We got 1st place in class in 24 Hrs of LeMons road race in an XJ

[Goatman]

Road racing in $500 crap can cars is a booming form of new motorsports. Of course, some of us have been talking about doing this in an XJ. Matt Adair and his friend Scott finally did it last year and formed Petty Cash Racing. Last weekend they brought the blue Petty Cash XJ to Buttonwillow Raceway near Bakersfield and I joined them for a weekend of road racing on the nearly 3 mile course. Matt and Jesse drove down from Seattle and got to our shop, G&G Off Road, on Wed for some race prepping, and Scott flew down on Thurs. We put new brakes on the Jeep and swapped in an 8.8 rear end with 3.73 gears, a LSD and disc brakes. The XJ has been lowered by going spring under in the rear with an add-a-leaf and cutting the coils in front, both lowering and stiffening the spring rate. Everything else is stock including the 200k 4.0L motor and auto trans. The interior was stripped, a cage and race seat were added, and low profile 245/50 16 tires. And, of course, a wing was added and it was painted Petty blue.

24 Hours of LeMons is a nation wide road racing series limited to cars that are bought for $500 or less, and you need your receipts to prove it. Safety items like roll cage and seats don't count, nor do brakes and wheels and tires. This is supposed to be about keeping racing fun and affordable, and the teams come with themes and decorations on the cars. Many of the themes are pretty damn funny. It's entertaining to walk through the pits and see the cars and visit with the other racers. However, when you get out on the race track it's full on racing. We had a blast!!

 

[Crusher16]

Awesome! Looks like a blast!

 

[fireLt.]

Now this looks like something I could have fun doing!

 

[Glenn B]

Right on! Looks like a blast, and congrats!

 

[the_weirdo]

I've always wanted to run this event. My old man and brother has discussed trying to enter in a year or two. Looks like a great time. Congrats on the class win.

 

[Goatman]

The race starts at 10 am on Sat and goes till 4:30, then goes from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm on Sunday. Matt started out first, and we each drove for roughly 2 hours and then pitted for fuel and a driver change. There were 173 cars entered, and over 160 started the race, plus it started to rain. We found out later that this was the biggest field in any LeMons race so far. Matt had his hands full with the rain and all the traffic, but thankfully it only rained for a short while and the track dried out. Since these are crap can cars there were always plenty of cars in the pits, but still over 100 cars on the track all the time. Here's some good video footage from the in car camera of Matt during his first driving leg on Sat morning, lots of traffic and lots of passing.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamPettyCash#p/a/u/1/ftMxEh7xZvs

We had some issues with oil blow by, and we had to signal Jesse to come in once because we saw smoke from behind the car. We had installed a cone type filter, and evidently we still needed the vacuum from the stock intake to deal with the crankcase pressure from the 200k motor, we ended up having oil all over the motor and burning off the exhaust manifold causing smoke. We rigged up a longer breather hose and a catch can which worked OK. After I got in the car the guys called me in after a few laps since it was smoking again. The pressure had pushed the dip stick out and blew oil over everything. We ended up putting a couple wire ties on the dip stick to hold it in which worked. At the end of the day we were in 44th place overall and in 1st place in Class C.

 

[Glenn B]

great video. What tranny fluid and engine oil are used in the XJ?

 

[Goatman]

We were in 1st place in our class, with a 13 lap lead, so our goal on Sunday was to do our best to stay out on the track and keep racking up laps. Over driving and spinning out or making contact with another car could get us blacked flagged and we'd have to come in for a penalty. The LeMons classes are the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Good are cars that should be on a track, like Porche's, BMW's, RX7's, Miata's etc. Bad are mostly regular cars like Crown Vic's, T-birds, import sedans, much older sports cars, and whatever they think isn't as good a car. Ugly are cars that have no business being on a race track, like a Jeep Cherokee, Dodge Shadow, Tercel, old Opel GT, and the 1976 Porsche 914 that took 2nd in our class.

Scott did good on the first driver leg, then I got in the car. They had reversed the course for Sunday so we had to learn the course all over again, and I over drove and spun out on a tight downhill corner on my first lap....damn! I got black flagged and had to come in but they didn't keep me long since it was our first black flag of the day. Here's some in car video footage of me on Sunday, and a shot of Matt helping me get strapped in for the start of my driving leg on Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamPettyCash#p/u/3/Y8aOlD3PrlE

Since this is a Cherokee team, we brought my XJ based rock buggy out and parked it in the pits, which added to the fun of being out there racing in a Jeep. We were the only team racing a Jeep, and got plenty of comments about how well the XJ was doing. What's so fun about being one of the many BMW's out there when you can beat some of them driving a Jeep.

 

[Goatman]

great video. What tranny fluid and engine oil are used in the XJ?

Whatever we could borrow from the teams pitting next to us.

Nothing special, whatever we had.

 

[IXNAYXJ]

Whatever we could borrow from the teams pitting next to us.

Very true this go-around (after all of our other prep work for this race, how we forgot to bring any fluids to the track is beyond me). Historically we've run Synthetic oil, but as it puked out and was replaced with 5w30, I think the blend was far more towards the conventional side.

-----Matt-----

 

[Goatman]

We kept running pretty well. Jesse had a clean drivers leg and we were moving up gradually in the overall standings, and holding our lead on the 2nd place 914 in our class. Matt took over for the last leg, but after being out awhile he spun out and got black flagged and had to come in. Since it was our 2nd black flag of the day we had to have a penalty, so they made him eat two Hostess cupcakes without drinking any water. He begged for mercy after eating one so they gave him a break and said he could eat the other one on the way out if he could tell them which French car company helped Jeep design the XJ, that was easy he told them Renault so they let him go. But, he said the car was getting impossible to drive, something was wrong, and we headed to the pits to check it out.

We found trans fluid leaking from the cooler line to the radiator and dripping down right in front of the drivers front tire. We couldn't see how to fix the leak quickly so we stuffed a bunch of rags around it and tied a couple rags underneath to hopefully catch the oil and keep it off the tire. We needed to get back out since the guys in the 914 were really trying to catch us, they even sent a guy over to see what was going on when they saw us working on the car in the pit. Matt got going again and hung in there until the checkered flag, but by then the trans was starting to skip a little from lack of oil.

We ended up in 32nd place overall, which is in the top 20% of the 170 in the race, and first in Class C beating the 914 by 10 labs. We ran 262 total laps on a roughly 3 mile course. Our lap times were in the 2 min 30 sec to 2 min 45 sec range most of the time meaning our ave lap speeds were 60+ mph. We were hitting 90-100+ mph on the longer straights.

Here is Matt taking the checkered flag and our Class C trophy.

Matt taking off on his driving leg.

And a few more shots out on the track.

 

[Goatman]

Here's a link to the Team Petty Cash page on Facebook, and an easy way to see some in car video footage.......well worth watching, BTW.

Team Petty Cash on Facebook



More in car video footage. The first is Jesse on Sat, letting the XJ run a little in the dirt....and getting a black flag. The 2nd is more of Matt on the first leg on Sat.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamPettyCash#p/u/0/-89s4GfWozk

http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamPettyCash#p/u/2/F-qCI-edUk4

 

[xjtrailrider]

Hell Yeah! The little XJ that "did"

 

[RichP]

Cool stuff, just a matter of time till cash rich idiots take it over like they did stock cars. Back in the day sportsman ran backyard cars and junk yard motors, now they run $50,000 custom builds. They priced the fun right out.

 

[MrShaft696]

thats awsome, good times...

 

[DaJudge]

That is awesome! The Porsche guys probably killed themselves after the race!

 

[Wayne Sihler]

Great Job !!!

My nephew has entered a few of those, mostly in a VW--
They have one of those events at the Summit Point Raceway close to Winchester Va,--I dont think he has ever finished----

 

[CherBear]

Nice Job! That thing looks mean on the track.

 

[Andy in Pa.]

LOL... thats great. It looks like you guys had a lot of fun too. I always though that this exact setup in an XJ would work well. Looks like you guys proved it!!

Just after I got my 2wd MJ, I lowered it (with blocks in the rear and cut the front springs) and put 16" tires/wheels on it that I had around. I was running 245-50-16's in the rear, and 225-55-16's in the front. Poly bushings in the eyes of the factory springs in the rear, and ploy sway bar bushings up front. That was a light and fun little truck to blast around in.

 

[Boveevil]

Awesome! and congrats on the win!