So I signed up for a 24 Hours of Lemons race

[Robert Nixon]

It's all about getting on track and spending a weekend with other car folks!

The 24 Hours of Lemons guys have rescheduled the race to 3-4 November, so I'm happy to say we were able to re-do our flights, hotel, rental car, etc. with no extra charges. This is only the 2nd time they've had to cancel a race in 12 years or so of doing these things around the country, but definitely the right call with the current predictions for hurricane Florence! The entire state of SC is going to have huge rain, wind, and likely power outages.

Still looking forward to the cooler temps in November!

[pizzamann95]

Still looking forward to the cooler temps in November!

Boost weather! Except you're running a NA car. so... CAI weather!!! It's great that you were able to get your trip rescheduled. Hopefully the damage done bu the storms is minimal. My wife is flying up north this weekend and has a lay-over in Charlotte, NC on Sunday. I'm hoping that's not going to affect her flight plans very much.

[Robert Nixon]

The storm has stalled in central SC, but with the winds declining hopefully the Charlotte airport is up and running, haven't checked it today.

November should be good weather in SC, looking forward to the race.

[pizzamann95]

They ended up rerouting her flight to Chicago. She made it up there safe. Now she just gets back late tonight.

[Robert Nixon]

OK, so with some more last minute preparation done and additions to the equipment list, we should be ready for this crazy race this coming weekend.

Got some patches sewed on the race suit (with Nomex thread, gotta be flame retardant) from the 24 Hours of Lemons folks and one from the Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown NY.

New ear buds for the race radio headset, new visor on the helmet (slightly tinted, but not Stig level dark!).

Fly to Charlotte Thursday, spend the night with our son in Columbia, then head to the track Friday for tech inspection, driver gear inspection, and the evening block party in Camden SC with all the race cars.

Saturday race from 10-6, then Sunday race from 11-12, and 1-4:30 with the one hour of quiet time mandated by the town of Kershaw next to the track on Sundays.

I hope to have some news, photos and videos next week, mostly looking to have fun and to NOT have a hurricane this time!

[Robert Nixon]

LEMONS RACE COMPLETE! I had a blast, spent the weekend with my son and lots of auto friends, and lived to tell the tale! It would take a few pages to describe all the events of the weekend, but I'm happy to say that our 5 man team in our 90s Nissan Altima (painted with a BMW design, making us the Team Altimate Driving Experience) managed to place 44th out of 80 cars that completed at least 1 one lap in the 14 hours of racing. Our Saturday went well, with the car running smoothly in 28th overall, and getting close to the top 10 in B Class. However, at the end of my driving stint I was getting ill from the gas fumes, so I pitted, and we discovered a serious fuel line leak! No wonder I was feeling so bad after an hour and a half of gas smell! Thanks to the mechanical skills of the our team the other guys got the fuel line fixed, and we were ready to drive on Sunday for day 2.

The first two hours Sunday went well, but in the middle of the afternoon we had to retire the car with what we think is an ECU major failure. Really, this happens a LOT with LEMONS cars (break downs!), so while it was sad to not finish the entire race, we did OK for a first time team at Lemons. You can find some more photos and write up about it on my blog, so I'll just say again that I had a blast. Plus, as a proud parent, I have to admit that my son's team in a 72 Dodge Coronet finished way ahead of my team, they ended in 16th overall, and more importantly FIRST in C Class! One of the funny things about Lemons is that while the overall winner took home $400 in NICKELS, the Class C winners took home $600 in NICKELS, since the Class C cars are the ones most likely to break down!

You can find out more info at the 24 Hours of Lemons website, and they also have more photos of all the crappy cars that raced last weekend.

Thanks for following along on this adventure, I can now say that even though it was $500 cars racing, getting to be on track and deal with a hundred details involving the other cars, flags, equipment, etc. is really a lot of fun. Maybe some time a wrecked FIAT 500 will get raced in Lemons, but mostly I enjoy a lot of different things related to cars. After driving my Abarth on track days, I feel like doing a race with Lemons is like cranking it up a notch and a lot of notches higher than autocross!

[Fiat500USA]

That sounds great Bob! Cool read. Congratulations to you and your son! I agree we'll eventually see some 500s doing this race. Sounds like fun.

[Robert Nixon]

It was a good experience, and if nothing else I boosted the economy with all the race gear, travel, gas for the race car, etc!

Now 2 posts on my blog about the Lemons Race.

[streetsurfer]

Sounds great Robert! Glad you came out of the fuel line ordeal unscathed.

Did the son’s Coronet have a 440? I looked at a little bit older (‘68-‘70?) Coronet 440 for my first car, but my big sis did all she could to sway me from it....”too much power, gas hog”, etc. This after not being allowed by dad to get a ‘54 Coronet as a project car at 14, before I had a license.

Too funny in boosting the economy......if it only brought down the price of lemons, I’d be happy.


I just watched your video presentation on the prior page-‘17 wrapup. Gotta say you guys are funny and it was refreshing to see such a good father/son relationship. You guys rock!

[Robert Nixon]

streetsurfer,

thanks, it's been fun doing autocross and now track stuff with my son, I guess we get along even if his team beat mine!

The Coronet has been going with the 318 V8, they're on about their 3rd or 4th motor, the latest one was pulled from a Dodge pickup! It mates with a Chevy Colorado transmission, so they were happy to actually finish the entire race, much less win their class!

The next Lemons race in South Carolina will be in April, and this time it will be a real 24 hours straight race! Not sure yet if our Altima team will race, but the Coronet guys are already working on a different car for that race! The big heavy Coronet would have taken an estimated $2,000 worth of tires to do 24 hours, so they're going with something lighter!