Le Mans Most liked posts in thread: 24 Hours of LeMons

Chad of Detroit Tuned fame participated in this event along with Gabe of Motoring File and some others in a MR-2. Maybe we can prod Chad into writing about his experiences.

 

I thought he and Gabe were going to write something up for Motorfile?

 

The talked about the race on Mondays White Roof Radio, that's all I've seen or heard about it at this time.

 

Look at Gabe's comment--both he and Matt are going to be writing articles about it for MF (thought it was Chad, but it's Matt), so maybe you can get Chad to post something here, it would definitely be worth reading...

 

There is also a ChumpCar series too..............LOL

 

"Truth in 24" Which is the Audi team's new release HD movie is FREE on iTunes right now!!! All about the 24 heures du Mans. Check it out, pretty amazing film

 

+1--I thought this was going to be an hour long audi advertisement, but it's anything but--really well done film.

 

here are my face book play by play posts:

On the way to the track and there is rain as far as the eye ( and the radar) can see. It's going to be a wet day.
Fri at 7:52am

I just saw a car painted like a dragon. w/ wings! this is going to be way too much fun.
Fri at 10:01am

So we made it thru tech. the fire suit was great. It had stoped raining, but just started again. made a bunch of stuff work..like the lights. next is a drive.
Fri at 8:16pm

I got about 3 laps in the dark in dens fog on a track I have never been on. good times.
Fri at 10:38pm

This is like camping, but u get to bring your race car. it's going to be a great day today!
Yesterday at 7:45am

OMG! this is a lot of fun! the MR2 is going great. it totally needs shocks and my van can out corner it. at 1 we were 48 out 135! darkness is coming!
Yesterday at 6:33pm

Emergency battery swap. the lights were getting dim, we hope it's not the alt. as the battery was damaged and leaking fingers crossed we make it!
Yesterday at 7:30pm

we just got hit in the side. pulled it back out quickly and back on track! we are 47th now out of 135 cars. we have been as high as 36 place!
Yesterday at 8:00pm

o.k. the alt. did fail and I had to change it out. took about 2 hours and had to us the ox/set torch to get things off. car is back on track and running strong! Yesterday at 11:01pm

so um yeah. It was dark. dew on the track and we or I went off. had 2 trucks with lots of lights come by and say hi. no penalty since we are a clean team. go us
17 hours ago

so I was the first, but no the last crash. we all had some fun at night. the car lost it's exhaust just now and sounds lik a REAL race car now!
11 hours ago

b-fast check. coffee check. the last driver who will take the checkered flag. pricless. we are 64 now with all our problems. doing great!
10 hours ago

we finished!! #59 group 1. not totally sure what that means..lol but taking the checkered was way cool!!
7 hours ago


Some Photos....













Some words:

all in all. this race was awesome! it really took my driving skills to the next level i think. the driver schools are a lot of fun and i am going to keep doing them as i love my mini and it is super fast on the track. but here was a chance to run with 135 other cars door to door, or wheel to wheel and light contacts here and there. there was a lot of aggressive driving and i even learned how to put my car in places that i really didn't thing it would fit in times to pass people. there were a lot of corners that we where all going around the corners 2 or 3 wide, where that was as wide as the track was, and everyone was 60mph or more and no one would hit each other, and if someone spun it would have taken out 5 or 6 car. so over all lots of good drivers. and as the weekend went on i got a better feeling of the car, it got lighter as things fell off or got ripped off, and once the exhaust fell off, not totally sure how that happened, but i was driving...lol but i did use it a a pry spot when changing out the alt. so once it fell off, the car got a lot fast on the top end.and at the end of the day i got to run the last hour and i ended up setting track record of 1.21 on a 2 mile track for the weekend! we put over 550 miles on the car this weekend and it ran great. i think the biggest thing i learned was you do not want to crash. at 2 am coming out of a corner i crashed hard into a tire wall at 60 plus. there was a maybe a bit of dampness or oil or street tires and it hung the back end out, i tried to power out and steer into it, but the car was all upset at this point and since it had Buick soft suspension on it, the car could not recover and i got into the wet grass. at this point , both feet in the try to aim it somewhere. since it was super dark and the lights where o.k. at best, i could not really tell where i was going. all i saw was tall weeds and then some tires and i tried to steer away from them. i hit driver front first, then the whole side. then the rear bumper grabbed on. then then spun me 180 nose first into the tires and i bounced back. if i had to guess i was 60 to 70 mph, coming to a stop in about 30 feet. it was a very hard hit. so this let me feel what this really feels like, and why you want to keep the car on the track...lol over all it didn't hurt the car that bad and i drove it out after a bunch of back forth's, and the safety trucks cam by just to make sure i was o.k.. a big thanks to the safety crew and the corner works. they did a great job and got there in a hurry.

i am totally going to do this race again next year. as a driver or enter a car. it was a whole lot of fun. not only did you get to race, you got to test your skills on a car that was not really race worthy. there was a lot of things you where like , that is totally going to blow up! there where a few crashes and spins, but no fires and no rolls. the other part was just the teams and the themes of the cars. the team that won was C7R...they ran a Chevy caviler...painted yellow with black stripes to look like the C5R race corvette, they also all had corvette fire suites! they did over 700 miles and didn't break or have any penalties. so they won the cup and $1500.00 (in nickels...literally) becasue they race a safe clean race. as you can tell we had a stare wars theme, i though a boat theme would work well, as a PBR car (this may be my car next year). it was fun to see let alone race in. if i was not driving, i was cooking, or camping,or talking to the most friendly people i have ever meet. everyone there was sooooooo nice. it was all about fun and helping each other out. i meet three "old" guys they had been to every 24 hour race there since the 80's and they didn't know anyone there. they just came to watch, cheer, drink beer, and have a good time. they said they just like racing. it was totally cool.

Links:

here are two flicker links with photo's:

24 Hours of LeMons '09 - a set on Flickr

24 hours of Lemons: Nelson Ledges 09 - a set on Flickr

 

Caught it on Speed in full HD and 5.1, now on the DVR as well.