We're going to sort the teams by car number; everyone who managed to get a car out on the track should be here. We've tried to provide links to team-supplied images and video whenever possible. Enjoy!

Xargs sent in some "before" photos of the car- does that look like a dominating race car?


It turns out that a torquey V6 and front-wheel drive do pretty well at the racetrack; this car was contending at Altamont, too, but a tractor tire-versus-oil pan conflict knocked it out of the running at that race. Team Two Wheels Too Many relocated the radiator to the rear of the car, but otherwise it's pretty close to stock.

There were really great $500 cars everywhere, and just about any of them could make it 500 kilometers. So I just figured a 24-hour race on a track was the next level of difficulty.

In retrospect, adding the racetrack and the 24-hour duration was my way of guaranteeing that you'd have more of those panicky, hilarious mechanical crises that make vintage rallies and vintage racing so much fun. (You know, fun for the other people who are watching you suffer....)

Loverman: What took you so long to think it up?
Jay Lamm: The waitress was slow with the refills.

Loverman: I didn't read your answer to the first question. Where did the $500 limit come from? Like why not $250, or $1,000? Or $5,000?
Jay Lamm: It just seemed like the right number, really. Martin was originally lobbying for $1000 before the first Double 500, but I really felt that would be way too easy, which it basically turned out to be. And I kept thinking back to my $500 Porsche 928S, which was the greatest $500 car of all time. (If I still had that thing I would've RULED Thunderhill.)

Loverman: You pay the $1,500 prize money in nickels. Care to explain that?
Jay Lamm: Well, I didn't want people taking this thing too seriously, and I definitely didn't want anyone there who thought they could come out and make their investment back. If you care that much, you're definitely in the wrong race. It's actually $3000 in nickels, since first place wins $1500, People's Choice gets a grand, and Organizer's Choice gets $500. Brilliant me, it failed to occur to me that this gag meant I'd have to get 1200 pounds of nickels out of the bank every time and haul them all the damn way to the track. I actually blew the struts out of my Volvo wagon moving them around at the last Altamont race.

Loverman: Can you compare and contrast the early race(s) to the Thunderhill event? Are the races improving? Trends you like/dislike?
Jay Lamm: The early races were just knuckledusters, really. I swear—and it's incredible now to even say it—but before the first race it just NEVER EVEN OCCURRED TO ME that I ought to stand up beforehand and tell the drivers, the corners workers, and the flaggers what I wanted to see in terms of contact and black flags and general behavior. In general, as I've learned how to express and enforce my desire for clean racing, the races themselves have gotten better. The last Altamont event was an exception, though—there was way, way more bumping and shortcutting than I wanted to see—so Dan Radowicz, whose LeMons' chief steward, and I went back to the drawing board and developed some new rules, new penalties, and a new drill for the driver's meeting to combat that. I think it worked really well at Thunderhill, so I'd say the positive trend is really back in force now.

Loverman: What's your favorite all time LeMons race? Your least favorite?
Jay Lamm: My favorite so far has to be the Detroit '07 race. It was a straight 24 hours, and we'd never done one outside California before that. Those seemed like two really big challenges going in, and the fact that it all came together made me totally smug at the end—even though it was really the ARCA guys working at Flat Rock Speedway who made it all come together. I would've ended up flat on my butt without them—they were really, really good. Which, now that I think of it, is probably another big reason I liked that one so much.

Anyway, my least favorite was definitely the last October '07 Altamont race. I stupidly let the bumper-car guys get out of hand at the start, and then we all had to fight the whole rest of the weekend just to keep trying to rein it back in. That was a total frickin' drag.

Loverman: Please explain the People's Curse. The Mazdasaurus Wrecks guys seemed pretty upset — do some Cursed teams take it better than others? At the Altamont race, the People's Curse — a 7-Series that you penalized 3,000 laps — got crushed but was still able to get back on the track. This time out, the engine was ripped out of the Mazdasaurus and destroyed. Why the discrepancy?
Jay Lamm: Every team gets one ballot at the start of the race, and on it they can nominate their favorite car (the People's Choice) and their most hated car (the People's Curse). The Curse was intended to keep awful behavior, and/or blatant cheating, in check, since it's a way for the other teams to all police one particularly egregious offender. As it turns out, we've only had one or two recipients who I thought really deserved it. The rest just got caught up in bad luck or sort of a mob mentality. Interestingly, the guys that I think really didn't deserve it—the BMW 7-series leaps to mind, and the Car & Driver Oldsmobile, and the Rubber Biscuit Impala at Flat Rock—have all taken it incredibly well.

We try to beat the car to just this side of destruction, really, because in those cases I really wanted to see them get back on the track after a suitable amount of humbling repairs had been done. In the last race at Thunderhill, it just sort of happened that the guy operating the excavator was also driving on one of the teams, and the car that got the Curse had just punted him out on the track a few times. He wasn't in much of a mood to be gentle, and I can't say I felt very bad about that. I really like the guys who were driving that Mazda, and they're all really talented, experienced racers in much bigger venues than this one, but they definitely pushed all the other teams' buttons. I thought it was probably appropriate that their car wound up 16 inches tall this time.

Loverman: Why do you black flag teams? Is it purely subjective? Lots of teams seemed to be griping that they were in fact hit and then penalized for the aftermath. Not that I trust 'em, but most busted teams had the same story.
Jay Lamm: It's amazing. We've got about 120 years' worth of combined professional flagging and race-operation experience watching the track at any given moment. They're all in constant radio communication, and they're always comparing observations from different angles, double-checking race numbers, cooperatively deciding who's really screwing the pooch and who's basically doing okay.... And yet we always, without fail, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME, end up black-flagging the wrong guy. I really can't understand it.

Loverman: Yeah, well, keep trying. You'll get it right one day. Anyhow, what does the future hold for the 24 Hours of LeMons?
Jay Lamm: Lots of pissed-off French attorneys, I'm thinking.

Loverman: You're the editor of Sports Car International. Could you please share with our readers the contents of your personal garage? Also, are you involved with the California Mille? or do you just have a really cool blue jacket?
Jay Lamm: No, I USED to be the editor of Sports Car International, back in the '90s. I've also been editor at various times of Vintage Motorsport, Corvette Magazine, and a few other titles. Now I have my own company, DriversDoor Inc., that produces cover-to-cover books and magazines for outside clients who don't want to run their own editorial staffs. Which, when I look at the poeple we've got working here, I can totally understand.

My personal garage, which is unfortunately also my living room, currently has a '71 Alfa GTV racecar in it, which sounds really boss until you realize that the entire exterior is painted in green Hammerite and that the brakes haven't been re-connected ever since I welded new floors into it 17 months ago. I also have a really nice '73 240Z in here that I love, despite being a nose-heavy sow. (The Datsun, that is. I'm more of a gut-heavy swine.) There's a gorgeous '58 MGA in here too, but that belongs to my friend Johnathan. His wife made him move out to the garage—I'm not making this up—so he needed a new place to store it. Outside I've got an old Miata and an '01 Volvo T5 wagon that's totally covered in dog hair, plus an execreble Airstream camper and, someplace, a couple of LeMons racecars. (There's a Porsche I'm pretty sure I could find if I had to, but my Celica GTS might as well be orbiting Pluto.) Ummm...there's probably a couple more, but that's all I can remember.

My involvement with the California Mille just extends to driving in it. I agree that my blue jacket is really cool, but then again it should be—it cost me $2400, ie half the entry fee for a '51 Alfa 1900. Which, I might add, took a giant dump a day-and-a-half into the rally. (What are the chances?)

Loverman:Writers from both Jalopnik and Autoblog will most likely have cars entered into the may race at Altamont. Who will you be would you place money on, and why?
Jay Lamm: If we keep getting this much good coverage on Jalopnik, definitely your car. If not, I'd have to predict a rousing come-from-behind win for Autoblog. Call it a gut feeling.

[Want even more information about the righteous 24 Hours of LeMons? Check out their website]

Here's some race footage with a rear-facing camera. Yes, we know, the '65 Mustang doesn't handle quite as well as the other cars on the track... but just listen to it!
And now some nighttime action, this time with the camera facing forward. With temperatures in the 30s (and no glass other than the windshield) and no track lighting, this was definitely a challenging night for a driver trying to control a rattly 60s Detroit chariot.

We never would have considered the Mazda Protege a likely candidate to win the 24 Hours of LeMons, but Team Red Meat and Poontang showed us that a near-stock '99 can do the trick. The problem is finding a running late-90s example for under $500; Red Meat and Poontang did it by finding one with horrendous body damage, but it's not an easy task. However, it can be done; here's a '97 that can probably be had for well below the $500 asking price (go here if the ad disappears). It's got an automatic, which isn't ideal for racing, but maybe you could sell the transmission for enough money to buy a junkyard 5-speed. It lacks a hood, but who cares? Brakes... well, you'll probably want to fix those before you go racing. The hell part is going to come in when you realize you have like $9 to spend on upgrading anything- put in the cage, gut it, and go racing- hope it doesn't break!

The Neon is a strange car- on the one hand, it's a shoddy piece of throwaway Detroit junk, and on the other it's a potential race machine that can really tear up a track. That's great news for us, because the first part means you can afford the second part! The autocross-friendly ACR Neon is the one to bring to a LeMons race, but who can afford one? It's your lucky day- we've found this '96 Neon ACR (go here if the ad disappears) for just $250. Not only that, it comes with two engines, including a DOHC R/T unit! No word on whether either or both of them run, but you won't care once you see the swaybars (which may or may not be big aftermarket units) and Booger shifter bushings; if you don't believe you're getting genuine Boogers, just check the blurry photographs... hmmm, maybe the fact that the seller thinks the shifter bushings are the most important feature of the car tells us something about the deal.

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Receiving the coveted I Got Screwed trophy is that dice-throwing bunch from Las Vegas...


Team Sin City Lemons! The 302 in this LeMons-veteran LTD Crown Victoria threw a rod, like, 17 seconds into the race; team members then made a deal with a not-so-nearby auto-parts store for a rebuilt long block of complicated heritage and thrashed like crazy for hour after grueling hour... only to find that the unobtainable-on-Sunday harmonic balancer was cracked. They'll be back, though, and we'll give you a jackpot of photos of their efforts very soon.


There's not much suspense surrounding the Heroic Fix trophy- we all knew it would be placed in the bleeding paws of...


Team Dirty Drifters, whose Corolla's engine got all rod-knocky during practice the night before the race. Not letting this little setback stop them, they drove 350 miles round-trip to pick up a junkyard 3TC, then spun wrenches all night in rainy 37-degree weather. Race-day morning, the engine was in and running, and the team went on to finish in the #20 spot.


The No Prayer of Finishing trophy went to those rotary-powered guys from Michigan...


...Team PBRD/Car and Driver! Even though they were in the No Prayer of Finishing class, Team PBRD came in 6th overall! While the RX-7s did much better at Thunderhill than they did at Altamont, it's no picnic getting one to hold together for a race this grueling.


If your car looks like it has a shot at contending, it gets put in the Prayer of Winning class. This time around, that prize goes to the team that ended up winning it all:


Team Red Meat and Poontang, who piloted their damn-near-stock '99 Protege to victory. And that's all for now- keep checking in and you'll see more of these fine automobiles and the hoons steely-eyed racers who run them!

We'll have in-depth coverage of many of these vehicles in the days to come; for now, we'll just provide the occasional note and/or hyperlink the names of those teams we've covered already.

As far as the flipped MR2 goes, I think my favorite part was when the announcer came over the PA and said, "We have the driver on the radio. He's not smart but he is fine." Jalopnik hearts LeMons.

You're damn right it's the boss. And check out that choice roof rack. Hauling weather stripping back from the Home Depot has never been so classy.

Without question the most important part of any Malaise Era Cadillac station wagon is the third row ashtray for the seats that face backwards. You know, so the kids can smoke.

Jay was very happy about the civility of the Thunderhill LeMons. This is opposed to the Altamont LeMons which he described as a "Bloodbath." The biggest keys, besides the much longer Thunderhill track? Removing the nerf bars and judiciously enforcing the black flags. As he was explaining this to us, we all looked up and saw Team Turd's Celica-Supra spin out (for the 900th time) and nearly cause a pile up on the backside of the hill. "Oh," Jay began. "They're done." All we have to say is thank you Mr Lamm, thank you.

These guys were were ripping anything and everything of any value at all (like the seat) out of their doomed car. Drained all the gasoline, too.

$500 down the tubes.

Joining the #04 Volvo is the #99 Alfa Ecurie Ecrappe with a 1/2 hour penalty for hitting the tires. Our buddies in the #38 Nissan SE-R also got half an hour (and almost lost the right side of the car) for hitting the tires. The blue and orange #39 Volvo 242 is out for we're not sure how long. Why? Constantly spinning in circles. The #71 Ford SHO got an hour and a half for smashing into the green Neon. And we're not sure what they did, but the #666 Honda Civic is having itself a little timeout, too. The #98 BMW 5-Series got nailed for honking at, flipping off and then passing a civilian WRX in the pits. D'ohoser!

Also running hard is last night's leader, Red Meat and Poontang! Godspeed, brothers. The 1965 Mercedes-Benz 190 is still going strong, and the hoodless 280Z is back out there as well. We spoke briefly with the head Z wrench and he said that the pile up last night broke the rotor in the distributor. They would have been back out last night if not for that. Oh, and there is a green Dodge Neon that just passed the Rockford Pile. We must investigate.

They managed to pick up five very thrashed 280Zs and 280ZXs for $500, including one that had already been used as a race car and had a cage ready to go.


So they built a universal electrical control panel that they can just switch- along with the cage- between cars as they destroy them. Smart!


Then there was a little mishap involving a Neon, the upshot of which was one Neon with the trunklid bashed into the rear seat area and one Z with the front end completely destroyed. Radiator, water pump- all of it crushed. Good thing they brought along a bunch of spares from the other four cars!


The fenders and hood won't be on the car for today's race, ensuring an extra-mean appearance.

Adrian hearts the Dirty Drifters' merchandise. And hey, who wouldn't?

Murilee hard at work in the Scotty. In the back is Jack Astro of Project Car Hell theme song fame. He's from Alameda, too.

Why would he not conitnue???

The car is *still* in better shape than some of the others were, at the start of the race!

All the tires appear to hold air, none of the wheels are horribly outta whack, at least it's not obvious... You gotta figure anything which was loose inside has been shaken out, so, if anything, it'll be lighter and ever faster than before!!! So a top speed of maybe, what, 37 MPH?

I ran into the driver who rolled the B210. Apparently, the wheels are designed to handle 185 tires. However, they were running 225s. That said, he thinks the right rear wheel may have cracked. He felt the B210 shudder, tried to correct once or twice and the next thing he knew the is driver's side door pointing at the sky. Did he roll it? He thinks so, once or twice. Long story short, this Datsun is done for the weekend. As you can see, it has health problems. The SE-R team told me it was a good thing the Datsun wrecked when it did, because if the red flag hadn't gone up, they would have lost that front wheel. Once the flag came out, they were able to limp into the pits. Post script — the engine will be pulled and stuck into their next car. We love these guys.

Pssst, check out the water squirting up in the lower right corner. No, they didn't know why either.

Bad hoon. This guy spun team Dilligaf's CRX enough times to collect 3, count 'em 3, black flags. He's blaming the mud. Uh huh, sure. And yes Davey, the Rockford Pile Transfiremaro is A-OK.