The 24 Hours of LeMons has been running its California winter race, known as the Arse Freeze-a-Palooza, since all the way back in 2007, and we held the eighth annual Arse Freeze at not-so-cold Sonoma Raceway aka Sears Point last weekend. We inspected the 175 entrants on Friday, watched extremely close class battles on Saturday, and finished up the whole mess on Sunday. Here are the teams that took home trophies after the dust settled.
When Sunday’s race session began, the top half-dozen teams were within a few laps of each other, but then mechanical problems started to eat into the lap totals of several of the top contenders. By the time the checkered flag waved, the Porch Racing 1989 Porsche 944 owned a four-lap lead over the Sour Aviation Ford Mustang, winning Class A in the process. This is the third overall LeMons win for Porch Racing, the team that rehabilitated the bad reputation of LeMons Porsches.
On the East Coast, most LeMons Volvo 240s run in Class A and finish near the top of the standings. In California, however, most of the 240 teams haven’t quite sorted out their cars yet, and so the LeMons Supreme Court tends to put them in Class B. The 42 Hours of MeLons 1984 Volvo 245 wagon climbed all the way to P10, beating the Stealth Alien Hunters Pontiac Fiero for a two-lap edge in Class B and earning a promotion to Class A at its next race.
The Black Flags (so named because of their frequent visits to the LeMons Penalty Box for spins, crashes, and other racing no-nos) brought their 1984 Toyota Supra to Sears Point for the team’s 24th 24 Hours of LeMons race and had no real expectation of winning Class C or anything else. This car has competed (if that’s the right word) in all three LeMons classes over the years, but had never managed to crack the top half of the standings in five years of racing, and thus a pretty good type of car got placed in the slowest class. This time, though, everything went right for the Black Flags. The drivers stayed out of the Penalty Box (mostly), the car didn’t break (much) or get black-flagged for dragging mufflers and/or dumping gasoline, and in the end the Black Flags won Class C by a three-lap margin over the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Volvo 244.
Speaking of LeMons veterans, the Delinquent Racing 1996 Ford Taurus SHO suffered a fairly severe engine fire. This car has been around since the early Altamont crash-fests, so we hope to see it fixed up in time for the next California LeMons event.
The special-just-for-the-occasion Longest Easy Fix trophy went to Team Phoenix and their 1971 Opel GT.
On Saturday, the lug bolts on the Opel’s left rear wheel failed, with unpleasant consequences. This is a not-very-uncommon occurrence in our races, and mostly it’s not too hard for a team to bounce back from this setback. In this case, however, Team Phoenix ended up having to scour the state for wheels, axles, and eventually a complete rear end for their car.
For the Most Heroic Fix award, the Anal Probe team earned the trophy by creating oversized crankshaft main bearings out of metal tubing and beer-can metal… which then worked for four hours of racing before their their Ford Probe‘s engine finally gave up for good.
For the I Got Screwed award, Whale Wars Racing earned the so-called prize for the endless series of hurdles they cleared (or attempted to clear) in their efforts to get their 1994 Mitsubishi 3000GT onto the race track. Their car’s engine digested a few of its own rod bearings during practice on Friday afternoon, so the team hit Craigslist to find a local seller with a complete engine-donor car.
Success! The Whale Wars guys found a 3000GT seller in Hayward (50 miles away), who was willing to arrange a deal to sell his parts Mitsubishi… when he got to the end of his shift working at some sketchy dance club. So, the team grabbed the car, brought it back to the track, and proceeded to spend the next 18 hours thrashing away at a difficult overcomplex-90s-sports-car engine swap.
Meanwhile, the Whale Wars crew let it be known that they didn’t want any other parts off their parts car, and that any team that wanted to grab stuff were welcome to do so. This led to a sort of single-car junkyard appearing in the Sears Point paddock.
Naturally, the LeMons Supreme Court decided to task miscreant teams with the mission of pulling parts off the Mitsubishi for use as decorations on the Penalty Box Christmas tree. As for the Team Whale Wars engine swap, the new engine blew up soon after the team’s glorious return to racing. Screwed!
We think that trees decorated with 3000GT marker lights will become the next holiday fad.
LeMons Chief Perp Jay Lamm, who grew up in one of the most Lynyrd Skynyrd-friendly cities in California, decided that the 1970 Chevrolet El Camino of Team GMObiles looked so much like the cars from his high school parking lot that he created the Straight From Jay’s High School Parking Lot award for the team. This car/truck finished 154th out of 175 entries, which is pretty good for a completely stock, worn-out GM A-body running on cheap tires and 44-year-old shocks.
The Chotus, which is a 1974 Lotus Elite with small-block Chevrolet engine and Jaguar XJS rear suspension, weighs about 16 tons more than a stock Elite, finished in P76, and earned the created-just-for-the-occasion Complicate And Add Heaviness trophy.
Joe Dirt Racing brought a painfully stock and thoroughly terrible 1986 Ford Mustang to their inaugural LeMons race, and wound up taking home the much-sought-after Judges’ Choice trophy their first time out. They had the right attitude, had a great time, didn’t freak out when their car got passed by Kia Sephias and Ford Pintos, and generally got into the spirit of LeMons racing.
It didn’t hurt that they built one of the best homemade boomboxes we’d ever seen, which cranked AC/DC all weekend long.
Team 5150 converted their Datsun 280Z into a very credible replica of the Jaguar E-Type hearse made famous by the film Harold and Maude , using an actual E-Type hood.
The car (which wasn’t slow), coupled with the team’s costumes made the Organizer’s Choice award decision an easy one for us.
For the top prize of LeMons racing, the Index of Effluency, the incredible accomplishment of Team Rustang getting into P88 with their horrible, ill-handling, slushbox-equipped 1971 Ford Mustang earned the Rustang guys the big trophy.
This car has been racing in LeMons for a few years now, but had spent most of its previous races sitting in the Penalty Box or in a million pieces in the paddock. This time, though, the Rustang drivers avoided wiping out and the car held together, earning the team the win. Congratulations, Team Rustang!
We’ll be heading back to Sonoma Raceway next month, so be sure to check in here for all your LeMons news.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1yB2bs2
via Agya
