Gotta gives a caption to 24 hours lemon(or Luckydog, which is a similar series)…
it’s a series where ordinary idiots like you or I can step out onto the track and race. you don’t need a SCCA license or anything like that… nor do you need a $100k race car, rather the opposite end of the spectrum at $500… though in fact it costs about $5000 to build a passion fruit racing car once you take into account all the safety gear and everything. we built our racing car for about $3000 TOTAL because we made the roll cage ourselves. It’s as cheap as a race car….though I should add, there are some serious crapcan racing cars out there, priced way too high for the budget….but those fall in. class A (cheat racing cars), there are also class B (players by the $500 rule, don’t cheat like A) … and class C (those who take the $500 rule too seriously and showing up with a car has no chance of winning anything, let alone finish)
moreover, after you have built the race car you can race for as little as around $3200 (1 join for 4x racers, gas, food, tires, 1 day of track, 2 race day) give or take for the whole weekend. around $800/person for a weekend of BBQ, racing, games of talismans, outings, and just great fun…
plus… how often do you go around a corner, only to hit the floor with the gas and hit the end of a straight line at 110mph? at home not so much, but on the track, just about every damn lap.
ALSO. race directors are really great at making exceptions for those who suffer from dire circumstances….
The story goes so fast, an uncle in our teammate with stage 4 cancer has returned (recently. My story is not in chronological order). he’s always been a leader. favorite cars. love working on cars. likes to go fast (within reason) but life/this/that, he never got a chance to drive a car NOT the same way you come on the track. When he heard that we build a car for lemon, he got a little jealous, he came to a few of our races to see…we didn’t know what he was going to do at the time… , but when we heard what continued, we knew we had to consider getting him in the chair for a while…. he was THROUGH THE MOON when we got him a a position in the driver’s seat at sonoma at the end of 2021, for him it is the experience of a lifetime….
Fast forward to May. The condition progressed, and he was unwell. so we contacted Lemons staff to explain our situation, basically 3 healthy drivers and 1 driver may not be able to stay behind the wheel for more than 20~30 minutes safely (racing is tiring, he can go for hours, but it is safer to play it, both for our driver and for the others, so the plan is to limit him to time 20 minutes … enough to pump adrenaline and feel the race but not too far from where he’s not at the controls.)…
we contacted Lemons staff, explained our situation, that we would like to add a 5th driver, as our current 5th may not be able to drive much, usually $250 la or so. they were free, and said the same line “see, in situations like this where we have the opportunity to give someone a lifetime experience, please contact us”.
I have always wanted to do the 24 Hours of LeMons, and a few years ago I came close to getting a team together and making it happen. Someday, I’ll find myself behind the wheel of one of those beautiful boxes.
