Steve, Mike and Dwayne drove their stock BMW M3 sedan to finish third in class and tenth overall of 63 entrants at this year’s One Lap of America. Congrats to you all for the awesome driving!
Eight days driving 3400 miles across 13 states and on nine race tracks… One Lap of America is the most grueling test of America’s fastest street-legal cars.
There were lots of BMW E30’s in the mix among the 96 teams competing in the spring LeMons South race, and one of them ended up winning. The Kudzy Kommandos 325e set some very fast lap times and even lead the race briefly on Saturday before incurring penalties and losing time while pitting under green.
Some of the penalties we collected during the race include:
- Arjun was taped to three Tunachuckers teammates in a ‘man hug’ and told to walk to the end of the paddock and back as a penalty for causing metal to metal contact.
- The team had to find sharpies and write “I will not drive like a hoon” one hundred times on the car after getting hit from behind.
- The team had to parade march around the paddock singing cadence calls after getting caught out when two cars collided on track in front of our car.
- Judge Johnny poured a jar of marinade in our crankcase and a jar of moonshine in our gas tank for putting four wheels off of the track.
Day two started badly with us in the penalty box twice in the morning, and then our chances for advancing went up in flames early in the afternoon. Despite not running the last three hours of the race we still finished 43rd - better than half the teams competing.
Up in flames?
After our car was rear-ended repeatedly, our exhaust was kinked the middle. We didn’t have a welding torch or spare exhaust parts to fix it, so we just cut off everything from where it was crushed back. Later we were black flagged because the chopped exhaust was hanging too low, so we had to wire it up higher - which meant pointing it close to the gas tank.
As we were watching the race later in the day, our car raced by us down the front stretch and one of my teammates said “Woah, the car’s shooting flames out the exhaust!” A second later we shouted, “No, it’s on fire!”
The whole back of the car flamed up almost immediately. David pulled off track and was out of the car in an instant. The car was nearly engulfed though, so he had to jump through some flames on the way out. He’ll be sporting singed eyebrows and eyelashes for the next week or two - how’s that for a souvenir? The next time his car catches fire, I’m betting he’ll remember to close his helmet visor.
Our priority now is to see what can be reclaimed from what’s left of the car and to replace any borrowed items that went up in the fire. Captain Kudzu’s plan is to reuse the charred hulk for the next LeMons race in September. He has another BMW 325e parts car, so we are going to strip it to make the Kudzu car rise from the ashes like a $500 phoenix.
“Your teacher wants you to go slow, and she’s wrong because it’s the fastest who get paid and it’s the fastest who get laid.” - Talladega Nights
The 24 Hours of LeMons, LeMons South Spring race 2009 presents a tale of epic drama: A rock solid race car. A talented team setting some of the fastest laps of the race. And for the second year in a row, the car gets smashed from behind. This time though, our ‘fixed’ exhaust pointed toward our gas tank. In a final act of speed, our car burst forth with every flame of fury it could muster. Every other contender in the race stopped to honor our sacrifice. Shake and bake!
Photo credit: Jalopnik. Follow the link to read their terrific commentary on the weekend’s race. Our race pix are in the Photo Gallery and our videos are on YouTube.
The opening hours of the LeMons South Spring 2009 race went very well for the Kudzu Kommandos. We hit the track in 49th place out of over 90 teams, but quickly began turning in fast laps and working our way to the front of the field. By mid-afternoon we had cracked the top 10 and even briefly lead the race, all the while setting lap times which were the class of the field.
We got tagged from behind early in the race, damaging the same corner which got crushed last year and again damaging our exhaust. Didn’t we learn anything from the last race? Eventually, penalties for contact and driver errors dropped us to 19th in the standings by the time the checker flew at the end of a long day of racing.
The team we were camped next to were also from Atlanta, and despite being down a driver, held their own for a top-10 finish today. Congrats to team Huggy Bear Better Run - they’re great guys.
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