The home page of James R Salazar

Earlier this year I took a trip to LeMans, France to watch the LeMans Classic. In this race you will see expensive race cars, many of which are worth $100K and more going at it in a gentlemen’s racing event. By contrast, more recently I attended the 24 Hours of LeMons Houston in which you are not allowed to spend more than $500 on your car (not including safety equipment) but you are allowed (and encouraged) to bribe the tech inspectors/judges.

First off, I should clarify that for the Houston event (held at MSR Houston), the cars did not actually run for 24 hours. Quite frankly, some of those cars were lucky to run for an hour! Instead, this event was run on Saturday and Sunday with breaks (no pun intended) in between.

I was curious to see what you could possibly find to race for $500 and to see how they were prepared. What I found was a variety of cars ranging from econo-boxes to American muscle. I was pleased to see quite a few BMWs including a few 2002s. (I drove my 02 to the track the day and those 02 race cars really made my car look great!).

I spent an hour before the race walking up and down the “paddock” area inspecting the cars. Soon my curiosity over how the cars were prepared took a backseat to the cars’ appearances and humor. Apparently, you really had to have major sense of humor to enter this event. Also, while you may have been restricted to spending $500 on your car, there was no limit to how much you could spend on safety equipment and, more importantly, video cameras for your car (I counted three cameras in one car).

Creativity, engineering and humor also played a part. In fact, the Mustang drivers showcased this the most with their MusTANK, a convertible that used the hood as a roof and another that had a huge air brake that would come up every time the driver would hit the brakes (like the Mercedes-Benz SLR race cars of the 1950s). A better part of my time was spent reading the writings and funny bumper stickers plastered on many of the cars – I think this may have been a poor man’s alternative to sponsor stickers and paint.

As is common in most racing events, before the green flag is dropped the group is led around the track by a pace car. This gives everyone a chance to get ready to race and to do some last minute checks. Unfortunately, there were so many cars being called in to have their transponders fixed (this is what they used to keep count of how many laps each car had run) that the cars lapped for about an hour before they saw a green flag. Hearing and seeing some of the cars drive by I wondered how many would last long enough to see the start of the race: I spotted at least two cars that did not make it!

This was the first time racing for most of the drivers and some of their teammates were worried about them being out there so long. Even though they were still not racing, a warm day, hot cars and protective clothing presented a challenge to many first time racers. I saw and heard several calls for drivers to come in for a driver change but very few drivers wanted to come in. They were having too much fun … so what if they were just following the pace truck around the track.

While there were plenty of cars limping around the track, there were some cars that looked incredibly fast especially compared to the other cars on the track. At times I wondered if these fast cars had the suspensions and brakes to handle the speed. A few times I spotted cars that I thought were locking up their brakes but the smoked turned out to be coming from the tailpipes when the driver let off the gas and not the tires!

Of course, few teams were out there to win: most were out simply to have fun and finish and that is what makes this event great.