What is The 24 Hours of Lemons

Apr 22

Apr 22 What is The 24 Hours of Lemons

This race has some very passionate people, and they love building these cars that can look really silly, have weird features and still race really well. This is The 24 Hours of Lemons.

When Lemons Racing started in 2006, it was just a small race for $500 cars that was held in Almont Motorsports Park and other small racetracks in California. In 2008 Lemons expanded to the East Coast. Events were getting more and more popular.

Then Jay Lamm (Founder of Lemons Racing) had an idea. He said “We should make an endurance race called the 24 hours of Lemons.” People were pumped they could bring any car, with any modifications, it just had to be under $500.

There was only one rule for the cars in this series, you could only spend $500. So everyone made really cool beater cars that looked really silly. There were fake sponsorship’s like NoPro and DedBull. There were even teams with really big wings and aero that made them go around corners faster.

But behind that silliness, there are actually some very clever thing that teams do to make them go faster, Like a toilet pipe that was attached a turbo bought on eBay to save money, even old engines swapped for tractor engines for better reliability. There were old 70s, 80s cars, and Miata’s and Mini’s all over the place. People buy these cars and spend hours a day working on them to make them run and compete.

The NoPro team with there Hill Climb looking Suzuki.

But what really separates Lemons racing to other races is when you go out there you know that you built this incredible machine that will race against other amazing pieces of machinery. You know that you built this car that you will race in. Many cars do not complete the 24 hours, but drivers know that they took something that shouldn't be raced in and that’s an incredible feeling.

This is one of the most exciting races out there, the people who race love their cars, they don’t care if they get first or last. All they care about is having a good time out on a track with a car that they built.