Polyvance participates in 24 Hours of LeMons Race in Joliet, IL

The Polyvance racing team made the 12 hour drive from Rainsville, Alabama to Joiliet, Illinois to participate in the 24 Hours of LeMons race at the Autobahn Country Club race track. In case you are wondering what this race is about, you can find out more about it at website.

This was our 4th time participating in the Lemons series, and each time we get better. In the last race (in Birmingham, Alabama), we had transplanted a 2.0 liter engine from an SE-R to replace the original 1.6 liter engine. That helped a lot, but we still weren't competitive. Our handling was great. Our brakes and tires are great. In fact, We can brake later than the competition and beat them into the corners. But, once we got out of the corners, the competitors had more power than us and quickly pulled away. Any gains acomplished with our late braking ability were more than offset by their power. We still needed more power.

We found a place that imports low-milage, JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) engines. The engine we selected uses the same block as the SE-R engine, but this one has a bigger throttle body, and more importantly, it has the VVL (Variable Valve Lift). With this engine, we could now compete. No longer were we needing to move over to allow people to pass. In fact, many times, we were doing the passing.

We finished a respectible 30th out of 66. We finished 12th in our class out of 31.

We weren't without our setbacks, though.

• We started the race about 30 minutes late because we were replacing a faulty oil pressure gauge that wasn't working. At about 2 minutes per lap, that put us about 15 laps behind.
• We had a "black flag" for not fastening the chin strap. That was probably a loss of at least 4 laps.
• We had a "self-reported" black flag for getting 2 wheels off of the track. We could have gotten away with it though as no one noticed. That was probably another 4 laps lost.
• We had a delay when the tailpipe weld broke off of the muffler leaving the tailpipe dangling. It took about 20 minutes before we could get it back on the track. That probably cost us 9 laps.
  
• The water temperature was getting really hot, so we had to do a pit stop and do an autopsy to find out what was going on. It turns out, it just needed water. We never checked the water that morning! In any case, that pit stop probably set us back another 12 laps.
• The most spectacular delay occurred when the hood flew open! It turns out, we forgot to install the hood pins as you can see in this picture.
  

Video of Hood Flying Open

Here we are going into turn 1 getting ready to overtake a Porsche 944.

Each time we race, we get better. Our next Lemons race will be December 9th and 10th at Road Atlanta.