Boston Tow Party Day One Over, Alfa Leads Big, Everyone Else Throwing Rods

True, not every entry scattered its engine all over the track at Stafford Motor Speedway today, but it sure seemed like it; by late evening, I counted only 21 of the 60 or so cars still moving under their own power. Meanwhile, the Scuderia Limoni Alfa Romeo Milano will begin tomorrow’s session with a vast 68-lap lead.

68 laps isn’t quite as overwhelming as it sounds, since a quick lap around this track takes just over 30 seconds, but the second-position Elmo’s Revenge Saturn will only catch Scuderia Limoni if the Alfa breaks and/or its drivers go on a black-flag rampage.

Milanos have been strangely reliable in LeMons racing, and this car has finished as high as second in the past. So far, the only Alfa to take an overall win at a LeMons race was a GTV6, but a Milano victory is bound to happen eventually. Tomorrow, perhaps? A lot can happen on a high-drama, high-temperature track like Stafford, so no prediction is safe.

Speedycop’s 1980 Bonneville donk has been rollin’ on its 22s all day with just a few minor malfunctions. It looks a bit more battered than when it started the race (the tight course means there’s plenty of contact between cars), but the style is still there.

With nearly two-thirds of the entries up on jackstands in the paddock for much of the day, we’ve seen a lot of engine innards. The Team Waahmbulance Dodge Daytona seems well on its way to taking home its second I Got Screwed trophy, with a 14-hour wrenchfest and rod-knock party culminating in the discovery that the engine got incorrect rod and main bearings installed between the New Hampshire race and this weekend’s event.

The Peugeot 405 Mi16 that had us so excited yesterday ran for about 12 minutes after the green flag… and then tossed a connecting rod through the back of the engine block and clanked to a halt in a cloud of smoke and steam. Such sadness!

Normally, when an oddball French orphan loses its engine in the first minutes of a LeMons race, the team members become spectators. Not so with Team French Toast! These guys managed to find another 405 engine in Vermont and are, as I write these words, doing the swap. Will the new-to-them engine work on Sunday? Why shouldn’t it?

The Goin’ Nuclear Civic, winner of the Loudon Annoying LeMons a couple of months back, suffered a reactor meltdown early in the day. Many teams in their position would have said “Screw this, we can’t win this time— let’s go home!” Not Goin’ Nuclear! They spent much of the day scrounging up another engine, installed it, and got back onto the track.

In addition to the usual crop of mechanical failures that you get when the mercury rises into the triple digits, racers have been bashing into walls and each other all day; by the end of Saturday’s session, a good half-dozen teams were cooling their heels after being removed from the track for the remainder of the day due to excessive penalties, and another bunch were out with crash damage. With all night to wield Sawzalls and sledge hammers, and the black-flag slate being wiped clean in the morning, we’ll see a lot more cars on the track when the green flag waves on Sunday morning. Check in tomorrow night to see how it all plays out.