We loaded our 1991 Escort on the trailer Thursday evening and Brian, one of our drivers, took it home for the long ride up to Carolina Motorsports Park the next day.  Friday morning Rachel and I got up and were out the door by 5 AM so we could pick up our RV in Columbia, SC by 8:30AM.  We wanted to get to the track early enough so we could be sure we got a power hook up for the all important air conditioning.

We arrived at the track after 4.5 hours of driving with the truck and the RV.  We saw a curios mix of cars when we got there.  The air was filled with the sound of Porsches, a classic Holman and Moody NASCAR machine and a Group 44 Jag that I had seen at Goodwood a few years ago.  Mixed in with that sound was the goat like blat of ill running Lemons machinery.  Several of the teams had taken CMP up on their offer to run a practice session. Some of the cars practiced only to their detriment.  Seeing the Lemons machines mixed in the paddock with individual cars that cost more than the entire grid was pretty comical.

Brent and Brian arrived around 4 PM and we got the car off the trailer and headed for tech inspection.  Prior to pushing our car though we watched a few teams get grilled first.  Lemons tech is broken into two distinct parts.  First is technical tech.  They check the cage, tires, safety gear.  The guys were friendly, but they were also pretty serious about making sure the car was safe.  We made it though that without a hitch.  Next was BS Tech.  You have to convince two judges that you have a legit $500 car and that you aren’t cheating too badly.  I was nominated to talk for the team and was ready for a grilling.  I was sadly disappointed.  Once they found out our Escort was a LX and not a GT they pretty much lost interest.  There isn’t much you can do with a LX to make it fast, even if you wanted to.  I also think they were hungry.  So after a couple of minutes they sent us on our way.  No penalties, no humiliating acts of contrition.  Nothing.

After all that we finished setting up camp and we proceeded to have lasagna, drink beer and have the all important driver’s meeting.  I stressed the point that we needed to protect the car at all costs and especially look out for the front end as that is where anything of value on an Escort can be found.  We then roamed the paddock and checked out the teams and cars. 

The next morning saw more cars arriving and people scrambling to get read.  We basically chilled out and watched the festivities.  The car was ready to go and so were we.  The driver’s meeting was held at 11:30 and was pretty informative.  Jay and the staff made it very clear to everyone that rough driving would not be tolerated and that they would not hesitate to park people.  That got everyone’s attention and I think the race as a whole benefited from this little talk.  From there it was drivers to your car to get the show on the road.

I was to be the first driver so I went and got all my gear on, sucked down some more water and Gatorade and got strapped in. We then rolled out to the track entrance to wait.  I have to admit the heart rate started going up at that point.  You really can’t help but be a little nervous when you are sitting in a low budget hot rod surrounded by people who are foolish enough to be out on the track with you.  After a couple of minutes they sent us out to do a few warm up laps.  I’m not sure how long we circulated, but it seemed like for ever. 

The Lemons race start procedure is pretty odd.  They randomly pick a car to be on poll and wait for it to come buy and then they through the green.  You have no idea what car it will be.  All I know is that one second I was cruising along in third and the next second two cars were shooting by me on either side.  I took that as my hint that it was time to go.

My first stint went pretty well.  I took car of the car, watched the temps and tried to stay out of trouble.  It took all of us a while to figure out how to get through the terribly tight chicane.  Some people took the give and take mentality while other barged to the head of the line.  I was willing to keep it cool for the time being. 

As I drove I discovered a few things about our car.   First, the Hawk Blue brake pads we got from Raceshopper.com allowed us to out brake many of the cars on the track.  They may have been able to get us with power, but we could go way deeper in the corners.  As about a half of the track was pretty tight I was able to make up a few positions this way.  I also found that the car would over steer pretty easily and controllably.  That was a lot of fun.  The rear did get a little light in the high speed corners, but if I stayed on the power it would pull itself through.

When my first stint ended I headed into the paddock and we put Rachel in the car.  I gave her a quick briefing and we sent her on her way.  She did a great job.  She stayed pretty clean, but she did get a 5 minute black flag for spinning the car.  The official was cool about it, he just said that early in the race they were bringing in everyone who lost it for a quick chat.  It sure beat the 30 minute standard penalty that most everyone else for beating and banging.  That ended up being our only official sanction for the entire event.

After Rachel drove Brian got in the car and he did a great job.  He was smooth and fast.  The car was running good and we were all having a blast.

It was my turn again and we were going for hour stints this time.  There were a few cautions during my run, but I also made some good passes and had a good dual with a brown BMW and the Beertech BMW guys.  I also narrowly avoided being collected in a huge pile of cars at the only left hand turn.  Two cars got into it on the inside of the turn and collect a third and forth car. I made it around the outside in one piece.

After my run, Rachel got back in and then it started to rain.  In road racing you take the wet with the dry and she powered on.  We had Rainx’d the windshield, but during cautions she was going too slow for it to do any good so she turned on the wipers.  After a couple of minutes the wipers jammed and she returned to the pits.  We got them fixed and back out she went.

After that she came in and Brian got back in for a stint on a drying track and that was the end of our day.   He did notice that the car was hesitating coming out of corners. I had noticed it too, but it didn’t manifest itself for Rachel due to the wet conditions.  It turns out we had just about run the car out of gas.  The day ended just in time.  We were 23^rd out of 70+ cars at the end of day one.  That evening we rotated our tires, ate some of Brent’s burgers and talked about the race.  The car didn’t need any work so we then toured the paddock and checked out what kind of carnage had befallen the other teams.

Day two started much earlier than the first day.  We had a quick driver’s meeting at 8:00 AM and hit the track at 8:30.  I hit the track again and the car was running great.  Brent took a turn at the wheel and had a good time after me.  Rachel was next and that is when things started to go south.

She went out for a bit and Brian and I went over to the official’s area to watch a car get abused for smoking too much.  Kids were going to toss tofu at the drive to “neutralize their environmental footprint”. Just as the fun was going to commence, Brent notice that our car was sitting in the pit area.  We ran over there and found out that Rachel had no clutch.  Just at that moment they stopped the session for a planned quiet hour for church services (the track agrees to do this on Sundays to keep the locals happy) and for the People’s Curse festivities.

We pushed the car back to the paddock and tried to bleed the clutch hydraulics and to try a couple of other fixes.  Sadly, nothing worked.  We were running in 20^th at the time and decided to see if we could bump start the car and just ride around in second for the rest of the race.  We took minute out to see a BMW killed by an excavator and then headed back to the pit to see if we could get the car going at all.

We waited a couple of minutes after the rest of the cars hit the track to see if we could get it started.  We did, but it was short lived.  After about 35 minutes, Brian lost all forward drive out on the track.  He had to coast off and wait for the next caution to get a tow in.  That was pretty much it for us.  We made it about three hours short of finishing and were classified in 46th.  We all commiserated over a beer, packed up and went off to watch the finish of the event.

All in all we had an amazing time and we will be back.  We’ll drop in a new clutch, check things over, maybe cheat here and there and we’ll be at the track in the spring.   The car is still in remarkably good shape. There was one dent on the driver’s side from an altercation I got in and one on the passenger’s side from one Rachel got in.  All the drivers did their part to make sure they protected the car and it really paid off.  If it weren’t for the clutch failing like it did I have no doubt we could have made it into the top 15.  Oh well, that’s racing and we’ll see if we can do better next time.

Photos from the awesome folks at Jalopnik

http://jalopnik.com/photogallery/LMS0826/

http://jalopnik.com/399755/the-24-hours-of-lemons-south-2008-uber-gallery

We got a mention on Radio Le Mans' (yes, as in the real Le Mans) Midweek Motorsports!

http://audio.mpix.org.uk/mwm2008/mwm3-24.mp3

http://radiolemans.com/

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