Even if you’re not a race fan or a car guy,
you’ve probably heard of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: a prestigious race held
annually at the Circuit de La Sarthe, near the town of Le Mans in France. Every
year since 1923, automakers and well-funded race teams have brought out their
race cars to rip around the 8.5-mile long track for a full 24 hours. Cars have
to be well-engineered to corner with excessive G-forces, to top out around 205
mph in the 1.2-mile straight sections on the backstretch between the chicanes,
to last all 24 hours with no major issues, and if a problem does arise, that it
be something easily repaired. For almost 100 years, names like Sir Stirling
Moss earned their reputation in racing, with a win or more at Le Mans, for
manufacturers like Audi, Porsche, Bugatti, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, and
Pagani.
You people actually thought I was
going to talk about that? There's no fun in that. No, I’m here to talk about
this:
Welcome
to the 24 Hours of LeMons. Started in 2006 by Californian Jay Lamm, it has
expanded into an amateur crapcan racing series that is respected by companies
and car guys alike. Don’t believe me? Yokohama just signed a sponsorship
agreement with the series and Roadkill foolishly presents it. The 24 Hours of
LeMons is based off the concept of endurance racing for fun with a small
budget. $500 to be exact, not including safety equipment, wheels and tires, and
brakes, to buy a car and prep it for racing.
The rules are simple and very basic for even the most unprofessional
participants. Cars are built and bought for $500. That includes any
modifications made to the car. Parts can be sold off to add to the budget. A
full roll cage is mandatory, as well as a kill switch, very little glass, a
fuel cell if desired to move the tank from the stock location, and generally no
completely reckless shenanigans. Safety rules include a fire extinguisher
in-car, full firesuits, a head-and-neck restraint, a proper helmet, gloves,
shoes, and a racing seat with a five- or six-point harness. Safety is a big
concern at LeMons because it is an amateur series and there tend to be quite a
few people on the track who don’t have the slightest idea as to what they are
doing. For other rules and regulations, go to the 24 Hours of LeMons website.
As LeMons says, they’re not 300 pages long, they’re in English…so read them
before participating otherwise you and your team will acquire quite a few penalty
laps or get kicked the hell out of the venue.
Notice
the rollcage and the seat
...Penalty
laps, you say? Why yes. LeMons is indeed a racing series with a schedule for
the season, but the racing is all in good fun. Yes, you can race for position,
and depending on your class, you may win up to $600 in nickels, but all the
racing is mainly so that people have fun. If you go over the budget and/or
brought a cheaty car (deemed by the judges, bribable), you may be given penalty
laps. Instead of starting at lap 0, you may be starting at lap -15, or in the
case of a certain Pontiac Solstice, you may be starting on lap -11,200,000,000,
or one penalty lap for each dollar of taxpayer money spent on GM’s bailout
during their bankruptcy in 2009. If at any time you are deemed a hazard, you
will be black flagged and have to go to the penalty box, where you may be given
penalty laps, be duct-taped to the roof of your car with a megaphone and forced
to drive around the pits in an apologetic manner, or be given some ridiculous
penalty that is meant to either humiliate you and your team, entertain the judges
and bystanders, or both. All bad deeds come with punishment at the LeMons
Supreme Court.
Judge Phil
Because the winners of each class could be
given less of a shit about by anyone, there are a set of prestigious awards
given to well-earned teams and their cars. The name tells the story for most of
them: Heroic Fix, I Got Screwed, Judges’ Choice, Organizers’ Choice, and then a
regional award for each race track that tends to be humorous. The Index of
Effluency - (and to quote) as determined by a super-secret equation including
vehicle age, general hooptieness, reliability of country of origin,
unlikelihood of success, and the Organizers’ whim - is the highest honor,
receiving $601 and free entry to the team’s next race. Usually the IOE is given
to vehicles that go above and beyond the expectations or desires of the LeMons
judges. How far? Well, one team converted an old Cessna into a Cessna-bodied
Toyota minivan...is that far enough for ya?
The 24 Hours of LeMons is special because
people don’t need any special abilities or training to participate. As long as
your car and gear has passed tech inspection, you have a valid driver’s
license, and have purchased a LeMons competition license, you can race. There
are plenty of $500 cars out there, with all sorts of issues or amenities,
providing almost anyone with a car that they can work on or can learn how to
work on. Due to LeMons’ nature of blowing crap up, there is also a learning
factor in the experience. Less mechanic-savvy people can learn how to do
certain things when they blow up their LeMons Celica transmission and have to
swap in the one they found in the back of a junkyard. A mixture of fun,
mechanical learning, and amateur racing, the 24 Hours of LeMons can be the
perfect racing series for a high school kid looking to go racing on a budget.
Written
Content:
Connor Sahs
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