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Saturday, April 20, 2013

LeMons Detroit Day 1 Gives Us Exciting Class Battles: Pulsar vs S10, CRX vs Celica, 325i vs 245

The lineup of cars we saw during Friday’s inspections looked like a group that would provide plenty of rod-throwingly good racing, and such turned out to be the case on Saturday. At times, most of the teams seemed to be making junkyard runs and spinning wrenches, but the surviving teams fought hard for the lead in each of the three LeMons classes. Here’s what happened. April weather on the shores of Lake Michigan tends to be chilly and windy, and that meant that teams who broke parts (that is, most of them) experienced some real character-building, numb-fingered repairs. The snow was gone by midday, but the cold weather lingered all day. The fast cars compete in Class A, and we spent most of the day watching a four-way, lead-swapping struggle between a Lexus LS400, a Dodge Neon, a BMW E30 3-series, and a Volvo 245 wagon. After 9-1/2 hours of racing, the Bucksnort Racing BMW 325i owned a one-lap edge over its closest pursuer. For reasons that nobody can explain to our satisfaction, Volvo 240s with naturally-aspirated eight-valve four-bangers and squishy stock suspensions often manage to get around a road course just as well as cars with much sportier pedigrees. The Little Lebowski Urban Achievers ’86 245 wagon has contended in just about every Midwest Region LeMons race, and Saturday’s race session ended with the school bus looming large in the Bucksnort BMWs rear-view mirrors. One mistake by the BMW pilots on Sunday and the stodgy Swedish grocery hauler will eat up their Ultimate Driving Machine like so much lutefisk. Class A is a bit more interesting than usual, thanks to the Volvo brick challenging the three-time-winning Bavarian machine, but the Class B cars — the medium-fast entries— offer more entertainment to the true LeMons aficionado. Right now, the ’84 Honda CRX of Team Gutty has been pushed far beyond what you’d expect from its relentlessly original 29-year-old running gear and will start Sunday’s session at the top of its class and in P5 overall. How? Why? We can’t say. Even more puzzling, the 22R engine of Apocalyptic Racing’s ’78 Toyota Celica has kept its connecting rods inside the block (rather than scattered all over the Gingerman facility, which is how the typical Apocalyptic Racing weekend goes), and the car climbed all the way up to 12th overall. That’s just 11 laps behind the Team Gutty CRX. Will the Honda blow its head gasket before the Toyota drops its crankshaft on the tarmac? Time will tell! The cars that never belonged anywhere near a road course receive the honor of competing in Class C, and Saturday saw a true no-quarters-asked-or-given slugfest among the half-dozen C cars. Several teams spent some time in the Class C lead during Saturday, but the ’87 Nissan Pulsar NX of Red Shirt Racing held onto that lead at the end of Saturday’s session. With a 30-lap edge over its nearest competitor and 29th place overall, the Red Shirts might be feeling fairly confident right now. Loose Lugs Racing and their wretched Chevy S10 had opened up a fairly solid lead in Class C by midday, but then the Loose Lugs drivers got a bit too aggressive and racked up a series of black flags. While they sat in the penalty box, the Canadian Pulsar pilots ground out their slow-motion laps and built up an intimidating lead. Meanwhile, cars were sliding off into the weeds, crunching into berms, and trading paint with one another. Here’s the Usual Suspects Chevy Monza doing a bit of bumper-dragging after some contact with a fellow competitor. Popped head gaskets, bent valves, spun bearings, and shattered transmissions kept a large fraction of the cars up on jack-stands for much of the day, but most of them will be kludged back together by the time the green flag waves on Sunday morning. Check in Sunday night to see how everything sorts out!

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