LeMons Sears Pointless Day 1: Endless Rain, RWD Cars Dominating Anyway

We're getting some delayed winter rains here at Infineon Raceway in not-so-sunny Northern California, which means that the track—which is tricky even under ideal weather conditions—was a treacherous, spinout-o-rama all day long. You'd think that the handful of Audi Quattros, which have been waiting for this day for their entire LeMons careers, would rise up and blow all the two-wheel-drivers off the track, but things don't always work out the way you'd expect. In fact, even the front-wheel-drive cars aren't doing so well. You have to go down to 15th place in the standings before you find any racer that doesn't use a front-engine/rear-drive layout: Porsche 944s, Ford Mustangs, and E30 BMWs, plus E28 5-series, Miatas, and so on, are all ahead of the Nissan NX2000 in P15. Which isn't to say that most of the rear-drive cars aren't looping, going on off-road adventures, whacking walls, and trading paint, over and over and over. In all my LeMons experience (and I've seen more than 50 LeMons races by now) I've never seen so many drivers just plain lose control and wipe out. Fortunately, nobody got hurt today, but the Penalty Box was not a happy place. The Infineon corner workers got a real workout on their black-flag-waving arms today. Still, some teams have been both fast and penalty-free. When Saturday's race session ended, the Cerveza Racing BMW 533i was leading by a single lap. This team has been in the hunt for an overall LeMons win on many occasions in the past couple of years, so nobody would be shocked if the Dos Equis–themed E28 gets the win this time. Just behind the Cervezas is the turbocharged Mazda Miata that's been the car to beat in West Coast LeMons races for the last few years: Eyesore Racing. Everybody knows the Eyesores will be on the Cerveza Racing E28 like a duck on a junebug if the BMW drivers even blink, so tensions must be high in the Cerveza camp tonight. But the Cerveza Racing folks have a backup plan: The team has two cars in the '12 Sears Pointless race, and their Porsche 944 is on the same lap as the Eyesore Miata. The quick-but-fragile model has been a very popular car choice for California LeMons racers, but no 944 has ever taken an overall LeMons win. It's possible that this 944 won't suffer some unfixable mechanical problem during Sunday's race session, and its marginally quicker lap times might give it the edge over the Miata and the 533i . . . or the P71 Crown Victoria that sits three laps back of the leader might stun the LeMons world and grab the trophy from the imports. Anything can happen, so check back later for the final update! from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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