I would argue it is easier to get a “legal” Lemons car to win a Champ race than a “legal” Champ car to win a Lemons race.
We ran the Road America race last fall and were leading it 4 hours in. Leaking rear main seal lead to a 5th place overall for us. There were 3 cars with a faster “fastest lap”, but really only one that was significantly faster.
The fast cars in Champ are legit $30K spec built race cars. They have optimized every “stock” part and there are no rules on spending money (even though the rules suggest they are written to prevent checkbooks from winning).
Champ limits stint length to two hours. Their cars aren’t usually built to run longer stints. They aren’t used to running really slow traffic with 100 car fields. I would argue the fast teams have well run teams with very good drivers, but would need to adapt over a few races to be competitive in Lemons.
On the contrary a fast Lemons team can compete immediately in Champ, but may find it hard to get within the rules. Creatively inexpensive engine swaps and other things are huge penalties in Champ.
E30’s don’t have enough HP to compete for an overall. Neither do Miatas. Unless there is enough attrition. Guys have found “loop holes” with car models that start with too low of points. Altimas and Maximas with 260HP. JDM cars with built “stock” motors, E36s, etc.
We are going to build another car with such a goal to run in Champ, WRL and Lemons. We have our plan within the BMW family... guess we’ll see.
It appears WRL is becoming AER though... so that ship may have sailed.
LemonAid - Changing kids lives one lap at a time.