As predicted in our preview before the race, The 24 Hours of LeMons commenced to show up at world-class racing facility Barber Motorsports Park 10 days ago to sully the track’s name with the series’ trademark terrible hoopties. When the oil-dry settled and the exhausted cars had wobbled with bent and broken A-arms onto trailers, Barber was no worse for their wear and a couple teams had even managed to run good races by any standard. As always, you can get the full story on the award winners at the race from Murilee Martin over on Car and Driver, but follow the jump for a little more discussion of the winners, losers, and soiled drawers of LeMons “Shine Country Classic” at Barber.


We gave a brief rundown of the field in our race preview so we’ll refrain from talking about them for the most part except to explain a couple of “secret” builds.
The car that Dave Morrow brought wasn’t exactly the one we thought he was bringing, but it was nevertheless amazing: a replica (above) of Pontiac’s 1960s Banshee XP-833 Concept Car designed by John DeLorean. As the Banshee itself was never produced, Morrows Racing instead had to construct one using a Pontiac OHC straight six (the XP-833’s original engine), a BMW E36 chassis, Opel GT body panels, and Morrows’ trademark finagling. Their “Banshee” ran away with Class C, perhaps suggesting the relatively rare Pontiac six might withstand the rigors of endurance racing well.

The Knoxvegas Lowballers brought a new “car” to the race, referred to simply as “Big Bertha” on the entry list. It should be mentioned that this team already has two cars powered by Ford’s Duratec V6: a Contour SVT and a Geo Metro with a mid-engine V6 swap. They brought to this race two more Duratecs in the form of a twin-engined Mazda MPV (above) with two manual transmissions connected by LeMons-caliber linkeage. The Metro and minivan rolled through inspection done up as a 1970s Vannin’-caliber custom vans. The van struggled on Saturday with only 31 laps completed while they sorted the linkage, but they sorted it enough for the van to total 158 laps. Their dedication to incredible themes earned them another Organizer’s Choice, which I believe is their third such award.

Finally, NSF Racing stood out by dragging a swamp-soaked Studebaker Silver Hawk from their home state, Florida. Its Mopar 360 came out of a recreational vehicle and while it occasionally struggled to turn laps, they still brought a beat-up, patina’d Stude to a race and made it more or less work to earn the Index of Effluency.
As we said, you can get the full rundown from Murilee Martin over on Car & Driver’s LeMons page. We’ll give the Top 10 overall and in the classes below and, after that, give a quick statistical analysis and explanation of the race.
 
OVERALL RESULTS

1. #36 Save the Ta-Tas Racing (Chevy Camaro, above) – 422 Laps
2. #335 Road Warrior Racing (BMW E30) – 420 Laps
3. #99 Basil Weenie Racing (BMW E30) – 417 Laps
4. #262 Vermont BertOne (Volvo 262C) – 406 Laps
5. #150 Burningham Racing (Porsche 944) – 405 Laps
6. #161 Zero Energy Racing (Honda Del Sol) – 404 Laps
7. #351 Tetanus Racing (Datsun 240Z) – 397 Laps
8. #67 Toxic Asset Racing Program – TARP (BMW E36) – 394 Laps
9. #701 The Generar Ree (Datsun 280ZX) – 393 Laps, Class B
10. #101 Byte Marks Racing (Ford Escort) – 389 Laps
 

CLASS B

1. #701 The Generar Ree (Datsun 280ZX, above) – 393 Laps
2. #420 PBR (Subaru Outback) – 386 Laps
3. #128 Duff Beer Civic (Honda Civic) – 377 Laps
4. #714 Men in Black (Ford Crown Victoria) – 374 Laps
5. #157 Terminally Confused (Honda CRX) – 372 Laps
6. #416 Mom’s Friendly Racing Company (Honda Civic) – 370 Laps
7. #61 Emily’s Power for the Cure (Mazda RX-7) – 367 Laps
8. #156 Trophy Wife Racing (Mazda 323) – 366 Laps
9. #97 Knoxvegas Lowballers (Ford Contour SVT) – 364 Laps
10. #343 Bros With Hose (Honda Civic) – 363 Laps
 
CLASS C

1. #833 Morrows Racing (Pontiac Banshee/Opel GT) – 335 Laps
2. #19 Fuzzy Blumpkins (Ford Pinto, above) – 295 Laps
3. #33 British Invasion (Triumph Spitfire) – 227 Laps
4. #473 Idle Clatter Racing (Mercedes 300D/Toyota Hilux) – 224 Laps
5. #100 Parrothead Racing (Honda Accord) – 219 Laps
6. #41 Three Pedal Mafia- 24 Hours of Lemons Racing Team (Datsun 720) – 190 Laps
7. #68 Swamp Shack Maniacs (Honda Prelude) – 188 Laps
8. #59 NSF Racing (Studebaker Silver Hawk) – 178 Laps
9. #71 Team Sputnik (Plymouth Fury) – 165 Laps
10. #230 Knoxvegas Lowballers (Mazda MPV, twin-engine) – 158 Laps

Crunching the numbers

As we tend to explain, here’s how this works: We study the timing sheets to a sickening degree and determine how far between visits to the pits each of the competitor’s are to get a general picture of the race. In the chart below, this is noted at “stints,” though it doesn’t mean what “stint” usually mean in professional endurance racing. Since there’s no practical differentiation between whether a car is getting tended to mechanically, the word, or simply receiving a new driver and some fuel, “stint” here can refer to any or all of those.
As discussed in the preview, the race sessions’ lengths (7.5 hours, 2 hours, and then 5 hours) were such we thought a team that could run 2.5 hours on a tank of fuel could run on just three in-race stops. It turns out Barber is a thirstier track than initially thought; only one team made a three-stop strategy work while most made five or even six. That, however, put most of the frontrunners on the same driver-change strategy so that other factors ultimately decided the race.

Let’s go through this business a little bit:

• The top three cars started Sunday all with 216 laps and they were all more or less on the same driver change schedule. The Ta-Tas’ Camaro ultimately won the race by just driving away from the other “podium” cars (quotation marks used because the 2nd and 3rd place cars don’t get anything; the winner barely does). This probably sounds unfair, but the Camaro—this one included—tends to break easily in endurance racing. It was never a given that it would finish the race and it likely finished at considerably less than 100 percent.

• You’ll notice the Basil Weenie E30 averaged slightly better pace (0.6 seconds per lap) than the Road Warrior BMW but finished behind it. The difference? Experienced endurance racers and fans will tell you that close races are won in the pits. Road Warrior Racing saved 90 seconds per stop, which accounted for more three laps over the course of the race.
• For most of Saturday’s race session, the Burningham Porsche 944 was in the mix with the frontrunning trio. A 33-minute issue (black flag or mechanical, likely) late Saturday cost them a chance to win. If you cut that 33-minute chunk into their average lap times, they would have been right in the mix with the Ta-Tas Camaro and they had the pace to run with them if not for their half-hour off the track. Of course, you can never really make suppositions like that in endurance racing; the results are simply never as straightforward as it ever seems.
• BertOne finishing fourth? That’s not really a surprise. Those chaps can sure run a race. Same for perennial achievers Tetanus Racing in the old LRE Datsun 240Z that they borrowed for this race.

• Zero Energy were the best of the very many Hondas. TARP Racing struggled to make fuel mileage—a common malady on a track that’s tough for any kind of endurance fuel economy—but still snuck into the Top 10 despite a lot of time off track.
• In Class B, Generar Ree really had the win in the bag after Knoxvegas Lowballers’ Contour conked out Sunday afternoon. Until then, the two teams had gone blow-for-blow despite Lowballers’ driver getting motion sickness, a frequent-enough occurrence at Barber’s roller coaster circuit, although the Contour driver experienced an unfortunate reversal of fortune. Puke in a racecar is a scene that the esteemed Murilee Martin once called “icky” with the most profoundly disgusted look on his face.

• Nevertheless, the PBR team deserve some serious mention for their incredible feat. In the race’s entire 14-1/2 hours, they made only three in-race stop for fuel. Notice that their average stint length is close to their longest stint length. That’s no accident. The Subaru team showed up with a plan and executed it: Their six stints were 66, 66, 67, 54, 68, and 65 laps. They had no black flags and while their driver changes took longer each than most other teams, they also only made three of them. That’s some quality endurance racing.
• The Morrows Racing “Banshee” really didn’t have any competition in Class C. They made quite a few stops to fix little things, it seems, but they were off the track considerably less than anyone else in the class.

• The Frankenstein Motorworks Toyota MR2, which is powered by a 270-horsepower V6 from a minivan, set the weekend’s fastest lap with a 1:45.8. The car itself is awfully fast, but young Indy Lights driver (and IndyCar hopeful) Zach Veach was the one who pedaled the car to that lap, which was more than two seconds faster than anyone.
• Hooniverse contributor Alan Cesar spent the weekend in the Fireball Racing Ford Escort, which Alan and this writer built together in 2010. The Escort suffered from some fuel pump maladies, which cost Alan the chance at a second stint, but he did get a quality two hours with the car, during which time he set the car’s fastest lap time for the weekend en route to a mid-pack finish.

And that’s a wrap on the Shine Country Classic. Did we miss anything? Feel free to use the Comments section below to tell your stories from Barber, insofar as they are not incriminating.
 
[Photos: Murilee Martin]