This collection is getting out of control fast, and with at least 21 races next year my rate of T-shirt acquisition is going to accelerate to an alarming level. When I admire the designs of the better shirts, however, the burden of being the caretaker of the LeMons T-Shirt Museum seems totally worthwhile. Let's check 'em out, starting off with the fine shirt created by BMW 2002-driving Team JDL. Note: when a shirt includes designs on front and back, I've included photographs of both sides.

Update: Team Jewish Defense League BMW has shirts for sale on Zazzle!

It's real, competitive wheel-to-wheel racing, but the car themes and team costumes help prevent the onset of the dreaded Deadly Serious Motorsport Pomposity Syndrome, which afflicts so many racers. Today we're going to admire some of the better team costumes we've seen at LeMons events. We love the LeMons tradition of team T-shirts, of course, but who doesn't want to root for a race team dressed in lederhosen?

Team Türbö Schnitzel, South '09
Some teams don their costumes, show up for a few photo opportunities during the BS Inspection, and then change into grimy coveralls for the rest of the weekend. Not these Merkur-driving Atlantans! They wore their increasingly filthy lederhosen (homemade) and hats and carried their beer steins for the duration of the race, including an all-night wrenching frenzy that involved the fabrication of a clutch disc from scratch using sheet metal and brake pads. Hell, we're pretty sure they slept in these outfits!

Dungeons & Dragsters, Reno '09
These poor bastards ended up spending all but about 16 minutes of the Goin' For Broken LeMons huddled under their Capri, trying to find some way to make the transmission work, but these super-nerdy D&D costumes- plus the amazing 20-sided fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view- brought them their well-deserved moment of glory.

Victors Of War, New England '09
These Golf-driving, wife-beater-wearing Jersey boys didn't just talk the talk; they really are a bunch of honest-to-god East Coast mooks. The VW medallions were cool, of course, but the bikes were the icing on the cake.

Uber Das Driver: Spy Vs Spy, Reno '09
With two cars and a dozen or so team members, the GTI-driving Spy Vs Spy guys were able to keep two of their group in these incredibly well-executed Prohias-inspired costumes 24/7 at the Goin' For Broken race. Wherever you went, it seemed, one of the spies would be there, pointy snout poking around a corner and "dynamite bomb" a-brandishing.

Deja Moo, Reno '09
When you drive a SHO with steer horns on the hood, toreador costumes jut make sense!

Black Metal V8olvo, Thunderhill '08
OK, I admit I'm the one who thought up these grim, frostibitten costumes, but they were enough of a hit at the Arse Freeze-a-Palooza that I'm including them here.

Eyesore Racing, Reno '09
Eyesore Racing has definitely smashed down the door to the Pantheon Of LeMons Legends and made themselves at home; they not only wore these stunning handmade Elvis/Elvissa costumes and wigs all weekend, but they won the race in their Ghettocharged '59 Cadillac Miata!

Corporate Machine, South '08
You don't have to sport elaborate team costumes to be memorable, as the Caddy DeVille-driving Corporate Machine team proved in South Carolina. They wore their increasingly nasty corporate shirts and ties at all times, even during their endless, endless wrenching sessions on their somewhat temperamental FWD Cadillac.

Mysteries, Inc., Reno '09
They had a perfect Mystery Machine paint job on their Voyager Turbo minivan, and they had the costumes to go with it. They even had a small child in dog costume to represent Scooby Himself.

SubarJew, South '09
After the Texas 'No Fat Shiksas' episode entered LeMons lore, these Subaru pilots decided to honor their heritage by painting their car with big Stars Of David and donning the scungiest fake beards they could find at their local Salvation Army.

Eysore Racing, Altamont '08
Before they wore Elvis costumes and drove a Ghettocharged Miata, the Eyesore freaks- who allegedly have 11 engineering degrees between them- were Eyesore Pimpin', complete with Continental-kit-equipped CRX and their Ho Brigade keepin' it real.

Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys, Reno '09
A Peugeot 505 Turbo, a guy in a monkey costume, striped shirts, berets… and the French Stig! What more do you need?

World Talent Force (WTF), Reno '09
Their car blew up right away, but the superhero costumes were a total win for Team WTF. The pug was their commander-in-chief.

Team PMS, Altamont '08
With a pink Mustang dubbed "The Bloat Float" (complete with the slogan "We're gonna win- PERIOD!" painted on the sides), the pink bathrobes and curlers of this all-woman team were a big hit at the final "demolition derby" Altamont race.

Killer Bees, Reno '09
When you race an MGB, you wear bee costumes.

California Mille, Reno '09
One of the two Alfa Romeo Alfettas operated by this team came damn close to winning the race- an Alfa is going to win a LeMons race one of these days, mark my words- but what we remember even more about these guys was the excellent Italian food they whomped up over the weekend. The chef costumes weren't just for show!

Junkyard Dogs, Reno '09
This team had only one guy- known by everyone at LeMons HQ as "the crazy German dude"- in costume, but it didn't matter. He made such a powerful impression that we still speak of this Supra-driving outfit as "Team Crazy German Dude."

Knights Of The Round Track, Reno '09
Their MR2 blew up, like, 11 seconds into the race, but the Knights managed to out-nerd the Dungeons & Dragsters team with their outfits. The Holy Hand Grenade hood ornament impressed all of us.

Cajun Jihad, New Orleans '09
Burlap sacks emblazoned with rifle-wielding crayfish, turbans, beards, and toy AK-47s made for one of the best- and admittedly most offensive- 24 Hours Of LeMons themes in history. These guys came in second in People's Curse votes, partly because some super-patriots believed they really were Great Satan-hating terrorists but mostly because they wouldn't stop cranking that damn song on their Mirage's PA system.

Huey Newis And The Lose, Reno '09
Considering that these guys are mostly too young to even remember the 80s, it was quite impressive how they nailed that perhaps-best-forgotten decade with unerring accuracy. Choose Life t-shirts, Members Only jackets, the suitcase with bags of "cocaine" and a 20-pound cellphone. Yes, that dude spent the whole weekend in his tighty whities.

There's been a huge shitstorm of controversy about the Black Widow Crisis on the 24 Hours Of LeMons forums, complete with conspiracy theories (in which yours truly is alleged to have been one of the Black Helicopter pilots involved in the cover-up) and attempts to make the rabble see reason. Of course, the People's Curse is here to stay- it's just too damn much fun- but we're definitely due for a history lesson here. After that, you can take the How Cursed Is My LeMons Car quiz and determine your Curse-O-Meter™ reading.

Now that 13 LeMons races have been run, we figure it's time to show the winners of each event. Since the Index Of Effluency is considered the real top prize of the race, we'll start with the IOE Champeens. Chief Perp Lamm didn't invent the IOE until the third race, which is the reason you're only seeing 11 cars. Detroit really dominates the Index Of Effluency, with five total winners; Germany has three, and Japan, Sweden, and Italy have one apiece:

Team T-shirts have become a LeMons tradition, and we're seeing more and more at every race. Some are clearly designed by graphics pros, while others appear to have been stamped out using carved potatoes as "printing presses" and dirty 90-weight gear oil as "ink."


The teams wear them with pride, give them to their supporters, and swap them for the shirts of other teams.


They also give them to the LeMons Supreme Court Justices in order to lubricate the gears of justice, which is why I have so many in my collection. The Team Puff Puff Pass shirt above (issued by the doobie-enhanced Civic team that won the Yeehaw It's Texas '08 race's Most Redneck Fix trophy) gets a lot of use in my sartorial rotation.


Walker Canada, creator of the ever-popular Driveshaft Through The Skull warning symbol, seems to be well on the way to becoming the Big Daddy Roth of LeMons team T-shirt design. The latest team to commission a genuine Walker design is the Volvo Amazon-driving Tunachuckers, who will be sporting shirts with the design above at the LeMons South Spring event next month. You can buy your own Tunachuckers shirts, which should enable the team to provide better judicial bribes this time around, by going to their eBay auction or the team website.


Here's another pair of Walker Canada designs: the Faster Farms Belvedere team shirt and my own team's shirt. Teams interested in commissioning a Walker Canada shirt design should email me and I'll get you his contact info.


Black flag me car! Steal me nickels! The Rum Runners Chevy Malibu may be slow, but they always finish respectably high in the rankings due to their quality driving. Their current shirt design is a winner, too.


Team Porcubimmer has a logo that really works well on a bilirubin-brown T-shirt, and we're sure neither Intel nor BMW would be at all unhappy over the inspiration provided by their corporate logos.


The SHO transmission-destroyin' members of Team Zip Tie have pulled off the best LeMons Rat Fink-esque shirt yet. Note the accurately depicted SHO (except for the engine orientation) and ziptie tongue piercings on the driver. Yes!

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!

I was walking through the Long Beach ecology looking for an engine for my AE86, and came across this Ford Probe with a rollcage sitting at the edge of the import section. Noticing the rollcage and weight reduction through hatch removal, my roomate says "Hey, doesn't this look like it could be a LeMons car? We looked closer at it, and saw numerous clues that it may possibly be one... including being driven by the Stig?

But it was happening across the patriotic Little Tree hanging off the cage that removed any doubt as to this car's history........


Alt080

Many of these cars are veterans of previous LeMons races; check out the Thunderhill LeMons Über Gallery to see some familiar faces. Plenty of the galleries below contain 20, 30, even 70 photos, not just the three apiece you see on this page; to see an entire gallery for a car, just click on one of the thumbnail images and navigate within the gallery from there. We've done our best to spell team names correctly and to get the makes and models right, but mistakes do happen (and some cars- the #69 taxi comes to mind- just resist identification once they've been LeMon-ized [Never mind, it's a Civic!] ). Thanks to photographers Amy Judd, Zack Spencer, Adrian Smith, Jim Stewart, and the guys from Krider Racing for their camera work. We'll have some action-packed racing video for you in the days to come, so keep checking for more LeMons madness right here!

We masked off the original Volvo blue paint for the vaguely Boss 302-influenced stripes and shot the rest of the car with black rattle-can paint.


Thanks to AFX Digital, we got some nice decals for the car, including these BØSS 3Ö2 emblems.


The car came with "Happiness Is A Scruffy Dog" license plate frames (front and rear), so we decided to keep the front one on the bumper.


And here's the car in action. I'll post a gallery of the Black Metal V8olvo in all its battle-scarred glory soon, very soon. That car brushed off some ludicrously hard hits that would have put flimsier machines out of the race for good, and it shows it.