24 Hours of LeMons Diary Part 1: Yee-haw It’s LeMons Texas 2008
The car that introduced us to the 24 Hours of Lemons
In order to figure out how we found ourselves running our own car in the 24 Hours of LeMons Houston Gator-O-Rama, you have to go back to the weekend of October 17-19, 2008. Drew got hooked up with a team who was running the race for the first time at the first LeMons race in the Houston area at Motorsport Ranch Houston. They were a really great group of people who worked together and needed an extra driver for their team and Drew was lucky enough to be able to fill the spot.
Drew and I go down on Friday for practice and lay our eyes on his “racecar,” a 1986(?) Nissan 200sx with a pretty sweet American/Texan/Chuck Norris (aren’t the three inseperable?) theme. It looks like Drew is going to be the hotshoe driver of the bunch and he gets in the car and starts turning some practice laps.
Trying to get the car to go around a corner
The best way to describe the handling is “floaty.” Drew says you have to think ahead when driving the car because the suspension was so soft it took it a second before the tires start to bite after you turn the wheel on corner entry. As I watched, I could see the car handling just like he described. It’s hard to explain, but you could see the body start to roll as the wheel was turned before the car really started turning and the tires bit around the corner. Oh, the joys of a $300 racecar.
The best way to describe the engine is not to. I believe the engine that year was rated at 97 horsepower. No, that is not an exaggeration–it had less than 100 horsepower. Passing people was going to happen under braking, not on the straights.
Saturday rolls around and they decide that since Drew was the fastest driver during Friday’s practice he will start the race with all 70ish other amateurs. Before the green flag drops the car stalls and won’t restart and we spend twenty minutes in the pits soldering the wire connections to the safety-mandated kill switch. Drew gets sent back out and he starts making up as many places as he can, passing most the cars under braking since almost any car has enough power to at least stay even down the straights.
To make a long story short, Drew drives two penalty-free days. That’s more than we can say about the rest of the team. We’re not sure how many penalties there were, but I’m pretty sure everyone got their fair share. Additionally, pit stops and driver changes weren’t too awfully coordinated, either. One time Drew was signaled to come into the pits, he pitted, and no one was ready to change drivers or refuel so he went back out.
You might be thinking that with a bunch of novice drivers, spending twenty minutes in the pits at the beginning of the race, lots of penalties, and less-than-optimal pit coordination that the team finished way down in the standings. And you would be wrong. Team Chuck Norris still finished 26th out of 68 cars. Although they weren’t the most competitive team on the track, we had a good time and were grateful they let Drew on their team.
After realizing how much time could be made up with the right preparation and coordination, Drew and I get the crazy idea to try and put a team together ourselves. Could a win really be within reach? Stay tuned for the next step in our saga.
