Road to LeMons

Hold the front page – or at the very least the home page.

Forget Volvo’s controversial exit of V8 Supercars; forget the capacity field for the Bathurst 12 Hour; this is massive, massive motorsport news.

The Kelly brothers, carsales.com.au and motoring.com.au are embarking on a huge new project that will take the Aussie motor racing scene by storm!

Aussie motorsport followers could hardly have missed the Nissan Altima V8 Supercar -- all painted up in carsales.com.au livery. It’s an absolute beast run by an exceptionally professional team, namely the Kelly brothers and their Nissan Motorsport outfit in what, until now, has been Australia’s premier racing category.

But things have changed. The big dogs are about to go racing in another league – the 24 Hour of LeMons.

It’s all good to have a high-profile presence in the Supercar paddock, but we wanted to get a taste for the thrill of speed, the smell of rubber, the glamour, the noise, the intense maw of competition … You get it.

So we went to the best to build us a screaming, wild, LeMons track animal…

And we ended up with a mid-1990s Nissan Pulsar.

What?

Come again?!

OK, let us explain. Regular visitors will know that we have been getting down and dirty with the happy crew at LeMons. Indeed, we’ve been supping at the teat of goodness of the folk there. Basically, turning up and racing (some would say, wrecking) someone else’s car.

Time rolls on, however, and earlier this year after becoming pretty sure we’d outstayed our welcome, Editor-in-Chief and general all-round editorial supremo (well, that’s how he’d have us say it, anyway) Mike Sinclair sent out a booming edict from the Head Bunker at Carsales HQ: “Build me a LeMons car!”

He takes up the story…

“LeMons looked like so much fun that we needed to be there in our own right – the motoring.com.au and carsales.com.au crew and perhaps eventually even a few readers.

“Anyway, I was sick of seeing Leech have all the fun – it was time to hit the tarmac! We wanted to stay within our racing ‘family’ so the car simply had to be a Nissan.”

The decision was made to go with an N14 Pulsar. After all, the car has an enviable record when it comes to reliability as a family runabout.

The plus factors were low cost (LeMons requires the car to bought for less than $1000) and the potential that with additional modifications and spend once its LeMons career was over, we could eventually use it in other low-cost motorsport endeavours – not least of which, the domestic series that is the Pulsar Challenge (APRC).

APRC entry will require us to find a SSS engine and a bunch of SSS goodies. For the time being, the thing is going into its first LeMons outing with 1600cc and more or no modifications under the hood.

The upside here is the future evolution of the car will give us the chance to pass on a bunch of hints and tips for getting involved in motorsport at grass roots level. Good news all round.

So, we set Nissan Motorsport’s Todd Kelly the task of finding and purchasing a a car… Here’s his take on the purchasing scenario (Some faces and facts may have been changed to protect the innocent, even if we're fairly certain 'Keith' is not innocent of much…).

Back in the NISMO workshop, after escaping Keith’s clutches, Todd explained:  “The Pulsar was pretty much a barn-find.

“It had been sitting around and hadn’t been used for a while, but everything had been looked after and was in good running order.

“We were quite lucky to find a little bit of loose change under the seats. Even some goldies. They’ve gone a long way to help the project along.

“This is a reminder of what a race car is and what it can be. We spend thousand of hours and around half a million dollars building a car; with this one we’ve spent a few weeks and what started as $700 to achieve the same result.

“We took it for a blast around Calder Park [see below] and you can get out there and drive as hard as you can and just have as much fun as you would in the Supercar.

“It’s fantastic that people can go and do something like that. Drive on the same tracks we do and have a blast with their mates,” TK enthused… Although it must be said his comment was after lunch…

Leading the project of turning the Pulsar into a fire-breathing LeMons monster was the Nissan Motorsport team’s techo genius, Cameron Cox.

Over to you Cam...

“When Todd told me he’d bought a Pulsar for $700 and wanted to turn it into a race car, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

“When the car rolled into the workshop it wasn’t in too bad a condition, really. Considering its age, everything was pretty good. The Pulsar had done over 250,000km -- I’d seen a lot of cars of that age in much worse condition.

“Todd was as keen as mustard to help out. Then he disappeared.

“I only saw him again at the test drive.”

According to Cam, first step was to put a new clutch in it, two new front brake rotors, a set of front pads, new rear drums and linings, wheel cylinders, new Castrol engine oil, sparkplugs, fuel filter, gearbox oil and two new drive shafts, plus the interior was completely gutted.

Luckily we were able to do all of this for just $20.32 – well within our LeMons budget.

The car was accidentally left in the Nissan Motorsport spray booth and almost miraculously changed from faded gold to lustrous carsales Altima black.

“There’s plenty more you could do to it, but what we’re trying to do is make it reliable and safe ahead of the race later in the year," Cox explained, clearly not willing to incriminate himself or the team ahead of LeMons scrutineering.

Safety equipment is not included in the LeMons cost cap and given that both motoring.com.au team members and others (yes, potentially you, dear readers!) are going to be driving the car, the carsales HQ lawyers and OHS burghers insisted on the whole nine yards. Of steel tube…

We therefore fitted the car with a very neatly fabricated and designed National level bolt-in roll cage developed by AGI. It’s fully dual-hoop and door-bar rally spec and should keep us safe, both on the track and indeed into the future when the car may hit the forest trails.

Reaching out to the organisers of the Pulsar Challenge, we took guidance and opted for that series control suspension, tyres and wheel specs.

The tyres are from Toyo — Proxes R888R, to be exact. They’re DOT and road legal but combined with the flash Speedy wheels also to Challenge spec, transform the car from Pulsar to Race-ar (see what we did there!).

In fact, with all this neat gear fitted, the car has transformed from what was supposed to have been a bit of a piss-taking exercise to something highly desirable. But wait for the race-ready aero package before you decide.

Race? Oh yes, that’s right. After TK’s official shakedown drive, the plan is now to add some, um, aero to the car.
In true LeMons tradition, expect some err… ground breaking additions when it comes to body modification. We can guarantee they won't be Pulsar Challenge legal!

We could tell you more, but then we'd have to kill you.

So stay tuned. The Nissan Motorsport carsales/motoring.com.au Pulsar is due for its first race in anger at the 2016 24 Hours of LeMons finale at Wakefield Park Raceway on October 28-30, 2016.

Email editor@motoring.com.au for corporate entertainment, conference keynote address details, menu options and accommodation packages…Yeah, right…

Special thanks to Todd and Rick Kelly and all at Nissan Motorsport for making this possible. Oh, and thanks to 'Keith' for the car and playing 'creepy' far too well.