When we come to LeMons races in the Northeast, we can count on seeing plenty of rusty race cars, and on seeing numerous dudes in maybe-not-so-ironic wifebeater shirts. Never before, however, have we seen so many ridiculous engine swaps in one race. During the BS Inspection, which serves to punish cars deemed to have blown past the $500 spending limit, we saw a (very) poor man’s TR8, a supercharged GM 3800 in a Bradley GT, a couple of Camry V6-powered MR2s, and much more! (Read More…)

For several years in the middle part of the 1980s, lowered minitrucks with pastel graphics and booming sound systems were extremely popular. Then, without warning, just about every last one of them disappeared. Where did they go? We can’t say, but we’re pleased to announce that Team Licensed To Ill has brought the custom minitruck back… and thrashed it all weekend at the Sears Pointless 24 Hours of LeMons. (Read More…)

When you’ve got a team of LeMons veterans who have been racing a Volvo 245 wagon since the earliest days of the 24 Hours of LeMons and you want to add a second car to the stable, you’re going to face stern disapproval if that second car happens to be a BMW E30 or a Mazda Miata. Those choices lack imagination! There must be some way to make a Miata fit Bernal Dads Racing’s Volvo-wagon ethos… but what could it be? (Read More…)

You’ve read Ed’s writeup of last weekend’s 24 Hours of LeMons race at Infineon Raceway, and now we’ve got more photos of the fender-bashing, engine-trashing action for you! (Read More…)

The Sears Pointless 24 Hours of LeMons race was all about a Nissan NX2000 versus BMW 3 Series versus Honda motorcycle-engined Geo Metro battle for quite a while, but black flags on the Nissan and the Geo gave the Spin-N-Out Burger BMW E30 the chance to grab the win on laps. (Read More…)

You’ve seen the timelapse video of the Sears Pointless 24 Hours of LeMons BS Inspections, but the timelapse camera didn’t capture the twisted cars and car themes we saw Friday. (Read More…)

Supposedly we had 185 teams signed up for the Sears Pointless 24 Hours of LeMons, which may be a record for road racing, but only 150 or so managed to get their heaps running well enough to make it through the pre-race inspections Friday. “Only” is a relative term, though; scrutinizing 150 terrible clunkers for safety and adherence to the LeMons $500 budget limit makes for a long, long day. (Read More…)

Y’all know that the NSF Racing 1962 Plymouth took the top prize at the Southern Discomfort 24 Hours of LeMons last month, but some of you may be wondering how the Fury managed to beat out the Sputnik ’86 Nissan Stanza wagon (441 laps) or the Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws Parnelli Jones Galaxie (243 laps) for the Index of Effluency. Clearly, I have failed in expressing just how unspeakably terrible this car really is, and thus what a monumental achievement its 218 laps around the Carolina Motorsports Park road course really was. (Read More…)

When shopping for a car to thrash all weekend long on a hairy road course, most of us don’t consider the Nissan Prairie. Why not? The Team Sputnik ’86 Stanza Wagon proved at last month’s Southern Discomfort 24 Hours of LeMons that you don’t need an RX-7 or E30 to do well in low-buck endurance racing. (Read More…)

Watching the J30/280ZX/SHO battle for the win on laps this afternoon was pretty exciting, but the Index of Effluency (which goes to the terrible car that accomplishes something orders of magnitude beyond what any sane observer considers possible) is what the true LeMons fanatics care about. A 280ZX coming in first is impressive, but how about an 80-horsepower Toyota Tercel EZ taking tenth place overall? How is that possible?
Team Exhibition Of Slow brought their hacked-up late-80s Tercel EZ— the EZ, as aficionados of rent-a-car-grade econoboxes might recall, is the low-budget/stripper “economy” version of the already miserably underpowered third-gen Tercel, complete with carburetor— and drove it around and around and around the MSR track, all weekend long, and received exactly zero black flags. They beat most of the E30s, all the Mustangs, in fact damn near everything on the track. Definitely one of the easiest IOE choices we’ve ever made. Congratulations, Exhibition Of Slow!

The third annual Gator-O-Rama 24 Hours of LeMons endurance race is in the books, and a 29-year-old Datsun just beat out 80 or so competitors— most of them less than half the Datsun’s age— to bring home the Win On Laps trophy for Team Z-Wrecks. (Read More…)

As is typical for races at MSR Houston, the mechanical carnage has been quite extreme. We saw sheared axles, blown head gaskets, thrown rods, and a Jetta with its engine dragging on the pavement (the last one is a first in my experience). Still, some cars haven’t broken, and the battle for the win on laps has been cutthroat; meanwhile, the battle for the Index of Effluency— LeMons racing’s top prize, which goes to the team that accomplishes the most with the worst car— seems to have settled into your classic Tercel-versus-Camaro-versus-W110 slugfest. (Read More…)

The 24 Hours of LeMons has been coming to MSR Houston since 2008, and it has become one of the toughest, most competitive tracks in the series. Out of the 80 or so cars at the third annual Gator-O-Rama inspections today, at least four are former winners and another half-dozen have multiple top-three finishes. (Read More…)

What does it take to win the Heroic Fix trophy at the heroism-heavy Southern Discomfort 24 Hours of LeMons? Frantic engine swaps are a dime a dozen in LeMons racing, but what happens when the replacement engine goes bad? (Read More…)

The Index of Effluency trophy goes to the 24 Hours of LeMons team that accomplishes the greatest feats with the most improbable car; if your team’s car is a horrifyingly rusty heap that sat in a field for decades prior to being resurrected for racing, is a type of vehicle that never belonged on a road course in the first place, and manages to clank through more than 200 tough laps on a car-killing track, you have an excellent shot at taking home the coveted IOE. The NSF Racing 1962 Plymouth Fury accomplished this feat at this weekend’s Southern Discomfort race. (Read More…)