OK, I'll bite. What nerdy-car-geek-blog wants to feature a $500 Franken-crapper like our car?

Here is are picture of the car in action during a recent test day at Willow Springs. Trust me, the car looks a lot worse in person. Driver is Geo Metro-Gnome team member Colin Drobnis. He looks a lot better in person. Second pic is of the engine "installation". Last pic is of the stock metro differential with "kustom" sprocket attached (chain removed). Diff gears are lubed by generous amounts of grease. Said grease is contained by a "kustom" rubber boot made from a toilet plunger. So far so good...

Many times the only sign that you've neglected the proper maintenance of your vehicle is something important falling off, like a wheel. Jalopnik commenter Pres started off to work one morning only to have his wheel exit stage left shortly after takeoff and quickly make friends with a nearby bush. Thankfully, the only damage is a bent suspension bracket and some tweaked sheet metal. Remember kids, always keep those lug nuts torqued to spec. And knowing is half the battle.

You remember the 24 Hours Of LeMons SF 2008 People's Choice-winning Eyesore Pimpin CRX, of course. The Eyesore Racing CRX showed us that pimpin' really ain't easy, and neither is finishing the race with a little Honda that's had the crap beat out of it while finishing in the Top Ten in three previous LeMons races.


Sadly, the Eyesore Racing CRX pimpmobile's racing career was over. Crushed! That meant it was time for a new car.


Mazda Miatas usually do quite well at the 24 Hours Of Lemons; a Miata won at the LeMons South event (and another got the People's Curse in Texas). The Eyesore guys managed to find a pair of totally crunched Miata wrecks, plus enough worn-out engine parts to assemble a possibly serviceable powerplant, plus a rusted-solid turbocharger. What next? Why, break out the galvanized plumbing fittings and rig up some turbo plumbing above the engine! Here's what Eyesore Racer and Jalopnik commenter Wrappedinbacon has to say about this rig:
The additional fuel to support the turbo's boost is done caveman-style—with a mechanical fuel pressure regulator. We bought a used one for $20. It's very simple—it squeezes down on the fuel return line when boost increases. Presto, fuel pressure increases, which forces more fuel through the stock injectors.

With the regulator handling things during boosted operation, the factory airflow meter is sort of just along for the ride. Keep in mind that we intentionally kept boost low—the turbo only generates a light breeze of 3.5-psi of boost. Now, I wouldn't say that the driveability is perfect (it isn't) or that our car will go the distance (just look at the turbo installation) but cost was the overriding priority. That's why our car still has the stock Miata exhaust manifold.

The turbo itself was free—it came from a Mexican Domestic Market (MDM, yo) Dodge Stratus and was rusted solid when we got it. The rest of the turbo installation consists primarily of scrap iron and MIG welding rod. The radiator enclosure is the sheetmetal of one of our team member's old hot water heater shed. Coolant lines are galvanized EMT electrical conduit from Home Depot. The engine was rebuilt with a two drills and recycled gaskets.



After god-knows-how-many hours of labor, they got their turbocharged, intercooled Mazda B engine putting out 140 horsepower with 4 pounds of boost. Sure, it's probably going to start spitting red-hot exhaust valve chunks out the tailpipe about 25 laps into the race, but what a glorious 25 laps it will be! Those guys on Team Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys and their Peugeot 505 Turbo had better watch out! Now go check out the whole Ghettocharged FrankenMiata story here!

That's right, the Foster Farms Chickens, aka The Foster Imposters! A pair of Arkansas factory-farmed chickens flee their trailer park and head to California, so that they might be killed, eviscerated, and served up as meals by Foster Farms. Their vehicle? A beater '67 Belvedere! Thus was the idea for Team Faster Farms Chickens born.


Since Adrian had a free '66 Belvedere already, all that was needed to convert it to an Impostersmobile was the application of '67 headlight bezels and trashed grille...



…and some light blue house paint. The Imposters' Belvedere has one yellow door, so the race car's original color was retained there. Now let's watch another ad!




These chickens are serious about winning! You might recognize this bird as Jack Astro, creator of the Project Car Hell Song. Be sure to check out the Team Faster Farms Chickens' website when you're done here!


With 318 screamin' cubic inches under the hood and a car that's already survived a 60 MPH wreck into a row of parked cars, the Chickens fear nothing!


They found a B&M floor shifter on a junked Ranger at Pick Your Part, and the glass doorknob adds a touch of class.


The chicken suits weren't quite up to Foster Imposters specs, so Adrian had to make a few adjustments. First, a little feather trimming.


Then a coat of Farm Equipment yellow paint on the legs.


It's a gas saver!

With UDMan's '63 Corvair raising the Index Of Effluency stakes for next year's New England 24 Hours Of LeMons, anyone who shows up with the same ol' snoozeworthy RX-7 or Camaro will be the object of well-deserved ridicule by his or her peers. You need to limp roar onto the track in a car manufactured by one of the Big Three PCH Superpowers, and we've managed to find one that already has a roll cage! In fact, this '68 Austin Healey Sprite is a proven racing champion, having taken the SCCA Grand National Solo II Class DP trophy in 1978! Since that time, well, there's been near-total a certain amount of deterioration, but who the heck cares about non-structural rust damage in a race car? Of course, there is certainly might be some structural damage as well, but you'll get to fixing that… right after you figure out how to get a new engine installed with the $1 in budget flexibility you'll have after spending $499 on this car. There must be something you can sell off this hulk racer; if nothing else, you can sell off the transmission and use the $75 to buy a basket-case donor car with some sort of functioning engine/trans combo. Thanks to Evil Genius for the tip!

Since the rollcage doesn't count against the $500 LeMons price ceiling, why pay for a car that already has one? Instead, go for a mid-engined Italian machine, and we don't mean some cheapo Fiat X1/9 here. You can kick it up a notch and send your opponents staggering back with a mixture of pity fear and confusion dread when you drag drive this 1976 Lancia Scorpion off the trailer before the race. It's got some accident damage, but so what? You're not racing to look pretty, you're racing to spend an entire weekend turning wrenches and cursing in Italian win! Does it run? Is the Pope Italian? Hey, that Fiat Twin Cam engine is just months minutes away from firing up, you'll see!

I just retrieved the 1963 Corvair from its previous owner on Monday. The Body is in amazing shape with only surface rust, and one slight rust area in the front valance. The interior is almost mint, with the exception of the parcel shelf where the back window shattered. This car was owned by a Vermont woman, who bought it new, and then parked it in the early 70’s. It hasn’t run since, and has only 46,000 original miles. The engine turns freely, and I should be able to get it running right after the first of the year. The tires are all dry rotted, and period correct bias construction. So this is what I plan on doing very soon.

1. Sell as many things off the vehicle to get the purchase price down further.

a. Front and Rear Seats

b. Dash Pad

c. Original Equipment Radio

d. Glove Box Door

e. Wheel Covers

f. Headlamp Bezels

g. Those wonderfully decorated tail lamps

h. Side Door Window glass

2. Get the engine running by performing the following:

a. Replace all the fuel lines

b. Install a new starter

c. Install a new Battery

d. Rebuild the fuel pump

e. Install 2 NOS Carburetors

f. Use aftermarket air cleaners rather than the stock units.

g. Install new ignition components (Rotor, Points, etc.)

h. New plugs, wiring, etc.

i. Replace, and stock up on fan belts

j. Completely change the oil (a couple of times, once I get the engine running, then re-drain, and re-fill)

3. Once the engine is running, then I’ll turn my attention to the Powerglide:

a. I’m thinking of replacing it altogether (and bringing a spare!!!)

b. Install a UD Transmission Oil Cooler, just under the trunk lid, where the spare tire usually sat.

4. By this time the interior should be stripped, and a rollcage should go in

5. I’m going to stick with 13” stock wheels and upgrade the tires (somehow)

6. Concentrate on the braking system

a. Upgrade fronts to discs (I have heard they there are kits available, from the later Monzas)

b. New brake lines

c. Rebuilt the wheel cylinders for the rears

d. All new linings

e. High temperature brake fluid

7. It should be going strong by this time

The roof of the car was damaged by a collapsing carport, and that’s the reason why I got it for $400.

So what theme am I going for? The Ralph Nader thing is too easy….. lets have a survey…

Oh, and I need volunteers for driving and track duty. Waaaaay too many people have already backed out on me. I’m doing the build by myself right now.

Yes, I loaded that car by myself from a field in Springfield Vermont

You'll need to start the video above to get the full effect of Teargas' story.


Natasha has arrived.
Comrade Davin and I have returned from their heroic journey to Toronto, Ontario. On the Great Hero Trailer of the Proletariat, we spirited Natasha from her prison in the only moderately socialist Canada.


Her captors were brutal, but we were able to bribe them with American Dollars.


We were detained by the Americans at the US Border. The American Border Guards trembled in fear at the sight of so much wondrous Soviet engineering. The spirit of the Soviet worker was indeed strong.


When the pigs told Comrade Reckow and I that we would need to prove that the Lada met US DOT and DEQ standards, I made it clear that Natasha would do no such thing! After an hour of negotiating, and declaring our duty-free hooch, we were free.


Comrades Rory & Davin will be awarded the ORDER OF VICTORY FOR TRAILERING

You see, we've got a mole inside 24 Hours Of LeMons HQ, Ecurie Ecrappe member TheEastBayKid, and he's leaked the super-secret Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza '08 team list to us.You'll get to see the whole thing pretty soon, once I've got all the links to team sites sorted out, but the real highlight is the fact that not just one but two Fiat X1/9s will be on the track at Thunderhill next month. There's a '76, run by the Famila Italia Advance Team out of Portland, Oregon, and there's the '80 that the Italian Stallions of Woodside, California, will be campaigning. They're sure to show those six MR2 teams a thing or two about real mid-engined race cars, right?

And that's just the beginning of the fun for you fans of Italian racing machinery! In addition to the pair-o-Fiats, the Team California Mille Alfetta will be back in action, along with a second TCM Alfetta stablemate. Not only that, the Pendejo Engineering Alfetta will be returning to Thunderhill as well; you might recall the heartwarming Alfa camaraderie between the two teams last year, when they made one good engine out of two garbooned ones... and then proceeeded to blow up that engine as well! The Alfettas are very quick on the track, quick enough that they'll contend for sure if they can be kept running.

You think the race still lacks sufficient Italian iron? Well, rumor has it that the Ecurie Ecrappe '71 Spider will be on the track, too, making a grand total of six Italian cars in the race!

Because the Gawker server hamsters explode into flames when they try to spin their little wheels fast enough to cope with one big Über Gallery, I've broken it up into three parts, each accessible by clicking the appropriate image below. Once you're done here, you might as well continue to torpedo your productivity by checking out past 24 Hours Of LeMons Über Galleries, including Detroit-ish '08, New England '08, South '08, San Francisco '08, Arse Freeze '07, and San Francisco '07. And now, arranged by car number, the Yeehaw It's Texas 24 Hours Of LeMons entrants. Thanks to all the team members who sent in photos; any team wanting the original full-resolution images I shot of their car, go ahead and email me with your request and I'll hook you up.

When you think about a Chrysler-engined British car, the Jensen Interceptor is probably the first thing that comes to mind. While the Interceptor makes a fine Project Car Hell candidate, its perceived value to Jensen masochists aficionados is such that you'll never find one for anywhere close to the 500-buck 24 Hours Of LeMons limit. Hold on, though- what about the Bristol 408? Powered by the good ol' reliable Chrysler 313, the Bristol combined British style with Mopar drivetrain reliability… but is it possible to find one with a LeMons-legal price tag? Better hitch up the trailer and head for Wisconsin, because this 1966 Bristol 408 Coupe (go here if the ad disappears) has an asking price of just $500! The engine is bad, but there must be sufficient eBay-worthy pieces you can sell off this thing to score a running Chrysler small-block and Torqueflite transmission. Then just knock the suspension and brakes into quasi-functional shape and you'll be raceworthy. You can make it happen! Thanks to Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey Bret for the tip!

That Bristol would make you an instant LeMons legend, all right, but where's the absurdity? Sure, you'd have to be insane to run such a car, but you want members of other teams to stagger back in a mixture of awe and horror when they lay eyes on your racin' machine. A limousine would accomplish that, but there's the troublesome 4,000-pound weight limit to contend with. Unless… unless, of course, you were to get this 1974 Super Beetle limo (go here if the ad disappears), which has a bait-n-switch price of $8 but will likely go to the first buyer who waves a $100 bill under the seller's nose. There's no engine and transmission, but Pick Your Part is always chock-full of Beetles and Transporters, and any lawnmower mechanic armed with $9.98 worth of Brazilian replacement parts can get a Type 1 engine working just fine. Handling on the race track might be a little odd, since the pendulum with the big rear weight is now longer, but you won't be perturbed by the spinouts once you've got that Index Of Effluency and/or Organizer's Choice trophy in your shaky hands! Thanks to LeMons Supreme Court Justice Loverman for the tip!

We've all read Armand Bengle's oft-voiced threats to bring a V12 Jaguar to Thunderhill in December, and normally you'd figure he might as well start measuring shelf space for the Index Of Effluency trophy with such a car; just run a few dozen laps before blowing up or catching on fire and that's that! But that Jag is going to have some weapons-grade IOE competition on the track!


Would you believe a mid-60s Chevrolet Corvair? With four carburetors? Yes, by the time UDMan brings his Corvair to LeMons New England, he'll have some idea of what to expect from his swingaxle-equipped racin' mo-sheen, because Team Unsafe At Any Speed is duct-taping a truly wretched-looking Corvair into shape. Two months to go! Panic! Work faster!



Fine, so the Corvair will be duking it out with the Jag, in a race to see whether the Prince Of Darkness will hose the V12's ignition system before the Corvair goes spinning backwards off the track and breaks in half due to excessive rust, with the "winner" taking home the trophy. Not so fast, monsieur! Team Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys will be out there in a turbocharged, rear-wheel-drive, high-performance European sedan that, in theory, should be able to make everything else on the track eat its Gauloises-scented dust. Theory, practice… sometimes they diverge quite a bit, and the 505 Turbo is pure Index Of Effluency gold. Will it blow up? Will some incomprehensibly French component fail in some inscrutable, unfixable manner? Will it simply disintegrate on the track after a few laps of abuse? Or will it scream to victory, thanks to its 150 horses and lightweight chassis? There's just no telling, but we're positive that this is going to be a helluva race!

We loved the idea of an LS400 in a LeMons race; after all, a big, complicated Japanese luxury sedan with a 32-valve 250-horse V8- particularly a total beater purchased for under $500- should do really well on the race track! What could possibly go wrong?


And the Highbrow Ghetto LS400 acquitted itself quite respectably… right up until it blew both head gaskets and seized the engine, that is. Judge Loverman and I hung around with the Highbrow team for a while on Saturday night, as we made the rounds of the pits, and we started talking about what use we might, as judges, make of the now-dead Lexus. With some creative inspiration from our friend Jack (Daniel's), the Highbrow guys remarked upon the legendary inaccessibility of the Toyota IUZ-FE's starter motor. "Really?" we asked, "Just how hard is it to get to that starter?" Well, it turns out that Toyota's engineers figured that inside the engine block, beneath layer upon layer of intake, coolant pipes, etc., would be the best possible place for the starter.



Thus was the Lexus Starter Challenge conceived. We decided we'd hold in in reserve for a team whose multiple busts for lousy driving had them on the brink of being put on the trailer for the rest of the race… and then the perfect team showed up in the penalty box for the fourth time in as many hours.


That's right- the Team Unintended Acceleration Audi 90 Quattro, which was nearly as difficult to control on the track as was the spinout-champeen Merkur XR4Ti. Hey, isn't the Quattro system supposed to make cars safer? They were on thin ice late in the day on Sunday, getting close to being 86'd completely from the track, so when they showed up again we figured we'd give them a penalty guaranteed to keep them out of trouble for a while. We offered the team a choice: a pint of metal shavings in the crankcase, or the Lexus Starter Challenge. Hey, how hard could it be to pull a starter?


"The book" says LS400 starter replacement is something like a 7.5-hour job, so we were counting on at least a few hours of Audi-free serenity on the track while the team performed the extraction. Meanwhile, the Highbrow Ghetto guys were having a tough time controlling their outbursts of hysterical laughter.


What we didn't bank on, however, was the mechanical skills of the Unintended Acceleration crew, multiplied by all the extra hands they had wielding wrenches. After spending a few extremely comical minutes crawling around the engine compartment in a doomed-to-failure search and uttering such plaintive queries as "Does this thing even have a starter?" they traced some heavy-gauge wiring to its likely location and started in on the intake manifold.


Just over an hour after they started, here's the elusive starter! Good job, guys! These guys were able to sample nearly all of our finest punishments, including the Obama Change We Can Believe In… and more!


Team Unintended Acceleration also got the Ozzy Osbourne Inertial Penalty Horn treatment, and I set up the switch to trigger the twin Jaguar horns any time the Audi accelerated, intentionally or not. In the video above, you can watch the poor Audi driver being so apprehensive about the OOIPH in the car that he can't find the entrance to the track; if you just want to hear what the horns sound like in operation, fast-forward to about 3:00 into the video.

First up is Rob Krider, whose Krider Racing team won the LeMons SF 2008 race in an Acura Integra and grabbed fifth place at the LeMons Arse-Freeze-Apalooza 2007 race in a Nissan Sentra SE-R. When I was behind the wheel at Altamont, I latched onto the Krider Acura's back bumper and did everything it did; this was possible for a slo-mo race driver like me because the name of their game is staying alive, just keep racking up the laps and don't put the hammer down until the track clears later on. Rob was kind enough to put his advice in a question-and-answer format, and he even saved me the work of writing the questions!

Jalopnik (J): First I would like to say congratulations you were able to stay ahead of the Jalopnik V8olvo and win the race.

Rob Krider (R): Thank you. Yes, I took a good look at the Jalopnik entry and I thought it was a serious contender. Lots of tire under that car. Congratulations to you guys for finishing so well in your first event. My guess is, the next time you guys run LeMons you will be a very, very serious team to have to deal with.

J: That's the plan. What was the Krider Racing game plan going into this race?

R: Survival. We learned at Thunderhill that you can have the fastest drivers, but if your car can't handle the pace, it is all for nothing. At Altamont I think every single one of the 90 competitors can pat themselves on the back and say that somewhere during the weekend they passed the winning car. We even got passed by the ladies in the PMS Team pink Mustang at least once.

J: I'll concur to that. I know we passed you guys.

R: Everyone did. There is a great video on CarJunkie TV where they have 8 cameras on their Mopar. You see them catch us toward the end of the video, then pass us. I was on the spotter radio yelling, "Let 'em go! Let 'em go!" Then two turns later there is a huge pile up going into the Esses. We avoided a lot of that carnage by just cruising around the track and staying out of it.

J: What was your pit stop strategy?

R: What pit stops?

J: I guess that's what I'm asking. How many did you make?

R: Two all weekend, both under yellows, and both under four minutes, ten gallons of gas, driver swap, oil, water, then back on track. No black flags, no penalties.

J: Impressive. So how did you guys finish the race on a Honda motor without blowing a head gasket like so many other Honda LeMon's racers?

R: We didn't. We filled the motor with Alum-a-seal and Bars Leaks on our pit stop. The engine was overheated and steam was coming over the hood on the victory lap. Had the race been five minutes longer, we would have lunched the engine just like Eyesore Pimpin' did to their CRX. I felt terrible for those guys. We were at the same hotel as they were. Sunday morning during breakfast they were sitting in first place. In their minds they had already won the thing. But there was a lot of racing still to do.

J: So with the #11 car out of the way you still had to deal with the first place team of the #7 Spirit of San Diego team.

R: Yes, that was tough. I drove the last stint and we were 8 laps down from the #7 car. But at this point in the race we were done cruising around and being the good guys. It was time to get some laps back. I could catch and pass the #7 car every twenty minutes but time was running out. And with every yellow flag my chances were getting dimmer and dimmer. Then I think we all found out that 8 cylinders uses up a lot more gas than 4 cylinders does and they ran out of fuel. Racing luck. Bad for them, good for us.

J: And so you guys won it on gas mileage.

R: Yup. Gas mileage, a lot of planning, preparation, luck, luck and more luck. Plus we had some great help from Kuhtz Diehl Insurance and Financial Services, HP 234 oil additive, ST Suspensions, Bay Ex courier services, Figstone Graphics, Factory Tire and Circuit Sports.

J: What was your favorite entry?

R: I loved the Jalopnik car of course, the engine swap was cool, the skulls on the roof were great. I loved the Mexican wrestlers outfits, Eyesore Pimpin' was fantastic, Team Scallawag had the best backseat driver in LeMons history.

J: Who did you think had the best chances of winning on Saturday?

R: Axles of Evil entry with their all wheel drive Audi were ripping the course up. The Luftwaffe early BMW was seriously fast as well. But my gut told me they would each find themselves either in the penalty box getting spanked, literally, or trying to peal a fender out of a tire. You just can't go that hard for 24 hours.

J: What's next for Krider Racing?

R: Soap Box Derby for the kids, believe it or not. All of our kids do the downhill race. It's time for us Dad's to stop celebrating and drinking beer out of our trophy and help our kids win their races. Gotta start 'em young. Krider Racing 4 Life!


Next up is David Swig, whose Motoring J Style team has piloted its still-street-legal Toyota MR2 into the LeMons Top Five on multiple occasions (and made a good showing with an Isuzu I-Mark… until it blew up). If you added up all the LeMons laps he's driven, it would probably stretch from California to New York, so let's hear his take on doing well at the race:

As far as winning LeMons goes, I’ve run five 24 Hours of Lemons now, so I have a fairly good idea of what it takes to win. First and foremost, the race is won in the pits (or rather, by not being in the pits). I’m constantly beating into my guys the mantra of “keep circling, no matter how fast or slow you are going”. Any time lost in the pits for driver changes, fueling, contact-related damage, etc...just kills your results.

You also have to have drivers who can get through the pack without running into things. I’ve canned several drivers because they just didn’t know how to keep their nose clean, or didn’t care. The bottom line is that most of the guys in LeMons are amateurs, and they approach their driving stint like they’re going into a 20 minute sprint race. That’s not what LeMons is about. You MUST preserve the car. I always tell my guys, if you’re going into a corner and debating whether or not to make a pass....think not about where you’ll be at the next corner, but where we’ll be in eight more hours. You have to be in the long-term endurance racing mindset, and be able to avoid contact, to finish in the top 5.

Of course a big part of success has to do with having a well prepared car and team. We’ve chosen the easiest route with the car: drive a Toyota, and you don’t have much to worry about. Where we screwed up in July ‘07 was not organizing our pits enough, and not having specified jobs for our “crew” when pit stops did happen. If you’ll remember, the Lemon Lappers Neon who won last July had incredible coordination in the pits – they looked like they had seriously studied F1 pit stops. We’re not there yet, but we at least know where we put the torque wrench, and try to make sure the right socket is on it, so we’re not running around our pit like a Chinese fire drill. It’s the little things like that which can make a big difference in the end.

It should be pretty obvious that you can’t afford to get any black flags or penalties. There’s really no reason to, unless you’re driving like an idiot. In five 24 Hours of Lemons my team has never gotten a black flag. Also, as Krider alluded to, fewer drivers is definitely the way to go.


That brings us to the winner's of last weekend's race: Team SCHWING. These guys did just about everything right (though I did hit them with the dreaded Chemical Ali punishment on Saturday), and team captain Jeremy Gunter has agreed to make life harder for his team by blabbing the SCHWING Secret Sauce to the competition:

The Car
Get a car that is easy on consumables.
Find something that was production performance, and I don't mean a 5.0 mustang or corvette.
Research your car and get to know it's problems, its tendencies, its weaknesses, and its strengths.
Spend your money wisely (the judges are not fools, they know a POS when they see it!)

The Prep
This is the most important part of the entire event. The more time you spend here, the less time you will spend fixing the car later.
Plan to repair the car on Saturday night. Re-prep the car for another long race. You have all night, don't party too hard if you wanna win.
If you have never road raced a car before, get some instruction, understanding what will and won't make you a good roadracer is very important. Books are one way, but the best way is experience.
Test the car, run it, heat it up, cool it down, over and over. If you have access to another track or track day, use it to test the vehicle, work out the kinks before the race.

The Race
Stay out on track, don't go in unless you have to.
Stay clean, hard to do, but well worth the effort.
Practice your pit stops, gas, communication, cameras, driver change, tire pressure, lug nuts, etc.
Save the car, don't drive over your head, and keep the communication lines open.

Be the most consistent drivers, not the fastest. Out of the fastest cars of the weekend, we were 20th

In the Pits
Be cautious and courteous, these guys can vote you out of the race, run you off track, or pee in your fuel tank while you sleep.
Have fun, everyone is there to enjoy themselves, join in and get involved, be creative, and know that even if you finish the race last, you finished a difficult race.
Make some friends early, help other teams out, you never know when you might need something from someone else.
Don't argue with the governing bodies, it just makes them give you more time in the penalty box. These guys are like cops, they have heard it all so don't even try...

General Rules of Endurance racing.
The race is not won in one lap, but could be lost in one corner.
Preparing for 15 hours on track is not easy. It takes time, discussion, research, and preparation. Taking the time to do this will increase your odds.
Be mentally and physically ready to race. Know what to expect, know what to do, and execute.
Eat an hour before you go out, and drink a couple gallons of water. If you pee 3 times in the 15min before you go out, and are holding it when you get strapped in, you are ready to race.
Have a blast, these guys run a great show, you will not be disappointed. Arrive with the drive to win, but the goal to have fun and meet some great people.

Got it? I'll keep pestering other contenders to share their hard-earned secrets with us, so that we can keep raising the level of competition for future races. Be sure to check out the all-important LeMons Cheaters' Guide before you bring it before the judges!

First up was the McCain Uphill Slog Penalty. John McCain has done plenty of struggling in his life, and trudging to the top of the very tall mountain that is the United States Presidency is tough enough under any circumstances… but what about when you're dragging the dead weight of an unpopular lame-duck administration, during tough economic times, and most of your own party hates you? What's that like? Well, we figure it probably feels similar to donning a rubber McCain mask and pushing a Ford Taurus SHO with seven burly guys sitting on it the length of the pit road in the muggy petro-enhanced Houston air… so that's what we had this miscreant do after he did Badness on the track. Bet he thinks twice before trading paint with a CRX at the next race!


The jeering crowds liked that so much that we figured we'd McCain-ize the next driver black-flagged in for too much aggro on the track. It's a lot easier when the car is a BMW 2002 and your team only has four members, so we had the Loverman add his weight to the load. Man, that McCain mask gets sweaty fast!


Then there's Barack Obama, who promises change and plenty of it. You know what, though- change can often be painful, hard work, and it can force you to throw away a lot of sweat you've already invested! That's why we figured the Obama Change You Can Believe In Penalty had to be hard mental and physical work that undid a lot of the team's previous efforts. The way it works goes like this: we give the team members spray paint, tagger-grade fat permanent markers, colored tape, etc., and the team needs to completely change their car's theme before we'll let them continue racing. Not only that, we have to believe in the change, so half-assed efforts get sent back to the penalty box for more work.


By far the most impressive Change We Can Believe In victims were the guys on the Svedish Slaabs Saab 900 Turbo team. Their original theme was a sort of IKEA-meatball-style mishmash of Swedish Chef and ABBA iconography, but they managed to change their car to the Exxon Valdez in about six minutes flat.


Got to admit, we were freakin' awed by their accomplishment (which stood in stark contrast to their typical LeMons Saab on-track performance, which generally involves completing less than 20 laps and then nuking the engine). "Dancing Queen" became "Leaky Queen," for starters.


The Swedish Chef doll became Captain Hazelwood, complete with beer cans ziptied to his body. We liked this accomplishment so much that we gave the Slaabs our created-on-the-spot Judges' Choice Award (12-pack of Shiner Bock) after the race.


Other teams didn't quite measure up to the incredibly high bar set by the Svedish Slaabs; the Enginerds went for a "We're Sorry" theme, apparently figuring we'd stop punishing them if they showed remorse.


When they beat the shit out of their formerly-dent-free car with hammers, their new theme became "Sorry Piece Of Crap," and we let them back on the track.


Then we had the über-recidivist Unintended Acceleration Audi team. The kind of Audi you can get for 500 bucks is almost invariably gonna be one evil-handling beast in a LeMons race, and this one was no exception; we hit these guys with every penalty we had (though they successfully pleaded their way out of the metal-shavings-in-the-crankcase one), but every time we turned around they'd be back in the penalty area with sheepish looks on their faces after spinning out and/or hitting something… again.

By that time we'd used up most of the spray paint turning Neons into Civics and Mustangs into Camaros, so these guys were limited to white appliance paint and red duct tape for their Change We Can Believe In penalty. They opted to make the move from "Unintended Acceleration" to "Peace And Love," complete with hearts and peace signs in white and red. Even though they were spending most of their time in the Crime Scene impound yard by this point in the race, they were still driven mad by race fever and threw on the new theme in record time; they managed a very respectable 25th place and a pretty good 1:21.105 best lap time.


We also had a Hillary Clinton mask and a couple of genuine Hillary signs picked up by a friend who was on the floor at the Democratic National Convention, so we figured we'd do a Hillary punishment as well. To symbolize the broken dreams of Clinton supporters, we taped the posters to the car and had the miscreant (in this case, one of the Punisher Racing Caprice drivers) put on the Hillary mask and sit, disrespected and forgotten, at the judges' table for 30 minutes.


Hillary haters- no shortage of them in Texas- got a big kick out of the "Hillary: To Enslave And Torture" logos on the Punisher's new/improved door emblems.

Image source: [Autofiends]

For that matter, the Toyota Corolla FX16 is almost too reliable to show up here, but most of them spend their entire lives with the tach needle bouncing around the 8 grand mark and the body panels scraping telephone poles, with repairs performed by 19-year-old hoons with $9.98 Taiwanese socket sets and 12-packs of Steel Reserve to provide inspiration. They're not so easy to find, but if you're willing to make a few compromises you can find something like this '87 Corolla FX16, which has a selling price we're pretty sure will be far below the asking price of $350. It's got a rod knock (or worse), so you'll need to open up the engine and fix stuff. It's also got an automatic transmission, so you'll need to remove it and leave it on a shredded couch in your front yard- this sends a message to your neighbors that you're no one to be trifled with- and then head to your nearest junkyard and find a 5-speed to install. Sell off some interior parts and you might even have enough left to drop in a hot cam and buy some nice suspension goodies.

Revving the piss out of a really nervous naturally-aspirated engine sure is fun, but why limit yourself to mere atmospheric pressure when it comes to obtaining oxygen for the combustion process? You need turbocharging! Now, VW didn't make a MK3 GTI with a turbocharged gasoline engine, but that doesn't mean you can't reap the rewards of some "Golf tuner's" aftermarket turbo kit installation. Say, for example, this '91 GTI with "many upgrades" including a turbo kit. Sadly, the motor is "blown due to overheating. there was a problem with the thermostat," which your Gloomy Gus types out there might interpret as "every component under the hood is totally destroyed, from the burned valves to the spun bearings" but which we think indicates that everything will be just hunky-dory in a single afternoon of easy wrenching. The seller wants $700, which means you'll have no problem negotiating it close to LeMons-grade pricing and then selling the interior stuff for an extra few bucks for your budget. What could possibly go wrong?

We'll have more LeMons Texas posts for you during the week, including an in-depth look at some of the new punishments we've devised for on-track miscreants (e.g., the John McCain Uphill Battle Penalty and the Barack Obama Change We Can Believe In Penalty, among many others). Once we've gathered sufficient team-provided photos and videos, we'll put up the Yeehaw It's Texas LeMons Über Gallery.

Second place, is the Witchdoctor Motorsports Bikini Racer Camaro, also with 206 laps (and a 1.3 second slower best lap time). That's right, a big ol' third-gen F-body, driven by a female Supra drag racer, is giving the nimble imports a run for their money.


In third with 203 laps, we have the Bum Steers And The MooPoo Crew Mazda Miata, which is being driven by what a lot of disgruntled competitors describe as "the best Miata racers in the state, on their home track." We needed a lot of convincing to accept this car as a sub-$500 machine, but flood-damaged Miatas are dirt cheap in hurricane country lately.


Here's a familar green Neon: the Latch Key kids of Michigan, who now hold fourth place with 199 laps. This is the LKKs' fourth LeMons race, and they've finished in the top five in every single one. How? They're fast, they race clean, don't attract attention, don't break the car, and don't get penalties (while many of the other cars have been in for three or even four visits to the Crime Scene Parking Lot already). My money is on these guys to take the win tomorrow; they look so effortless, while the cars in front of them are being pushed much harder.


Another Neon! The Purple Pin Ball Righty- and, yes, those are indeed Truck Nuts on the rear bumper- has 193 laps and fifth place.

Yes, the front man for that Little Ol' Band From Texas is one of the heavy-dutiest car freaks in the world, so that means a real LeMons Houston racer ought to sport a beard with similar length and volume. But how to make a Billy Gibbons beard from common household items, in less than 20 minutes? No problem!

Step 1: Cut a couple dozen 3' lengths of jute rope, the hairier and itchier the better. Hey, you think Billy's beard doesn't itch? You got to make sacrifices!
Step 2: Tear off a 24" strip of cloth from an old sheet, preferably one previously used as an undercar drop cloth for a transmission swap (as was the case here).
Step 3: Tie the ropes to the cloth strip.
Step 4: Unravel the ropes, to add extra body.
Step 5: Tie cloth strip around miscreant's head, arrange beard in hair shirt-style fashion under fire suit. They'll think twice about passing on a yellow flag after that, I tell you what!

Here we see LeMons Supreme Court Justice Loverman modeling the Billy Gibbons in LeMons Circuit Court HQ (aka dive motel in hydrocarbon-scented Clute, Texas). Come on back later on for more Yeehaw It's Texas LeMons fun!