I’m not at Oregon Raceway Park to judge the Pacific Northworst LeMons race this weekend, because I just had to stay in Colorado to watch a bunch of freaks race to 14,115 feet. However, LeMons Assistant Perp Nick Pon has sent in some photos of yesterday’s prerace BS Inspections.
That “Rolls-Royce” is really a BMW E30; such a conversion is a good way to make LeMons officials less bored with racers’ insistence that the Ultimate Driving Machine was “the only $500 car we could find.” Complementing the look of the Roller, some teams are carrying on the West Coast LeMons tradition of excellent costumes.
Pete Peterson of the veteran Killer Bees MGB team not only drove his race car all the way from San Jose to the race, he did the trip while towing a one-wheeled covered wagon.
You never want to race in LeMons without a spare engine, so Pete went with the most logical engine storage location for his trip. What makes this feat even more impressive is that the Killer Bee recovered from one of the hairiest rollover wrecks in LeMons history.
The Bee has some serious Index of Effluency competition, in the form of this Plymouth Duster with an Al Bundy theme. It does have a 360, but old Detroit cars have a tough time staying glued together under this sort of abuse.
When you bring several large office machines to a LeMons BS Inspection in the trunk of your race car, it can mean only one thing:
Yes, reenacting the famous “printer rage” scene from Office Space
I’ll post updates as I get them, so check in later for Pacific Northworst updates.
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The Killer Bees vs. Al Bundy? This should be interesting…
That Duster is going all the way! I love it.
So… 2500 BS laps for the Duster?
One can only imagine the number of double-takes Pete received while driving up from San Jose…
I can’t wait for the September race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I’m guessing they’ll use the infield road course which, IIRC, still incorporates turns 1 & 2 with the full backstretch of the NASCAR oval. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything but oval racing at CMS, e.g., IMSA. If Murilee can talk the CMS folks into firing up the 200′ x 80′ HDTV that will add more awesome to the event.
I think Pete gets double-takes in everyday life, anyway.
Go the Duster
If someone could elucidate how a one wheel trailer is stable, it would be appreciated.
There are 2 points where it attaches to the car and they can only pivot up and down. The single wheel is usually a caster.
I live ~110 miles from the venue, and had to drive to Portland today for a vintage TSD rally starting tomorrow morning. I know a few folks participating so I stopped by for an hour or so to soak in a little Lemons. The posted pics don’t do the venue justice! The setting at the Oregon Motorsports Park is amazing, with a panorama of towering glacier-clad peaks running along the western horizon: Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, & Mt. Rainier south-to-north/L—R.
I have posted my pics from this morning here: http://chuck.forest.net/jag/lemons/
Enjoy!
“The Bee has some serious Index of Effluency competition,”
As I pointed out in the other thread, the MGB is probably has the best endurance racing credentials of any car ever to race in the LeMons series. Indeed it has a better racing heritage than many extremely exotic thoroughbreds.
MGB has raced at including many class wins and high outright placing at the following races:
Le Mans 24 hour
Monte Carlo Rally
Targa Florio
Monza 1000
Nurburgring 500
Nurburgring 1000
Spa 1000
Sebring 12 hour
Daytona 2000
Daytona 24 hour
Sundown 6 hour
Bridgehampton 500
Bridgehampton 6h
RAC Tourist Trophy
London – Sydney Marathon
etc….
Now this example may not have had the same prep and may have seen better days, but but the same token it is hardly fair not to mention just plain wrong to attempt to mock it for being what it is.
Any way you look at it the MGB has serious race cred.
I should point out that this car is a stock 77 Rubber-Bumper Leyland era model with the ugly “duck-bill” nose cut off.
The fact that the car had the second slowest laptimes of the race and finished with a rear hub that was disintegrating and wobbly wheel speaks volumes to being blessed with a great team, not any inherent or residual greatness in the car.
This MGB is a fun car, and a well loved car. But not a particularly great race car. I’d choose my chrome bumper version if I was serious about race creed.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/5400_1187523652803_1369652107_515831_5299684_n.jpg
Now everybody knows that Al Bundy drove a Dodge. It was a Dart Demon of the same vintage. At least they should have switched the badging. And minus 1 million for not running a slant 6.