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Posts Tagged “

24 hours of lemons

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down on the junkyard

Proof That No Car Is Immortal, The Eyesore Pimpin CRX Heads To The Crusher

Just finishing a single 24 Hours of LeMons race can mean a one-way trip to The Crusher after the race is over, as was the case with the Team Come From Behind Probe. After all, a couple days of metal-crunching, rod-throwin' action tend to be rough on a sub-$500 car. That's what makes the glorious career of the Eyesore Racing CRX so great; Soichiro's little 2-seater not only finished three races, it placed 7th at the October '07 Altamont race, 7th again at the December '07 Thunderhill event, and took the coveted People's Choice award (along with a respectable 18th-place ranking) at the May '08 Altamont race. However, even a Honda can't live forever, and team member Wrappedinbacon sends us this photo of Eyesore Pimpin's dearly departed race car. Jump to read his description and see the entire Eyesore CRX Greatest Hits gallery.


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4:00 PM on Thu Jul 17 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,777 views, 18 comments

Latest by NovaloadMissesPolar: @wrappedinbacon: Great car, great run. Did you at least save a bit for lucky 7 luck in the next car? I still have the keys to my 66 Fury to keep that ju-ju of stolid Mopar endurance passing on to more »

24 hours of lemons

Racers, Start Your Bribing: Murilee And Loverman To Judge At LeMons South!

When the lines between journalist, racer, and race official get so hopelessly blurred that objectivity takes a worse beating than a Porsche 944 connecting rod punching a hole in the block at 8,000 RPM... well, that's when you know you're watching the 24 Hours of LeMons! LeMons Chief Perpetrator Jay Lamm didn't completely loathe the LeMons coverage here and at Señor Lieberman's current employer, and the Black Metal V8olvo made a good impression on the bodywork of all the other cars at the Altamont '08 race, so we've been invited to serve on the judicial bench at the LeMons South event on July 26th and 27th.
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2:40 PM on Thu Jul 17 2008
By Murilee Martin
722 views, 24 comments

Latest by mr.chophoppers: Two Roy Beans? The mind boggles. more »

down on the junkyard

24 Hours Of LeMons Veteran Awaits Crusher In Long Beach Junkyard

Is it better for a car to go out in a blaze of glory on the racetrack than to die an ignominious death of a thousand minor failures? We can all ponder that question as we study the corpse of the Team Come From Behind Probe, which didn't finish in the top 50 at Altamont but hung in there for most of the race despite some broken parts. Yurikaze found the Probe- roll cage still intact- at the Ecology yard in Long Beach, and was kind enough to share his photos with us. Make the jump to read Yurikaze's description, plus see the entire gallery (and a bonus gallery of the Come From Behind Probe during happier times). Yes, that's the Vanilla Pride Little Tree air freshener I handed out at the race!


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3:00 PM on Wed Jul 9 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,431 views, 20 comments

Latest by n/a: @acarr260: Actually it was a 0% junk added car, though the actual junk content was probably about 80%, more like 180% when Colin drove it (he's the one to thank for all of the critical damage save for the wheel, that more »

moment of zen

Accept Our Sacrifice, O Racing Gods!

Sometimes you can bash away on your low-budget race car for a full dawn-to-dusk weekend, yet it's still not ready. That's when you need to take drastic measures...
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6:20 PM on Mon Jun 23 2008
By Murilee Martin
2,226 views, 37 comments

racing

LeMons Winners Beaten By Le Mans Team

Before they headed off to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, California-based Flying Lizard Motorsports dared to take on 24 Hours of LeMons-winning Krider Racing team at the All American Soap Box Derby in Vallejo. The winner would then head off to the national championships in Ohio. The Le Mans team beat the LeMons team (which spent more on its gravity-powered car than it did on the Honda-powered one), then headed to France and placed sixth in the GT2 class with their Porsche. Make the jump to read Team Krider's description of the event; we'll post their very useful "How To Win LeMons" Q&A later on, for the benefit of you South Carolina-bound racers.

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7:00 AM on Tue Jun 17 2008
By Murilee Martin
938 views, 7 comments

Latest by MadHungarian: I get the feeling we are way, way beyond the original idea of the soapbox racer being a fun Dad and son/daughter weekend project. OTOH, it's nice to see some happy news come out of Vallejo, which has the dubious distinction more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

The 24 Hours of LeMons Altamont 2008 Uber Gallery

Uber_Gallery_Main_494.jpgWe got a look at the Top 50 Lemons of the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont on May 10th/11th, but what about the other 40 cars? Some finished just a few laps shy of the Top 50, while others seemed to bring out the yellow flags and tow trucks each time they sputtered onto the track. That's why we're doing the Official Jalopnik Über Gallery, which has a separate gallery for every single car that came to race.
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Feature

12:00 PM on Sat May 24 2008
By Murilee Martin
4,576 views, 108 comments

Latest by n/a: @M0L0TOV: Why not just institute a separate class for RVs, and let them run with the cars? Think LMP and GT, only with more carnage and mullets. more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

Huge Wing, Eyeballs Propel Make:Way Escort To 33rd-Place LeMons Finish!

Even though we vowed to crush Team Make:Way's Escort like a drained beercan beneath our hobnailed racing shoes (as the Lord Humungus would say about their car, what a puny plan!), the little slushbox-equipped Escort managed to evade the wrath of Odin and hang on for a respectable 33rd-place finish at the race. They had a scary moment when a front wheel parted company with the vehicle on the track, but for the most part they kept on knocking out lap after lap. Good work, Make:Way, and next time we hope to see some junkyard turbocharging on that thing! [MakeWayRacing.com]

4:20 PM on Fri May 16 2008
By Murilee Martin
2,326 views, 14 comments

Latest by n/a: @makeopalypse: Mintyboosts FTW!!! You'll have the only car partially powered by a huge pack of AA batteries :) more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

Broken Parts And Bleeding Knuckles At The 24 Hours Of Lemons

We've seen the cars that finished the race, but what about the ones that spent more time in the pits than on the track? Our pit space was sandwiched between a couple of never-say-die teams: the Snowspeeder Pilots Association, whose MR2's engine ate its rod bearings, and Team SSPP22, whose Volvo 780 Bertone broke its steering rack as an appetizer and damn near everything else for the main course. Then there was the Wedginator, which was pushed or dragged off the track more often than British Leyland workers went on strike, and the Car & Driver Fiero, which held the dubious title of Fewest Laps Completed, thanks to clutch-related maladies. Heroes, all of them! Let's take a look at some of the repairs we caught on film in the pits; thanks to Zack Spencer and Amy Judd for their photographs.

4:00 PM on Thu May 15 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,448 views, 38 comments

Latest by n/a: HAHA parts car! That would be nice, maybe for Thunderhill they'll let us have 3 pit spaces for a 77 Pontiac, 65 Falcon and a 76 Triumph. more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

Pimps, Pirates, and PMS: The Art Cars Of The 24 Hours of LeMons

We really want to love art cars, but the problem with a lot of them is that the artists involved just don't get cars. For every genuinely awesome Camera Van or Pedal Regal, you get a hundred beater 323s with plastic army men or dinosaurs epoxied all over the sheet metal. But take heart, fans of car-as-art, because the participants at the 24 Hours of LeMons race continue to raise the bar with the themes for their cars; check out the gallery below for a sampling of some of the art cars we saw at the race at Altamont last weekend. Thanks to photographers Zack Spencer and Amy Judd for contributing photographs.

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1:00 PM on Thu May 15 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,855 views, 38 comments

Latest by n/a: Let me tell you that as the owner of that Corrado that it is indeed a pile of crap. Pretty car but everything from the wiring to the engine are suspect. Before the race the car got alot of attention more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

So, What About The Porcubimmer?

We followed the exploits of LTDScott and his Team Porcubimmer during the run-up to the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont, and some of you are probably wondering how it went for the "Pricks Outside" guys when the real deal went down. Well, we have good news and bad news for you: the good news is that the car looked amazing (as did the coordinated team outfits), but the bad news is that a cascade of mechanical woes kept the Porcubimmer off the track for much of the weekend. Fuel system, clutch, you name it. When it was on the track, however, it was fast; for a glorious- if regrettably short- time on Saturday, the spiky 325e was in the #1 position. Take heart, Porcubimmer fans- we're pretty sure we haven't seen the last of this car's angry face! [Porcubimmer.com]

5:20 PM on Wed May 14 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,668 views, 28 comments

Latest by mytdawg: Coolest looking BMW ever. The quills are very nice. more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

The Top 50 Lemons Of The 24 Hours Of LeMons

We showed you the Top 44 Lemons at the Altamont race last October, followed by the Top 50 Lemons at Thunderhill in December, and now it's time to see the results from the Altamont race last weekend. Get any group of car freaks together, bring up the concept of the 24 Hours of LeMons, and you're sure to get endless debate about which cheap heaps should dominate. Well, here's where reality comes into play; this is how things actually played out on the track. We'll show the other 40 cars later on, when we put up the traditional LeMons Über-gallery, but for now it's time to examine the beaters, clunkers, and buckets that came out on top!
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Feature

12:00 PM on Wed May 14 2008
By Murilee Martin
5,434 views, 89 comments

Latest by n/a: Yeah we thought about that and a had offers for it from other teams in the pits. But decided to not push our luck and just park it for Thunderhill. Which was our goal for this car anyway. This was more »

down on the street bonus edition

1976 Audi Fox Wagon: Choice Of Discerning Pit Crew Members!

The cars driven by the team members and audience at the 24 Hours of LeMons race tended to be more interesting than what you'd see in your typical East Bay parking lot. I saw an AMC Hornet with a trunk-mounted computer, a small-block XJ6 with a wicked-looking hood scoop, and this very clean Fox wagon... which turned out to be owned by Shawn, a helluva good mechanic who showed up as a last-minute crew addition and proved incredibly useful in the Black Metal V8olvo pit action. That's Shawn fueling our car in the gallery below. I can't recall the last time I saw an Audi Fox in any condition, much less one this nice.

4:20 PM on Tue May 13 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,300 views, 35 comments

Latest by n/a: Thanks for the mention of my 1969 XJ-6. Yes, the hood scoop is funtional. Car runs with a 400 ci Chevy. Big juice can, highrise, Holley and Pete Jackson gear drive give it a serious sound. What can you expect more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

When You Go From 44th To 15th Place In Six Hours, You Get A Few Dings

When racing started at Altamont on Sunday, we knew we had some catching up to do; thanks to overestimation of fuel consumption, some pit slowness, and a penalty incurred by yours truly (more on that later), we started the day in 44th place out of 90 cars. We had the power, we had the skilled drivers, and we had a block of Swedish steel that could shrug off hits from the biggest opponents. And, speaking of the biggest opponents, a certain bullying orange Plymouth fared quite badly in a series of paint-trading incidents with our own WhatWouldJesseDo; see that orange paint on the tire in the image above?

2:00 PM on Tue May 13 2008
By Murilee Martin
2,533 views, 76 comments

Latest by whatwouldjessedo: @Harms: Well, I hope I didn't do anything to piss anybody off out there. If I did, my defense is beginner's ignorance, or maybe the V8olvo helped me channel the war-mongering ways of the Norse Gods. In any case, that was my more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

Don't Count Out Detroit: Chevy Finishes Second At LeMons!

Last October, the highest-placed Detroit car at the 24 Hours of LeMons Altamont race was the Spirit of San Diego '81 Chevy Malibu, grabbing a not-too-shabby 20th place. This time around, minus the fins and plus some mean-looking black paint, a good ol' American V8/rear-drive machine has left all them furrin cars (save one) eating Detroit exhaust, as the Chevrolet drivers finished a mere three laps behind the #1 car. We're not sure what they changed (though the Malibu does appear to have wider, lower-profile rubber now), but it sure worked! By the way, I'm still working on the traditional Top 50 Cars and Über Gallery LeMons posts; you'll get 'em soon.

10:00 AM on Tue May 13 2008
By Murilee Martin
1,135 views, 27 comments

Latest by n/a: @ViergangFuchs: Had he known who he was talking to, he would have at least thrown you the shocker. We'll definitely have to point the two of you at each other, see which one has more pairs of Allen-Edmonds. Mike more »

racing

Court Summerfield, 1961-2008

Those of us at the 24 Hours of LeMons race on Saturday afternoon were beyond heartbroken when Court Summerfield died at the wheel of the Team Cant Am Volvo 242 Turbo. Not only was Court's death a major loss for the LeMons racing community, it was also a tough blow for the city of Alameda; he lived on the island and worked at Ole's Waffle Shop, which is as much a part of the city's soul as are old cars parked on the street. I hung out with Court before the race on Saturday morning and I'm still unable to believe that this could happen to such a nice guy and great driver. The words of his wife made us feel a little better, however: "It was really just something that he was happy doing. I'm sure the way he went, he was happy." Check out the Cant Am Volvo in action during happier times, at Altamont and at Thunderhill Photo credit, above: Gianna Babb [San Francisco Chronicle]


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6:20 PM on Mon May 12 2008
By Murilee Martin
4,411 views, 57 comments

Latest by n/a: I have known Vickie, Court's wife, since I was a child. The day I met Court I felt like I had known him all of my life as well. He was a simple and uncomplicated man. Court was more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

Yes, Those Were Vacuum-Operated Skulls On The Black Metal V8olvo's Roof

With all the excitement of the race, I totally forgot to post photos of what the Black Metal V8olvo actually looked like by the time we had it all painted and bedecaled. Thing is, we didn't have time to apply the decals until we actually got the car to the racetrack. First of all, some commenters have wondered about the skulls mounted on the front edge of the car's roof. Those aren't just decorative skulls that just sit there. Hell, no! These are anatomically correct med-student skull replicas, and they're equipped with crowns of plumber's tape, Fiat indicator lights for eyes, and Dodge minivan vacuum motors operating the jaws! With high manifold vacuum (i.e., idling, cruising, decelerating), the vacuum motor pulls the skull's jaw shut; low manifold vacuum (i.e., gas pedal mashed to the floor) allows springs to pull the jaw open. I'll write up the fascinating details of how to build such important racing accessories for yourself, but for now let's check out the nice "before getting beat to hell" photos of the car.
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2:00 PM on Mon May 12 2008
By Murilee Martin
2,639 views, 59 comments

Latest by Murilee Martin: @turbo zero: Wayne is a team member who didn't get in a lot of the photos I posted on the build. Great wrench, great driver. I'll do a post on the team's experiences with all that info... when I manage more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

Meet The Latest 24 Hours of LeMons Champions: Krider Racing Death Proof!

In the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Thunderhill last December, we watched a Nissan Sentra SE-R place fifth (if not for a wheel stud failure, they'd have done even better). We thought the Krider team members were pretty cool guys, so it was great to see them at Altamont; this time their ride was an Acura Integra with a grisly horror-movie theme. They drove consistently quick laps, didn't break down or get destroyed by a big Mopar, and their pit stops were very efficient... and now they've got a trophy to show for it. Congratulations, Krider Racing! Note: I forgot to mention that the team donated their prize money to a fund set up for the survivors of Court Summerfield.

10:00 AM on Mon May 12 2008
By Murilee Martin
2,241 views, 29 comments

Latest by n/a: @anaxomander: Don't know if that's for real or not, if it's the team looking to "carry on" and they've got the okay from the family then I don't see a problem. If it's someone else then yeah, I'm going more »

24 hours of lemons altamont

Krider Racing Wins 2008 24 Hours of LeMons Race At Altamont

The inaugural race of the 24 Hours of LeMons season just concluded and we're being told it looks like the winner's Krider Racing in their Integra. Murilee will have more shortly from Altamont but he predicts our very own Team Black Metal V8olvo will come in somewhere in the top 20. Give 'em all a round of applause for not only finishing after yesterday's tragedy, but for making all of us damn proud. Keep your eyes on our 24 Hours of LeMons Altamont tag for more coverage throughout the upcoming week. (Photo Credit: PK Kool via Flickr)

8:22 PM on Sun May 11 2008
By Ray Wert
2,781 views, 40 comments

Latest by Murilee Martin: @Turboner: We need more tire and some helmet radios more than we need to shed car weight (driver weight, at least in my case, is another issue...) Actually, we gutted that car pretty far; the doors and hood were just skins more »

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