And the Winner Is…
The formula for taking the win on laps at a 24 Hours of LeMons race remains the same regardless of whether a race has a Sears-Point-bulging-at-seams 170 cars… or 20, as was the case at this weekend’s swampy, sweaty Cain’t Git Bayou event: you have a team stacked with drivers who turn consistent quick laps, your car never breaks, and your drivers never get black-flagged. Driving a Mazda (which, in my opinion, is the most reliable LeMons marque) certainly doesn’t hurt. Team Hong Norrth stuck with the plan that got them two wins earlier in the year, and now they’ve just grabbed their third LeMons Overall Win trophy in 2011.
Things weren’t always so rosy for Hong Norrth (formerly known as Hong Norr). They campaigned this reliability-challenged CRX for a couple of years, winning the Heroic Fix trophy for performing a probably-never-will-be-topped record five engine swaps during the course of a single race weekend. The Honda was a bit quicker than their MX-3, but the Mazda keeps all its connecting rods inside the engine.
This bunch has become the team to beat in the ’11 LeMons season. Congratulations, Hong Norrth!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Good thing it was a 1.8 V6 instead of a 2.0 Protege I4... that would've puked its guts out in the first hour... And if they've swapped the V6 out for the more powerful I4... well... kudos to them... that's a feat as impressive as winning LeMans!
I know it's from camera flash, but it looks like a TRON theme. The bright white across the bottom reminds me of the Mazda GTP cars in 24 hour races, when their exhaust would briefly go white-hot before the whole thing burst into flame. You could set your watch by it. 2AM, always.