5 ms·
24 Hours of Lemons
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoThis sounds like Nordic Folk Racing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkrace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkrace This is quite popular in Finland, with racers as young as 14, to stop people spending their way to winning anyone can offer to buy a competitor car for €2,000 and the owner can't refuse. https://www.autourheilu.fi/lajit/jokamiehenluokka/ https://www.autourheilu.fi/lajit/jokamiehenluokka/
- agent008t 3y agoAnything like this in the UK?
- breckenedge 3y agoBeware, $500 car means before all of the safety stuff, which is expensive. My latest budget for a car that can finish a race is around $10k. Don’t get sucked into building your own. Buy used or “arrive-and-drive.”
- jdc0589 3y agoI do Lemons with a few friends . I've done 3 races, and don't plan on ever stopping; probably building a second car in the next year or two. It is an incredible amount of fun, and easily the "cheapest" way to get a considerable amount of seat time doing real wheel to wheel racing. Like others said, "$500 car" is not indicative of your costs. The "$500 car" rule is to control the type and quality of cars being entered, the spirit of the event is "cheap cars that aren't all that fast in the grand scheme of things". you'll easily spend $5k building a car, probably more like 8 or 10. Lemons is real racing, and requires a complete safety setup in every car (full cage, fire suppression, full fireproof race gear for every driver, etc...) We run in the middle of group B in a very non -cheaty car. When we have 3 drivers cost per driver per event is in the $700 range includ ing entry fees and brakes/tires/gas. Thats an amazing vakue for ~5 hours of seat time per driver, if you are on track the whole time.
- jdc0589 3y agonote: if you are interested in racing, id definitely figure out how to do a couple non-competitive HPDE days before anything else. You could start with lemons, but having your first driving;track experience be on track with 100 other cars at the same time doing a 1-2 hour session might not be the best plan for everyone.
- ortusdux 3y agoThe top gear guys did a version of this and still considered one of the most fun things any of them have ever done behind the wheel.
- yesdocs 3y agoIf you even have a remote chance of running in this race I recommend you go. I raced in 2006 and 2007 and it was by far the most fun you can have on four wheels, and the people are just amazing and welcoming. When you are racing a car you care very little about you experience real racing and it equates to real fun. One of the best things I have ever done.
- slices 3y agoDid my first lemons race in 2023, it was amazing. Some great things about lemons: - you need a team, so instead of having to figure out all the stuff yourself (the race car, getting the car to the track, etc.) you'll have motivated people to help you - because the goal is to still be running at the end of the 2nd day, drivers mostly look out for one another on track - other teams are super helpful to newbs. Our neighbor in the pits welded up a spot on our cage, we ended up borrowing tools and safety equipment from 3-4 different teams, and we got lots of quality advice - the rules and culture of the series help keep costs down as much as seems possible
- rconti 3y ago+1 on other teams being super helpful. We coasted our car into the pits with a broken shifter clip (which lives right next to the surface-of-the-sun hot exhaust pipe). While we were trying to figure out what on earth to do, another team volunteered that they had just done theirs recently, dove in, yanked the old part, tossed the still burning hot part to a teammate who welded it back together, and slapped it back in the car, in under 10 minutes. It felt like a NASCAR pit stop.
- zer00eyz 3y agoThere is a great video from vinwiki on Lemons, with a lovely story from an actual participant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PmaR2Upn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PmaR2Upn4
- rconti 3y agoI'm a member of the team that races The Homer [1]. In fact, I'm looking at a matchbox car of it right now! We took a few years off during the pandemic, but the team has been going with the same car (with several different themes) since 2008. Also underrated is the nightlife at the track once the racing is done for the day. It's so much fun to stay after hours, walk the pits, see all the other garages, drink their alcohol, etc. 1. http://thehomercar.com http://thehomercar.com
- bgirard 3y agoJust curious, is the $500 a hard budget limit? Looks like you put quite a bit more into The Homer. Really cool to see that someone built it BTW!
- rconti 3y agoNo. First of all, you can get credit back for parts you sell off the car. In our case, the car (a full running car) was $400 if I remember correctly, and the team captain was able to sell substantial parts of the interior to make money back. Most importantly, safety equipment is not part of the budget, so you can spend as much as you want on seat, racing harnesses, roll cage, fire suppression system, tires, brakes, and so on. Plus driver gear (suits, helmets, HANS restraint devices, cool suits, etc. Some teams even run racing fuel cells as that counts as safety equipment as well. So really, the $500 budget is to acquire the car (minus stuff you sell from it), plus whatever you spend on mechanical (reliability, go-fast bits, repairs, etc). Also, the penalty for going over is generally that you have penalty laps applied to your car, which is not that big a deal, because very few teams will ever win or even compete for a win, and the prizes aren't that large anyway (and often get donated to a charity). Our car happens to conform to the budget and is very well-documented, but many are sketchier, and it doesn't make the racing less fun.
- culopatin 3y agoThis is hilarious. I wish I had enough funds to turn an e30 into… that. I’ve been looking for an e30 to daily drive and I just can’t justify paying 15k for a 318 just because it’s not ready to be junked. And then there is the homer, that obviously was cheap enough that it didn’t hurt to build it for lemons. The two things seem to be in different realities.
- duxup 3y agoThis doesn't strike me as all that different from random rural races that were run on dirt tracks that I attended when I was much younger. It wasn't a theme like this, but it was effectively the same thing. This race is what "racing" was in those areas in all but name. The cars were cheap cars that folks in the area picked up, lots of elbow grease ... and they had a race. Usually there would be a demolition derby between heats, and if they had a lot going on a mud run too. That's not a criticism, it seems very fun.
- winddude 3y agoKnow a few people who've done this and had a blast, definitely something I want to do one day.
- korse 3y agoGambler 500 anyone? Less safety required!
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoI did that once in the Mohave. So much fun. Except I drove a functional support car and helped people get unstuck. Oddly it was the brand new Range Rover who had to get towed out and not any of competing cars.
- chrisblizzard 3y agoBeen doing this since 2010, a few races a year. It's racing that makes fun of racing, and is focused on fun. You can take it seriously if you want, but you don't have to. (The only thing they take seriously is safety!) And being a team sport it also is a great way to build wonderful friendships. Highly recommended if you really want to spend some time on track in a wheel-to-wheel racing environment.
- ebg1223 3y agoNot sure how this ended up on hackernews, but do yourself a favor, and at least once, attend a track day, drivers education day, or find some way to get your car(yes your car, it can be really any car) on a race track. If you catch the itch, Lemons is fun, but check out Lucky Dog!
- spike021 3y agoI'd recommend a loose autox day. Basically a car handling clinic on a course with no real rules except to run the course as many times as you like for the day at various speeds and such. Great way to learn how much grip your tires have, when you'll start to spin out, and how to recover. Some orgs do this, like SpeedSF in the Bay Area. I'd recommend an HPDE after that if it's something someone would like to try (basically a track day with a coach who rides along with you every session to give advice and instruction).
- 0xbadcafebee 3y agoI've never been to an autox where you could run as many times as you like. Most people getting into autox should expect to be there all day, run about 5 times, and work the track for a bit. That said, autox is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it to any driving enthusiast
- slices 3y agofor many autox runs, look for a test & tune day, not a competition event
- CocaKoala 3y agoWith the caveat that I haven't done any sessions run by SpeedSF, the description for their AutoX events at Sonoma usually says something like "Show up and drive, we have dedicated course workers, you can expect to have 20-30 runs in a day". For something run by a group like TrackMasters or GGLC or PCA, then you're definitely correct, you'll have somewhere between five and ten runs depending on how smoothly it goes, you'll work the course for a while, and you should view it as a fun day of hanging out with people who like cars and you'll get to drive a bit. You're also definitely correct that autocross is a lot of fun and anybody who is interested in driving their car for the joy of it should try it out.
- joshu 3y agoI currently race SCCA but have wanted to try this for a while.
- DuctTapeAI 3y agoDo it! Don't tell them you drive SCCA though the judges will absolutely give you a hard time. My only advice is that passes don't matter in lemons. Stay out of the pits, drive clean laps, and have similar skill drivers and you'll be quick.
- joshu 3y agoyeah. although after a proper cage etc it's almost as expensive as a proper race car (although i guess the base is cheaper-ish)
- abfan1127 3y agoLemons is fantastic. We ran it a few times in AZ before Covid. The best way to describe Lemons is a party is going on and a race breaks out. We ran a 1995 Squatty Potty Miata that burned a gallon of oil a race as well as a supercharged 2001 Toyota Solara with no good theme. The Race wrap up videos are fun too! Edit: I found the wrap up video: https://youtu.be/Ga9i_qgZLRo?si=_b-8nyFG8G13Yqsj&t=163 https://youtu.be/Ga9i_qgZLRo?si=_b-8nyFG8G13Yqsj&t=163
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoYou should have fixed the oil leak with some duck tape!
- elsonrodriguez 3y agoIt was a great time. We ran a Mercedes 300d. No diesel at the track so we basically did a top off from a can while changing drivers.
- ok_dad 3y agoAnyone do simracing? Want to form an HN team just for fun? I’m in Hawaii so there aren’t any circuits or rally stages I can run and I don’t have a reasonable car for SCCA, so I race virtually.
- avgDev 3y agoThis would be great. I wonder if there are enough HN playing something like iRacing though.
- bagels 3y agoYou can rack up a lot more track time a lot more cheaply even if you do have access to tracks. I used to, it's great.
- disposition2 3y agoIt looks like they have iRacing events quite frequently, https://24hoursoflemons.com/wtf-onlineracing/ https://24hoursoflemons.com/wtf-onlineracing/ You might also try Reddit (the iRacing) or the iRacing forums for like minded folks near your time zone(s).
- ok_dad 3y agoCool, I signed up there, thanks for the link.
- sokoloff 3y agoRandom trivia: the original Papyrus multiplayer NASCAR game (dialup supported) was code-named “Hawaii”. I don’t/never knew why. The core group of devs from iRacing are Papyrus alumni.
- pcdoodle 3y agoNascar 2003 still has a huge community releasing mods. It's solid and no monthly fee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR87PYsWXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR87PYsWXc
- RankingMember 3y agoMy favorite car theme I've seen is the NyanCat one that literally played the Nyan cat song loop the whole race as a sort of psychological weaponry against the other racers (though I imagine the self-inflicted damage exceeded the external). https://youtu.be/1CFmQOn0gmw?t=19 https://youtu.be/1CFmQOn0gmw?t=19
- bagels 3y agoI can't imagine how loud it would have to be to be heard in a helmet in one of those loud jalopies
- ashurov 3y agoFor people in Europe/the Netherlands there is a race based on the same concept but somewhat different: https://www.jyr.nl https://www.jyr.nl Edit: short description in English: https://www.jyr.nl/index.php/general-information/ https://www.jyr.nl/index.php/general-information/
- pytonslange 3y agoWe have something similar in Norway, but shorter races on rally cross tracks. To keep drivers spending and tuning in check, the winners car is offered for sale at ~500$ after the race.
- tbassetto 3y agoI did not know about that. What's the name of those races? How can I find out more?
- i_am_jl 3y agoFolkrace! Kills me that it's not a thing in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkrace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkrace
- jmharvey 3y agoThere's a similar mechanism for most horse races in the US, though instead of it being just the winner's entry, all of the horses in the race are offered for sale at a certain "claiming" price just before the race starts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claiming_race https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claiming_race
- ewgoforth 3y agoIn the USA they have had similar rules for some motorcycle racing classes to make them more even. Sometimes a super trick bike with lots of trick factory parts gets bought for pennies on the dollar.
- rypskar 3y ago
- bagels 3y agoLemons is a lot of tiring fun.
- creativenolo 3y agoI have a heightened appreciation for non-AI imagery (especially when browsing links from Hacker News). This link is to be savoured.
- stevage 3y agoI was really hoping this was going to be actually about lemons. But no, just a gigantic waste of petrol.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lelanthran 3y ago> just a gigantic waste of petrol You must be real fun at parties.
- havblue 3y agoAt parties: I was really hoping my martini would have a lemon twist and not an olive. But no, just a gigantic waste of ethanol.
- stefs 3y agoall the talk about lemon parties here makes me slightly uncomfortable
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stevage 3y agoProbably I would not be much fun at parties of people who are really into driving petrol cars.