The ugliest, slowest and cheapest field of race cars that New Zealand has ever seen will be taking over Hampton Downs this September.
Global sensation ’24 Hours of LeMons’ – a piss-take of the most famous endurance race ever, 24 Hours of Le Mans – offers frustrated race drivers the chance to turn a wheel in anger without having to win Lotto first.
“The biggest differences between Le Mans and LeMons are relatively simple,” explains event boss Dr Jacob Simonsen, “Le Mans is the most famous circuit race on earth, featuring incredible
examples of race car engineering and the best drivers in existence – and all in a beautiful setting.
“LeMons is a bunch of truly awful cars prepared and driven by a bunch of amateurs and raced in the wasteland between Auckland and Hamilton.
It’ll be a hell of a lot more fun than the snooty French one – for teams themselves, but especially for the spectators,” he says.
For a year at the wheel in even the least costly race class, you’re still looking more than a decent annual salary – and that’s not to be competitive.
The mammoth outlay required will simply have you stagnating at the back of the field like some slow loser in a crap car. But thanks to the great format of 24 Hours of LeMons, racing ambitions can be fulfilled.
As a happy bonus, the car rusting on the front lawn can now be referred to as “my race car.” Overseas events generally see groups entering funny themed vehicles – everything from movie characters to an upside-down Mazda MX-5 have been seen at LeMons races around the world, and a disturbing number of groups of disturbingly hairy men dressed as women. We’re choosing not to delve too deeply into that one.
Vehicles must be purchased for $999 or less – and yes, this can be difficult to prove. This is why an extremely imaginative group of adjudicators are on hand to dole out penalties (read: nasty punishments) for any racing-related disputes that may arise.
A few safety needs are mandatory – like a half rollcage and a fuel cut switch, all of which are detailed on the offical 24 Hours of LeMons vlogs which, along with a wide selection of our images from events around the world, earlier press releases and other useful doodads, are available to download – click the link to see all sorts of the content that we’ve got available, give us a yell and we’ll give you the key to the mighty Dropbox of LeMons NZ.
Safety is paramount – as it should be – and LeMons has official dispensation from Motorsport New Zealand to do things slightly differently to the norm, based around Schedule A rules. Overseas events have shown that the vast majority of racers who don’t already have licence accreditation use the LeMons events as an annual group outing – like the tried-and-tested Kiwi Christmas fishing trip.
Full license processes can be a bit daunting, so every effort has been made to keep this unique endurance race as simple as possible to be involved with.
The inaugural 24 Hours of LeMons race takes place between Friday 16 and Sunday 18 September at Hampton Downs.
To get a picture of the spectacle that the weekend has on offer, there are links on the earlier mentioned document to both photos and videos, as well as information for drivers and teams about the entry process.
But in the first instance, just imagine how exciting Flugtag would be if the highlight wasn’t just some spotty student with the week’s cardboard recycling gaffa-taped onto any suitably sticky body parts, essentially just falling off the end of a wharf.
Imagine if the highlight was an actual race, with genuinely exciting stuff happening both on track and off.
“This is going to be a mind-blowing weekend for those who’ve always wanted to get out there and have a bash without having to sell the wife’s jewellery,” says Simonsen.
“We’ve already got a huge number of registered entries, with the odd photo of a finished machine dropping into to the 24 Hours of LeMons mailbox – and a massive number of spectator enquiries. It’s going to be huge – we can’t wait for September.”
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