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!
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!
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