24 Hours of LeMons Chicago: Many Porsches, Many FormerWinners, and a BMW-Powered Geo

We�re back in the Midwest once again, for the fifth visit of the 24 Hours of LeMons to theAutobahn Country Club and this year�s running of the Doin� Time In Joliet race. With

more than a hundred teams entered, we�ve got a total of five former overall LeMons winnerson the premises (a Camaro, two BMW E30s, a 300ZX, and an MR2) and many more potentialcontenders. You can read LeMons Supreme Court Justice Judge Eric�s race preview for moredetails on the likely class contenders; right now we�re going to look at some of the moreinteresting cars and teams that showed up for the traditional car inspections today.

With a good half-dozen or so Porsche 924s and 944s here, we expect to see many errant engineparts scattered over the tarmac and many teams staring blankly at 20-hours-to-replace deadtransmissions. This race will be run in one long session that starts Saturday morning and ends atmidnight, so hard-to-repair cars such as these will be at a disadvantage without the usual Saturdaynight wrench-fest.

Of course, this 944 has General Motors 4.3-liter V6 power� and the Porsche transaxle. This

ought to be interesting.

German cars with ill-advised Detroit-sourced engine swaps are nothing new in this series.Here�s a Mercedes-Benz C230 that showed up at the wrecking yard owned by one of theteam�s members. After selling off everything of value from the car, they rummaged throughthe yard for a suitable replacement engine.

Which, naturally, turned out to be a �Pinto 2300� out of a Ford Ranger.

Japanese cars also get strange engine swaps in LeMons racing. Here�s the Pabst Blue RacingNissan Maxima, which features mid-mounted Cadillac Northstar V8 power.

Pabst Blue Racing has suffered from repeated transmission problems in past races, mostly caused by

nervous breakdowns of the transmission�s electronic control unit. The poor transmission ECUthought it was still installed in the Cadillac STS drivetrain-donor vehicle, and it was not happy withthe inputs it was receiving from its new home. As a result, the team replaced� or maybesupplemented, we�re not sure� the shifter with this set of switches. With this new rig,the driver merely reaches over with his gloved hand during the whirling chaos of wheel-to-wheelroad racing, fumbles at the switches in the hope of choosing the correct gear, and overrides thetranny ECM by actuating internal transmission solenoids via direct electrical stimulation. Thisshould work perfectly.

The Pabst Blue Racing car is a gloriously bad idea, but it�s positively sane next to whatLemonAid Racing has done with their Geo Metro. This car won Class C and the Index of Effluencywith its original three-cylinder Suzuki engine, but then the team decided that they wanted morepower. Rather than go the boring route and drop in the �big-block� four-cylinderSuzuki engine, the members of LemonAid Racing lost their presence of mind and went big crazy.

Yes, that�s a BMW six-cylinder engine out of a late E30. The Metro also received a narrowed

E30 rear suspension; the driver had to be moved back a few feet to make room for the cruellybutchered firewall. Somehow, this car ended up weighing more than the team�s E30 race car,so we�re not expecting it to run away with anything this race.

After finishing in the top five in what seems like a dozen Midwest Region LeMons races, the LittleLebowski Urban Achievers and their naturally-aspirated Volvo 245 are back for another shot at thatever-elusive overall win.

After installing a Fat Man atomic bomb, a Little Boy atomic bomb, and a covered wagon atop their

Civic, the Team Formerly Known As Oregon Fail now has a gigantic Led Zeppelin installed.

The BRIBED stencil used by the LeMons Supreme Court this race features an homage to the greatBrougham Edition cars that were once so popular in this part of the country. BROUGHBED!

Why don�t more teams race V12 Jaguars? You can get a running XJ-S for less than scrap valuethese days, we love British cars, and no LeMons engine sounds as good as the big twelve.

Sure, there might be some drawbacks to this approach, but what other car with this much power

gets put into Class C?

The Union of Pentastar Racers have brought their confusingly Soviet-themed Duster, or maybeit�s a Shadow or a Sundance, back for another shot at Mitsubishi-powered Chrysler glory.

As Billy Dee Williams would say, the Mitsubishi 6G72 almost works every time.

Great themes abounded. Here�s the �Cougar� (actually a Ford Probe) of BurntRubber Soul Racing.

We also have a real Cougar, covered in blinding orange reflective tape for added irritation.

Zero Budget Racing redecorated their Class C and Index of Effluency-winning Chevy Chevette Diesel

with this patriotic Domino�s Pizza-influenced theme. Why?

It turns out that Domino�s used a fleet of specially configured Chevettes as delivery cars inthe 1980s.

Domin8�s Pizza: �Sluggish, Surly, �Splodey Delivery.�

The RUN-EXP Ford EXP has returned for another attempt at Class C victory. Can it beat the Jaguar?

That and many other pressing issues will be settled Saturday. Check back later for the race results.

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