After nearly a month off, the 24 Hours of LeMons returns for an Easter weekend soirée—”The Cure for Gingervitis“—at Gingerman Raceway near South Haven, Michigan. Gingerman has hosted LeMons more a half-dozen times and the story from each race, more often than not, is the weather. April races regularly dwell in the pretty-dang-close-to-freezing temperature range and snow has fallen  least twice. Early week weather forecasts predict high temperatures in the 40s and 50s, which would seem balmy if rain wasn’t also expected.

Regardless, this faithful scribe attend as a member of the LeMons Supreme Court and will post live updates on this very site throughout the weekend much as I did at Road America. This is, of course, contingent on the ability to connect to Internet in rural Southwest Michigan, so if that goes awry, look for updates via Twitter and Facebook with a summary post here each evening. The full unofficial entry list can be found here, but let’s get down to the racers.

With this race falling on Easter weekend, attendance looks a bit lighter than previous Gingerman races with 50 teams registered. The Midwest really has variety down, though, with more than 30 different car types representin’. As a member of the LeMons judging panel for this race, I won’t break down any of the classes, since classing is done at the track and I don’t want to make judgments ahead of time. That said, Murilee Martin and guest judge Keith Kemp from Byte Marks Racing should be slapping class letters on the majority of cars.

My appearance on the LeMons Supreme Court, however, shouldn’t affect the outcome of those competing for an outright win. Expect the two Volvos in the field to contend, which shouldn’t be surprising based on Hooniverse’s recent LeMons Torture Test results. The turbocharged 262C from Bert One (above) normally resides in Vermont, but the Bertone Coupe took sabbatical out West with three race appearances at Sonoma Raceway. Bert One is headed home now, but its keepers cleverly planned a stop at Gingerman along the return route. Their car is quick and was reliably in the Top 10 before the team added boost, but if they’re going to get a win or even get back into the Top 10, this weekend’s smaller field may help that.

The other Volvo belongs to Little Lebowski Urban Achivers, who have Top 10s in their last three races, including back-to-back second places. Their drivers pedal the naturally aspirated, eight-valve 240 wagon extraordinarily well and they’ll be hoping to make that last leap from P2 to the Winner’s Circle. Their Volvo’s relative lack of power has served it well in the damp, so expect the team to pray for rain and do well if the weather turns sour.

The most-recent Midwestern winners, Mark’s Harder LemonAid, return to Gingerman with their BMW E30. It’s not the fastest Bimmer in the world with an eta motor, but they run consistent races and usually find the Top 10 by the weekend’s end. The LemonAid team have also been busy transforming their Class C-dominating, three-cylinder Geo Metro into a fire-breathing monster. The BMW-powered Metro will not make its race debut yet, but we hear it’s coming soon and the teasers of it, well, speak for themselves.

Staying with German-built cars, the Porsche 944 of United Ducktape Racing nearly won at Autobahn last June and usually leads the race at some point before caving to the foibles of crapcan Porsche-dom. However, Porch Racing’s recent success on the West Coast has perhaps opened the floodgates for the 944 domination that Internet Car Experts have predicted for years.

If you like rooting for the Big People, One Percent Racing race a pretty-dang-nice BMW 535i (E28) that sounds beastly. They ran into some rotten luck at Road America, spending more the weekend at Siebken’s than at the track after their car called it quits early.

Only one other past winner will show up and it’s something an odd duck. Toyota has never really exhibited success winning LeMons races outright, but the ‘yota-obsessed crew from Dai Mondai hold the distinction of the only MR2 winners in LeMons history (above). It came at Gingerman in 2011 and the team’s two-car efforts haven’t come very close to that since. At their best, they work as efficiently as any crapcan team. They always bring two Toyotas from a rotating pool that includes the race-winning MR2, a Corolla FX16, and a Celica or two. This race will see the team bringing the MR2 (Dai Mondai II) and the FX16 (Dai Mondai I).

Aside from a substantial pool of mediocre Fords, Honda makes up the largest number of entries with seven, five of which have legitimate shots at winning. Team Sheen’s Integra is no stranger to the front of the field, having regularly led races until getting called out by rotten luck or by the ever-popular blown Honda head gasket. They’ve run well in the wet, too, where front-wheel drive provides an advantage, so bad weather could create an interesting race between the Integra and the Lebowski Volvo.

Anonymous have managed a few Top 10 finishes in their Civic and should perform well at Gingerman with a super-light car that brakes and handles well. Team NonSequitur are always one of the fastest teams in their Integra, which looks like it’s been mangled with a ten-pound hammer. They’ve been a solid team for a long time, but like Team Sheen, the NonSequitur Integra has just come up short of a complete race.

Up-and-comers Full Tilt Boogie have consistently improved in their 2002 Civic Si, which is basically two totaled Civics grafted together. It’s not shown as much speed as it’s probably capable of, but it looked strong and reliable at Road America last November. Finally, Speedycop & His Gang of Outlaws debuted a Civic hatchback at the season-opening race at Barber Motorsports Park. It suffered through some typical first-race jitters, but Speedycop desperately wants an overall win and he thinks this Civic is the car to get him there. Few other LeMons races will see such a small field, so this could be his best chance at a win.

As always, I take a chance on a longshot that would otherwise come out of nowhere. Canadian Border Patrol ran their first race in October 2012, which also happened to be my first race as a LeMons judge. Not only was their Toyota Cressida (above) terrible, but the drivers matched its awfulness. After blowing up the car’s 7M-GE at Gingerman last spring, Canadian Border Patrol did the only sane thing a team could do: They found a junkyard Lexus LS400 and plucked from it the 290-horsepower 1UZ-FE V8. More importantly, Canadian Border Patrol have improved in each of their four races, managing an 18th-place finish at Road America. They still struggled with the car a bit, but the team have gotten loads better and should continue to do so. Will they win at Gingerman? No, but I think they will take a huge step forward.

More longshots: Team Priority Fail (Volkswagen GTI), Bad Lucky Touch (Mazda RX-7), We Are Not Really From Iran (Ford Festiva), Flying Pigs Racing (Ford Mustang).

 

This race will see relatively few crazy builds, but a couple should show up. Charnal House’s SHO-powered Geo Metro (above) remains one of the coolest garage builds in LeMons and the team perhaps only missed a class win last summer when one of the wheels fell off. Twice. They were beat then by the Ford Lima-powered  Opel GT breadwagon, which has since been sold to new owners who will campaign it at Gingerman for the first time under the Arrested Adolescents Racing Program. 

Speaking of new owners, I said goodbye to my LeMons gateway heap earlier this week and its new rube captain will run the former Team Resignation Ford Escort as one of three Wonderment Consortium entries. It will join the team’s first car—the Conestoga wagon Civic that puked its D15’s innards all over Turn 9 at Road America—and the team’s Volkswagen Quantum Syncro wagon with power from an Audi V6. 

In the Torture Test rankings, Saturns rated shockingly low after their initial ranking at the end of 2009 showed them as great LeMons cars. Bad Decisions Racing and Product Design each run GM’s plastic-clad and have had nothing but absolutely wretched luck in all previous races. If any teams in the field deserve better, it’s this pair.

As for weird and clunky machinery, there’s very little of that to be found in this field, unfortunately. Loose Lugs Racing, run by a bunch of GM engineers, will have with their V6-powered Chevy S-10 while the Flux Decapacitators Part II return with the saddest Back to the Future theme of all time (above, contributed to in no small way by the fact that it’s a Ford Tempo).

There is, however, one new entry of intrigue: Afunzalo Racing are registered with a 1974 Fiat X1/9. Aside from the one with an Alfa Romeo V6 behind the driver, the X1/9 has been an absolutely miserable LeMons car with few lasting more than a couple races and most capable of overheating in Barrow on a cloudy February morning. What could possibly go wrong?

Check back throughout the weekend for more updates (sketchy Internet permitting) on Hooniverse!

 

[All photos Murilee Martin except where otherwise noted]