lucky_topher
Seasoned Member
So, just thought I'd start this thread because it's something I'm really passionate about... About 2 years ago, I got involved with something called "The 24 Hours of LeMons"... no, that's not spelled wrong, it's a play on the LeMans concept... It's a race very similar on road courses around the country, but the requirement is your car can only cost $500. Yep, five hundred. Now that excludes safety equipment and brakes/tires... but it includes motor/suspension/trans, and the vehicle itself. Translation: a bunch of junkers seeing who can last the longest when put to performance tests...
Now that I've kind of explained it, I'll tell you a bit about our group... we've run 8 races so far, 5 with 24 hrs of LeMons, and then 3 others with a newer similar group called ChumpCar (which we now prefer as they're more about the racing).
This last weekend, we had a race in College Station at Texas World Speedway... As Day 1 started, one of our other members drove for almost 2 hours, then I drove for almost 2 hours... we were over half-way through the first day and TIED FOR FIRST!, then our third driver jumped in... and 15 minutes later the car was being towed back to the pits...
We tore it down, and it looks like we overheated, head gasket gone, coolant all up in the motor, valve snapped and lodged itself, and it was now a giant paperweight... so we surfed craigslist and found an old BMW about 2 hrs away some guy was selling... it had a bad transmission but the rest was fine supposedly... half the team headed to go look and maybe buy it... the other half stayed at the track and started ripping the trashed motor out of the racecar....
They called and said they bought the car and were headed back... we finished ripping the motor out, using a pulley on the grandstand rafters & hitch-rigged winch as an engine hoist... they brought the other car back and we tore that one down and ripped it out... swapped out all the necessary parts we knew we had replaced on our original motor - waterpump/therm, timing belt, rockers, etc, then put it back in our racecar...
We started the process around 9pm on Saturday, and the car fired back up 9:30am on Sunday... We got back on the track and finished the race! We even finished in 11th, only down around the same number of laps the 30 minute delay from race start would have been... We ended up winning the Mechanical Excellence award as no one expected us to swap the motor out overnight, especially without most necessary tools...
All in all, had a blast, and highly recommend, especially over LeMons.. Do it.. it's some of the best, realest racing you'll get... rubbing cars, fixing in the pits, driver changes & fueling & pit crews, everything...
Pics in next post...
Now that I've kind of explained it, I'll tell you a bit about our group... we've run 8 races so far, 5 with 24 hrs of LeMons, and then 3 others with a newer similar group called ChumpCar (which we now prefer as they're more about the racing).
This last weekend, we had a race in College Station at Texas World Speedway... As Day 1 started, one of our other members drove for almost 2 hours, then I drove for almost 2 hours... we were over half-way through the first day and TIED FOR FIRST!, then our third driver jumped in... and 15 minutes later the car was being towed back to the pits...
We tore it down, and it looks like we overheated, head gasket gone, coolant all up in the motor, valve snapped and lodged itself, and it was now a giant paperweight... so we surfed craigslist and found an old BMW about 2 hrs away some guy was selling... it had a bad transmission but the rest was fine supposedly... half the team headed to go look and maybe buy it... the other half stayed at the track and started ripping the trashed motor out of the racecar....
They called and said they bought the car and were headed back... we finished ripping the motor out, using a pulley on the grandstand rafters & hitch-rigged winch as an engine hoist... they brought the other car back and we tore that one down and ripped it out... swapped out all the necessary parts we knew we had replaced on our original motor - waterpump/therm, timing belt, rockers, etc, then put it back in our racecar...
We started the process around 9pm on Saturday, and the car fired back up 9:30am on Sunday... We got back on the track and finished the race! We even finished in 11th, only down around the same number of laps the 30 minute delay from race start would have been... We ended up winning the Mechanical Excellence award as no one expected us to swap the motor out overnight, especially without most necessary tools...
All in all, had a blast, and highly recommend, especially over LeMons.. Do it.. it's some of the best, realest racing you'll get... rubbing cars, fixing in the pits, driver changes & fueling & pit crews, everything...
Pics in next post...
