- This coming weekend, the 24 Hours of Lemons revs its engines at the Buttonwillow Raceway Park. The longstanding endurance race pits teams of drivers and $500 "junk" cars against one another. While, it is a competition, many racers told 23ABC, it's more of a social event disguised as a race.
- When asked to explain why racers continue to come out to this event, a judge for the competition said most of the racers are average people who love cars and lead normal lives, but their lives aren't difficult enough, so they take on the difficult challenge of sourcing a cheap, broken down vehicle, and preparing it to race for hours on end.
- The video shows what the raceway looked like on Friday as teams were in the process of preparing, testing, repairing their vehicles ahead of the final inspection for Saturday's race.
- To learn more about 24 Hours of Lemons or to find tickets, be sure to visit the race series' website.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
I'm Sam Hoyle.. your Buttonwillow neighborhood reporter, this weekend at Buttonwillow Raceway Park there will racers from all over the western U.S. on the track.
But for an area synonymous with auto racing, this weekend it's a 'little' different.
The weekend is the 24 hours of Lemons, where teams take a junk car, soup it up on the cheap, plant a bunch of safety gear in them, and hit the track.
For Mike Mercado, who’s run in 52 different Lemons races across over 10 years, the event is less about winning or having a great looking car, but more about going out and having fun.
“You take your piece of junk car out, thrash the hell out of it, wheel to wheel with a bunch of other people, you get pissed at them for cutting you off, your blood gets up, you calm down, you come in at the end of the day, you find those people, share a beer with them, have some barbecue. It’s fun," said Mercado.
But just because you’re racing junk. Doesn’t mean it’s not taken seriously, the safety of the cars and drivers that is…
“They take safety really seriously. Tech [inspection] is stricter than a lot of series, and it should be because in most series, you’re up against cars that are really the same size, weight, and horse power, but here you have a lot of variation, so they take it seriously.”
The race on the other hand? Not so much..
“In no right way, do you think, 'Oh, let me buy a car that barely runs, drag it to here in the middle of the desert, and run it for 14 hours straight and see what it does. It’s creating your own headaches, but I think part of that is you learn, you bond a little bit with your team as you’re fixing problems. So, that’s what makes it fun," said Roman Goloborodko.
‘Is there anything I missed, is there anything else that you feel is important?’ asked 23ABC.
“Important? No, none of it's important! That’s the whole point!” exclaimed Mercado while laughing.
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