QThis is the point where the judges assess lap penalties on the legitimacy of the car’s
“low-buck” nature. Naturally, they just waved their heads as if to say, “Yeah right, get this
cheating SOB out of here”
before relegating us to an
exhibition class. And we
were totally fine with that!QDrivers must have up-
to-date safety equipment,
including a driving suit, a
current SNELL-legal hel-
met, shoes, socks, gloves,
and a neck restraint like a
HANS device or similar.QBefore the start of the race on Saturday morning is the driver’s meeting, where ChampCar officials go over the rules,
what the various flags mean, and caution drivers to not be “that guy” that is always causing problems.
28 MUSTANGMONTHLY.COM
LAPS OF HONOR: ROUND 2
weren’t just lollygagging
around. Our lap times were
in the 2:20 range, making
us one of the fastest cars
in the race. Oh yeah, and it
was AMAZINGLY FUN!
One hundred twenty-
two cars started the race,
and typical of these typesbuilt the cars, and the
company is run by Jon
Marshall, a former military
guy with ties to the military
still. He also has a working
relationship with the U.S.
Veterans Corps, which
builds homes for wounded
vets and their families. One
of the latest recipients of
a home is Anthony Von
Canon, who raced with
us in Atlanta and came
back for a second round
in Daytona, which was the
weekend before the 55
Years of Mustang event in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
We decided to race
just the Fox car since it
didn’t get much action at
the previous event, and
it proved to be a very fun,
fast, and capable race
car. Most of the car was
built by IPT’s Crimson
Sanders, and with a 2.3L
EcoBoost turbo-four and
T-5 five-speed, it handled
Daytona’s 31-degree banked
turns with ease, begging
the driver to man up and
mat the throttle as long as
possible. Crimson set up
the dash to work with an
iPad for the critical gauges,
and a speedometer was not
one of them. Who needs a
speedo in a race car, right?!
So, while I don’t know
exactly how fast we were
going at 5,000 rpm in Fifth
gear with 3.48:1 gears out
back—you do the math—weof races for what are
essentially garbage cars
(with exceptions like ours
and a few others running
in the Exhibition class),
about a third of them
were out after the first
two hours with either
mechanical problems or
from crashing into each
other. The crashing part is
pretty common at LeMons
and ChampCar races, as the
field is split between fast
cars with aggressive drivers
(not always good drivers,
though), slow drivers in
junk cars that are scared
out of their minds with
all the intimidating traffic
around them, and teams
like us that think they’re
fast but have no delusions
of actually winning any-
thing. As Shelby President
Gary Patterson likes to
say, we were there to “have
some damn fun!”
The ChampCar race
was an 11-hour endurance
race, starting at 9 a.m. on
Saturday and going until
11 p.m., which meant if the
car held together we would
be racing under the lights at