24 hours of LeMONS

What do chickens, blow-up dolls and pirates have to do with racing?
Probably nothing, unless the race you're watching is the 24 Hours of LeMONS.
No, I didn't misspell LeMans; I meant to say LeMONS, because that's exactly what the race is about. Imagine a track full of cars all valued at $500 or less (before the safety equipment is installed), lemons, if you will.

Can you imagine those cars lasting 24 hours? Probably not, but that's half the fun.
This year, at SF LeMONS, which is held at the Altamont Motorsports Raceway in Tracy, Calif., some of the cars I saw were Honda CRXs, Toyota MR2s, Volvo wagons, even a Ford Pinto and Chevy Cavalier.

If the cars used for racing weren’t crazy enough, you should see how they are decorated. One car masqueraded as a chicken, another appeared to be driven by a pirate, and I saw more than a couple blow-up dolls riding along.

Why the wild outfits for the cars? Because they – the participants – can. Wouldn’t you like a pirate driving your Miata? I thought so.

This was my first LeMONS event, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect, although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen pictures of the chicken car, from the team Mother Cluckers, in past issues of Car and Driver.

For those of you unfamiliar with LeMONS, it’s a little like the 24 hours of LeMans. It’s an endurance race. The winner is the one who completes the most laps in a certain amount of time. The 24 Hours of LeMONS happens at racetracks across the country, some are actually 24 hours.

In Tracy noise restrictions prohibited a 24 hour race. Instead the race was scheduled to last 14 hours, but about 10 ½ hours were actually completed.

You don’t need to be a professional driver to enter, but you do need to make sure your car meets the safety requirements.

The winner of this year’s race completed over 480 laps. And it seemed like in each lap, something exciting happened. Since these cars weren’t actually made for racing, most of them had problems going into sharper turns which resulted in spin-outs and collisions. It felt like for each lap completed under a green flag, 10 were counted under the yellow flag. Whether it was pushing a car that stalled off the track, putting tire barrier back in place or picking up miscellaneous parts, the flag guys and clean-up crew certainly earned their pay.

The Risk of Racing

It doesn't matter if your car is worth $500,000 or $500, there is a risk involved every time you pull out of the pit on to the track.
At my frist 24 hours of LeMons experience, I saw that risk first hand.
It was around lap 207, or 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon when car number 39, a volvo sedan crashed head on into a wall. The driver had apparently accelerated without making the effort to turn. It was in the fraction of time when he hit the gas without turning the wheel that he risked his own life. A yellow flag went up before anyone realized the severity of the accident. A red flag soon followed. After the rest of the cars had been sitting still on the track, they were ushered to the pits to make way for the rescue crew. The Altamont Motorsports Park safey and rescue truck was first on the scene. The team began working but it wasn't enough. An ambulance showed up later, followed by 3 full-size fire trucks, another ambulance, a smaller fire truck and a fire department SUV.
One photographer was scolded for taking pictures and in an effort to block what was going on, the security guards put up a tarp.
Speculations of what actually happened could be heard by spectators in the stands. Some say the driver may have had a heart attack, or lost conciousness while driving and that's what caused him to challenge the concrete wall. Regardless of how it happened, the outcome left a pall over the grandstands. Though no official anouncements have been made, death is on everyone's minds. The rescue crew did not make a speedy getaway to the nearest hospital.
Events were postponed until Sunday. There was serious damage to the wall, but it seems as though the driver suffered the most crucial damage.
As always, when I get more official information, you will too.
Hopefully tomorrow will end on a happier note.