24 Hours of LeMons B.F.E. Gran Prix: The end of the Race

After a night of pretty decent sleep, it was time for the final day of the 24 Hours of LeMons 2013 B.F.E. Gran Prix.

Sunday started out well enough. The car fired right up and sounded much better than the night before. All those fixes must have done the trick.

I was first up to drive. On the second warmup lap there was a loud pop, followed by a clang. The tractor sound was back. Our spare bolt and J-B Weld exhaust manifold "fix" had obviously failed. Thankfully, the car was still revving freely. As long as I had power, I could handle the extra noise from the exhaust.

After Saturday's timid approach at the wheel, I got the confidence up to be much more aggressive. I trusted my tires and was holding my own in the curves. The power was enough to pull away from people in the straights.

A white Toyota and I were going at it pretty good for a few laps. He was catching me in the corners, but my power kept him from passing when the course straightened out. It was all great fun until the revving problem came back.

It's me driving a car that sounds like a tractor.

I was about to put some distance on my pursuer, but the engine would have none of it. Rather than put the power down, the engine's revs fell to almost nothing. I dropped the clutch and forced the engine back to life. By the time the power returned, the Toyota was long gone.

Back to the Paddock for more repairs. I'll spare you the details of everything we tried, but none of it worked. All we were really doing was losing track time.

The car limped along for the rest of the day. The checkered flag came and we finished right in the middle of the pack. Not terrible, not great, but not bad for a bunch of novices.

Would I do it again? Definitely. I came home exhausted, but the weekend was a blast.

The race postmortem revealed that the car's true problem was a dead speedo. Apparently the engine management computer was freaking out and limiting the revs because it didn't know how fast we were going. It should be an easy fix that will allow us to race the car again. We're also considering doing what several teams did and fielding a second car. If that's the case, I vote for a slam-dunk Class C entry. Any recommendations?

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