24 Hours of Le Mons thrills with massive 104 car field

It was a unique crowd of sorts at Hampton Downs over the weekend, with Ronald McDonald’s (yes, more than one), cowboy’s and even several Duffmen making at an appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mons.

The event, run by NaZCAR, was an endurance race of sorts, attracting one of the largest ever fields to take part in a single race event in New Zealand history. Unlike traditional motorsport, Le Mons is made up of a diverse field of cars with an emphasis on a fun, safe, cheap and easy style of competition.

Theming by entrants is a key component of the event, hence the Ronald’s, Wayne’s and Simpson’s, whilst to be classified as a Lemon a car must be purchased for less than $1000 before safety features are added. If a car is more than that (but less than $2000) it is declared a Lime.

Starting at 3pm on Friday, a massive pool of 104 cars made it to the start line, ranging from ute’s, BMW’s, Toyota’s and many more. More than 500 people got behind the wheel at the event, each team requiring a minimum of five drivers to take part over the 24 hours.

It was a spectacle of a start, 104 cars in single file, rolling start as the daunting task of driving a car which has no right to run for 24 hours stared the drivers’ in the face.

It took about two hours for things to settle in. Battle packs had formed over the circuit as darkness began to fall.

As expected with amateur events, there were a few off-track excursions, and even less surprising in a field of Lemons and Limes, a few mechanical failures. For the majority of the field, however, racing remained clean with very few car-on-car incidents happening.

Cars found their rhythm through the night, continuing through Saturday morning and into the early afternoon before the chequered flag fell at 3pm. 77 teams managed to cross the line come race end, not bad for a field of cars under $2000 after running 24 hours.

Again, unlike traditional motorsport, Le Mons has many winners. In a traditional sense it was the team ‘Get in Behind’ who completed the most laps over 24 hours in a Lime, with 554. The most laps completed by a Lemon was ‘Assassin Racing’ with 527 times around Hampton Downs to their credit.

Then there’s the other winners. The Spirit of the Lemons trophy. The Nincompoop award. Even the Ugly Stick. A full list of winners can be found below.