The Bunch of Idiots at the 24 Hours of Lemons Race

Dodge 318 motor 1972 Coronet

NMS-South and the BUNCH OF IDIOTS race team once again took the 1972 Dodge Coronet to race with the 24 Hours of Lemons folks. The team has previously raced this car at multiple tracks in the South, and to be honest I've lost track of how many motors they've used, how many belts have slipped off, and what all parts are on it. 

Saturday morning Kyle installs a GoPro camera

The race was 10am-5pm on Saturday, then in two sessions on Sunday: 9-11am, and 12-4:30 with that one hour of quiet time. The challenge of Lemons racing is to have your car last the entire race, and hopefully be quick, minimize time in the pits to refuel and deal with problems, and of course avoid damage or other penalties that keep you off track. 

Brian checks some hoses

The team has done a great job in the past, and with some recent work on the Coronet to make it more reliable, they were ready to race. While they were joking about betting on the over/under of finishing 80 laps, no  money changed hands!

Part of the paddock area tools and spares. If you're racing a car from 1972, yeah, you need some tools and spare parts!

With 90 cars on track, sometimes you are driving in clear open spaces, and other times you just hit a bunch of traffic. Some of that traffic might be faster, and some of it hopefully is slower, so you do what you can and keep the car rolling. During the first 10 minutes of racing there were already other cars coming off the track with damage or problems, and that's how it goes in Lemons. 

Adam was driving the first stint, and after 45 minutes was looking good on fuel, with only a small temperature spike to keep an eye on with the coolant. He was passing cars regularly, and I went with part of the other drivers on the team to fill up some fuel jugs. While we were at the gas station next door, we heard on the radio that the team was now leading Class C, so that was their goal! 

We got our gas and drove back to the paddock, but unfortunately there was the car, not on track and not racing. Bad news indeed. What was suspected to be a blown head gasket, judging by the smoke and oil/coolant we could see in the exhaust pipe, turned out to be a cracked piston and a hole in the cylinder. Oh and then damage to some of the other pistons. This ended the race for the weekend, after only 1 hour, with 2 laps leading Class C. 

That fluid should NOT be coming out of the side exhaust. 

So, I'm sorry to report that the team was stopped after only 26 laps. Sure, they could have grabbed their backup engine and swapped it out, but the team brain trust decided to stop the damage right there. The Coronet has been through multiple 318 engines, so at this time the fate of the big purple Dodge and it's odds of doing any more racing are unknown. 

The piston on the left has some serious damage