In July of last year, the fine folks at Xweb, an online X1/9 community, stumbled across that post. They quickly registered the criticisms I made of their beloved Italian wedge and expressed a range of emotions ranging between bemusement and righteous indignation. I was startled by the response and headed over to Xweb to try to clear things up. My explanatory post was fairly well-received by most Xwebians, with one exception--Bernice, who described herself as "the lioness that ends up biting you on what you wrote about the X1/9." Bernice, quite simply, brought the pain.
Well, as it turns out, Bernice and some other X1/9 fanatics entered a X1/9 in this year's 24 Hours of LeMons--a hilarious and surprisingly intense 24-hour endurance race contested by beaters worth $500 or less. In short, just like the similarly named Concours d'LeMons, a Car Lust-type of event. If you're still doubtful of the weirdness quotient present here, consider that this race was won by a 1984 Volvo 244.
Bernice and her fellow X1/9 fans entered under the name Italian Stallions Racing, and they dubbed their X1/9 The Flyin' Spaghetti Monster. In an attempt to bury the hatchet with this fine protectoress of origami Italian sports cars, I present to you a recap of the 24 Hours of LeMons, as told by Bernice. For more comprehensive coverage of the 24 Hours of LeMons, check out Jalopnik or any of the sources here at the official site.
Last weekend we ran our Bertone/Fiat X1/9 at the 24 Hours of LeMons at Buttonwillow Raceway. We finished trouble-free and running well. Two hours in we were in third overall and contending for the lead, but as the race went on the more powerful cars (like the V-8-powered Volvo) got us.
The end of the race was exciting; on the last lap the leading Acura Integra was fighting off the Volvo and rolled the car. The driver is OK, but the car fared less well--video at the end of the post.
We finished 16th overall, first in class L3, tied with the class L2 leader. We were 15th overall, one of four cars tied at 244 laps completed.We got a trophy for our class win and one from Grassroots Motorspots, "Most From The Least."
It was hot during the day, about 100 degrees. This caused many cars to die from overheating, blown head gaskets, flying con rods, exploding hoses, leaking water pumps, electrical problems, and fried brakes. One BMW's brakes ran so hot, the pad backing fused itself on to the rotor and piston. Many teams were working hard to put their cars back together all event long.
All of our drivers (Chris, Pel and Mike) had cool shirts which helped a lot during their 1.5-2 hour driving stints. Our X kept its cool well enough, under a constant load of 6,000 to 8,200 RPM hour after hour.
Here are our class win and "Most from the Least" trophies.
Our Team, left to right--Mike, Pel, Bernice, Chris, and Jen. The car is the #69, Flyin' Spaghetti Monster, a 1980 Bertone/Fiat X1/9.
Here's Chris in the car.
Here's Chris, Pel, and me--Pel is in the car.
Chris: Here's the final finishing order--the team names and car list are entertaining, so it's worth clicking to expand the picture.
The first two photos here came from Flickr user karamia29. The rest are from Bernice.
Bernice: Here's the video--the first video is of the flip on the last lap. The second is some in-car video from team "Formula BMW 325e." Their driver, Rahul, tried to get past our X with Pel driving. The BMW has 2.5 liters of engine versus the Fiat's 1.5 liters.Both cars and drivers are very well matched.. Rahul finally got by after Pel got caught in a dust cloud caused by another car going off course.
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