This year, the Hong Norrth Mazda MX-3 won the Showroom-Schlock Shootout in Charlotte, the Cain’t Git Bayou in Lousiana, the ‘Shine Country Classic in South Carolina, and the Southern Discomfort, also in South Carolina. Today, Hong Norrth won their fifth race in the 2011 24 Hours of LeMons season, by taking the Heaps In The Heart Of Texas race by two laps..
It’s hard to believe that this was once the lovable-but-hapless team that won the Heroic Fix award for performing a record five engine swaps in their terrible CRX. Once Hong Norrth got over their Honda loyalty and switched to the strongest marque in LeMons racing (sorry, BMW fans, your Bavarian overlords may have won the ’11 season Constructors’ Championship based on strength-in-numbers top-ten finishes… but Mazda had eight P1 finishes next to BMW’s four), their screwup-free driving skills were finally allowed to shine. The Hong Norrth MX-3 wasn’t the quickest thing on the track this time, though it came close (a Taurus SHO and an E30— both previous winners— topped its best lap by a couple of seconds), but in the end that didn’t matter. A few seconds saved in a pit stop here, a black flag avoided there, and a car that never breaks— that’s what you need to set the all-time record for most 24 Hours of LeMons races won in a single season. Congratulations, Hong Norrth!
Find Reviews by Make:
Go Mazda!
Wow! Lemons HQ needs to throw down the gauntlet and challenge some of these teams that have their shit together to a spec car match race. I’m thinking something readily available and fairly untested in Lemons, like the Ford Focus, or Tempo. Or maybe dueling Cimarons or Turbo Sunbirds? Enquiringly minds want to know who would win in a race between Team Eyesore and Hong North.
The spec race we’d do would be the 12 Hours of Sebrings. You can get solid Sebrings for next to nothing.
That’s why they pay you the big bucks
Wait, when did Chrysler make a solid Sebring? I must have missed that generation…
Look no further than the 2010 Season Ender! ;-)
Does that MX-3 have that awesome little 1.8L V6?
That MX-3 with the hatch removed and rear seat removed would look a lot like a mini el-camino…