at the bottom of the standings, so we put it in Class B. Miraculously, the Generar Ree didn’t break even once, and the team finished the day in P5 and in the front of its class.
Just as miraculously, the Junk Male ex-USPS right-hand-drive Subaru Legacy wagon finished just seconds behind the Generar Ree 260Z. The Junk Male team has endured a breakdown-and-black-flag-scarred history that looks very similar to that of the Generar Ree, and now both teams will start Sunday on the same lap.
The Class A race is a lot less interesting than the ones in B and C, thanks to mechanical problems and/or penalties knocking out several of the top teams in the fastest class. The 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E of the RC Spiders (winners of the 2014 Alabama race, the 2013 Real Hoopties of New Jersey race, and the 2013 Halloween Hooptiefest) just kept running, and the Spiders finished Saturday with an impressive six-lap lead.
Grim Reaper Racing, with their V6-powered 1994 Ford Mustang, have contended in just about every South Region LeMons race for a couple of years, and they’ll be ready to take advantage if the RC Spiders break their car or catch some black flags on Sunday.
Meanwhile, NSF Racing’s 1956 Ford Crown Victoria doesn’t have much hope of securing a Class C win for the team, what with being 75 laps behind the leader (that’s about three hours at the old Ford’s typical pace), but the team has a real shot at the Index of Effluency trophy if they can just wriggle their way a few places higher in the standings before Sunday’s checkered flag.
The overnight scene at Carolina Motorsports Park will be one of loud music, welding sparks, and various tasty pig parts cooking on dozens of barbecue grilles. This track has the best pit parties of all the venues on the LeMons circuit, and many racers travel thousands of miles just to be here. Check in later to see which well-fed racers take home Southern Discomfort trophies.
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