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
From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/vOoLy5OZyMw/
The Honda CR-Z occupies essentially a unique position in the market: It’s the sole sporty two-seat hybrid hatchback. Widely viewed as a sport coupe, the three-door hatchback CR-Z blends styling that evokes the design heritage of the famed CRX coupe of the Eighties and Nineties with a modern hybrid powertrain. Its challenge has been that it is…