For our second 2014 LeMons race at GingerMan Raceway in South Haven, Michigan, we admired some of the greatest endurance-racin’ machines we’d ever seen on Friday, watched those machines duke it out in the rain on Saturday, and then watched the winners roar (or clatter, or coast) across the finish line on Sunday. Here are the trophy winners from the 2014 Where the Elite Meet To Cheat 24 Hours of LeMons.
For the first seven seasons of LeMons racing, the Porsche 944 did nothing but dash the hopes and break the hearts of the many teams who felt that perfect 50/50 weight balance ought to ensure road-course domination. It took until the end of the 2013 season for a Porsche to take an overall LeMons win, and that seemed to open the floodgates. The Porch Racing 944 won again in March, then the Floridiot Motorsports 944 won at Sebring in July, and now the United Ducktape Racing 944 has taken the Class A and overall wins at the Where the Elite Meet to Cheat race. The Swiss Racing BMW 325e, the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers Volvo 245, and the Flying Pigs Racing Ford Mustang each threatened to grab the win, but in the end the United Ducktape 1987 Porsche 944 had a four-lap lead when the checkered flag waved.
In Class B, the ill-handling and overpowered BMW M50-swapped 1996 Geo Metro of Lemon Aid Racing managed to stay on the (very slippery) track consistently enough to get the win by a three-lap margin. This car managed to win Class C and the Index of Effluency with its original three-cylinder Suzuki engine driving the front wheels, which means that Lemon Aid Racing has a shot at winning all three classes with the same car. Of course, the now-rear-wheel-drive Metro is a real handful to drive and many of its suspension bugs have yet to be worked out, but it is theoretically capable of a Class A win.
When the Schnitzelwagen 1972 Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback managed to win Class C at the Doin’ Time In Joliet race in July, the LeMons Supreme Court found itself in something of a classing dilemma. Air-cooled VWs have been horribly slow and/or unreliable in this series, but Class C winners almost always get promoted to Class B for their next race. Putting a Squareback in Class B seemed akin to making a three-legged burro compete in the Kentucky Derby, so we put it in Class C with a massive 13-lap handicap. Well, the Squareback somehow failed to scatter connecting rods on the pavement, and its drivers neglected to wipe out in a smog of trailing-throttle oversteer, and in the end it won Class C by eight laps, handicap and all. Next race, it will be in Class B!
The Most Heroic Fix award went to the Rod Throwin’ Fools for their innovative solution to a blown head gasket on their Toyota MR2. Rather than go through the hassle of removing the cylinder head and installing a new gasket, they opted to add this engine-lid-mounted water overflow tank to their cooling system.
When the exhaust gases escaping from the bad head gasket made the engine barf up its cooling water, the overflow tank slowed the process enough to give the team ten-lap stints instead of two-lap stints. Sure, they still had to pit every 15 minutes to add water, but their fix kept them in the race and enabled a P70 (out of 80 entrants) finish.
When your heroic fix attempts don’t quite succeed, you have a shot at the not-exactly-desirable I Got Screwed trophy. In this case, Hard Drive Racing earned the prize by blowing their Dodge Neon‘s transmission early on Saturday, spending the next 20 hours searching for a suitable junkyard transmission and swapping it in… and then frying their impossible-to-find-in-rural-Michigan-on-Sunday wheel bearings immediately after returning to the fray. Screwed!
Our event-specific award was the Things That Only Midwesterners Understand trophy. Alongside such only-in-the-Midwest puzzlers as the Pontiac G5 and Green Bean Casserole, we find the Asian Carp Invasion, and Bust-a-Nut Racing went all Midwest on us by converting their Mazda MX-6 into a gigantic, bloody-mouthed Asian Carp.
The Bust-a-Nut Mazda has been many things in past races, including this amazing blimp.
And the “Sleigher” Santa’s sleigh.
And even the head of Mr. T.
Although the Asian Carp MX-6 shed many scales and its tail over the course of the weekend, it looked great on the track.
The Justices of the LeMons Supreme Court, which consisted of your LeMons correspondent and Judge Eric Rood of Hooniverse, felt that Team Non-Sequitur and their nearly unrecognizable Acura Integra deserved recognition for their lengthy LeMons career and hideous car.
It all started way back in the earliest days of LeMons racing, when Team Non-Sequitur picked up this not-too-bad-looking ’92 Integra and prepared it for the third race in LeMons history: the 2007 24 Hours of LeMons Detroit, held at Flat Rock Speedway in Toledo, Ohio.
As so often happens with Hondas in this sort of racing, the Non-Sequitur Integra had a few mechanical issues.
The Non-Sequitur Acura competed at the notorious 2009 Lamest Day race at Nelson Ledges, and the car was starting to show signs of serious wear and tear by that point.
Five years later, the Non-Sequitur car looks gloriously terrible, with a very appropriate garbage-collection theme. The LeMons Supreme Court decided to honor these LeMons veterans with a very well-deserved Judges’ Choice trophy.
When we started discussing the Organizer’s Choice trophy, we knew it would need to go to a genuine Detroit machine. Racing in Michigan, with a track filled with every manner of GM, Ford, and Chrysler car, we had plenty of great Detroit Iron to choose from.
Really, though, the Organizer’s Choice decision was easy: the 1972 Pontiac Grand Prix of Team Can You Dig It?
The Can You Dig It? guys converted their Pontiac into a highly credible replica of Super Fly’s Eldorado Pimpmobile, using a handmade grille and salad-bowl headlights.
Judge Eric was so impressed by the range of Malaise Era Detroit-made cars at this race that he created the Michigan Mopar Malaise Misery Festival award for the occasion.
The winner of the MMMMF prize: the Zero Budget Racing 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. So beautiful!
However, the Cordoba wasn’t the only Michigan Malaise Mopar at our race; the Team Sheen 1981 Dodge Mirada made its LeMons debut and awed the spectators with its Corinthian Leather interior and distinctive grille.
That’s right, the Cordoba wasn’t the only Chrysler product to feature Corinthian Leather back in the days of gas lines and stagflation. Team Sheen so admired their Mirada’s glorious interior that they reinstalled most of it after caging their car.
The Mirada proved astoundingly reliable for a first-time LeMons car of its era, turning 300 laps, finishing 42nd out of 80 entries, and giving the Class C-winning Schnitzelwagen a run for its money. For this, for its Corinthian Leather, and for simply being a Mirada, we have awarded Team Sheen its first Index of Effluency trophy.
Congratulations, Team Sheen!
What other race series gets cars with snouts like this?
This weekend, we do it all over again in New Hampshire. Be sure to check in for coverage of the Halloween Hooptiefest!
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