LeMons: 'There Goes the Neighborhood' Saturday night kind-of-live

Keystone Kops at Summit Point, 2013. (Murilee Martin photo)

Earlier this week, I previewed this weekend's 24 Hours of LeMons race ("There Goes the Neighborhood") at New Jersey Motorsports Park. In LeMons, the winners are really sidenotes to the narrative of the weekend, but for those half-dozen teams embroiled in the long endurance battles, a lot of pride is at stake. So this post will contain my ramblings for the half-dozen people who care about the outcome of some crapcan race in the Garden State.

Today's race session was a long one, encompassing a nine-hour slog around NJMP's Thunderbolt course. Tomorrow (Sunday) will see a 5-1/2 hour "sprint" to see who comes away with the overall and class trophies. The varying time slots should keep it interesting, so let's see how today ended and what to expect in the final handful of hours. Naturally, this being Saturday night, this will all be plucked directly from my mental notes in the interest of time.

24 Hours of LeMons: "Doing Time in Joliet" liveblog

9:10 a.m. We will be liveblogging the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Autobahn Country Club all day. This was originally intended to happen on Hooniverse.com, but that site is currently having some technical issues so we'll make the best of it here and then copy and paste it to Hooniverse once that site is back up.

Green flag today flies at 10 a.m. with the checkered flag at midnight tonight

9:25 a.m. Car count should be around 95 starters today.

9:41 a.m. While most teams are organized for gear tech, some opt for the "Unbox and toss it all on the tech shed floor" approach.

9:45 a.m. Cars are out and circulating before the green flag. Fifteen minutes until the race starts. The Little Lebowski Urban Achievers' Volvo 245 is already ahead of where they were at Gingerman, as the car is running on race day.

10:00 a.m. Green flag! The #33 We Are Not Really From Iran take the green flag first. Supra Troopers lead the first lap in anger. Only 14 hours until midnight checkered flag.

10:15 a.m. Full-course caution for a rollover of the #422 Honda Civic, which is sporting a Led Zeppelin theme with a zeppelin mounted on the roof.

10:30 a.m. Civic driver checked out OK with the medic. The blimp is wrecked somewhere near the far corner of the racetrack.

10:51 a.m. Early on in the race, the Supra Troopers turbocharged Supra leads by 13 seconds from the One Percent Racing BMW E28. College Brats' Chevy Cavalier leads Class B and runs fourth overall. The real battle should be in Class C, where Der Schnitzelwagen's VW Squareback leads Windy City Racing's automatic-equipped BMW 2002 and the Afunzalo Racing Fiat X1/9 by just a few seconds.

Der Schnitzelwagen famously led last year at Autobahn by 25 laps at the end of day one, running on only three-quarter throttle. They "fixed" their throttle issues for the next day and promptly nuked the the air-cooled engine to lose the class.

11:25 a.m. All updates should be over on Hooniverse here henceforth.

A shortcut to the 2014 ADAC Nürburgring 24 Hours entry list

www.nuerburgring.de

As I wrote in my weekly Hooniverse Motorsports Weekend Guide, I should let the sportscar racing experts handle the previews of the ADAC Nürburgring 24 Hours. But being who I am, I'll give a quick rundown of my thoughts because, well, this is my website.

Before delving too deeply into this, it's important to remember that just about anything can happen in a 24-hour race (especially at such a daunting circuit) so there are no givens anywhere. But the talent in the driver lineups and on the pit wall is high enough that most of the top-class (SP9) cars can win outright.

You can find more information on how to follow the race in the Motorsports Weekend Guide over on Hooniverse, but let's go right to my partially informed opinion!