We gave one cheaty Integra team a choice: take five laps or flip a coin, with heads giving them zero laps and tails resulting in a massive 1,200-lap penalty. They took the coin toss... and got tails! We saw our first-ever LeMons Cressida, our first-ever LeMons 928, and the best LeMons Super Bird ever. More on the Über Bird a bit later; for now, a gallery of BS Inspection photos for you.

As usual, no matter the competition, the Google Street View car's always whipping around the track in the middle of the pack. Of course they're either all going really slow or that heavy duty F-Series is going really fast.

Want to see the track run yourself? Click here.

(Hat tip to Staircar!)

[via Google]

I think this is going to be the last-ever Über Gallery using this format, because the increasing popularity of the race means the number of cars becomes overwhelming when it comes time for me to organize photographs. Don't worry, race fans, I'll come up with some other way of sharing the photos of the action by the time we go to Houston.

I shot some of the photos here myself, but most of what you'll be seeing comes to us courtesy of the Mad_Science family, who converged on Thunderhill from all parts of the state and worked their asses off doing race photography while I tried- and failed- to juggle attempts to help my team, inspect cars, and do the live-event coverage thing. Mad Science Senior's shots may be seen here, while Mad Science's are here. Mad Science's brother, Insane Science, doesn't seem to have a Flickr page, but he was responsible for many of the fine photographs you'll be seeing here.

You'll also want to check out LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman's coverage, particularly his 20 Coolest Cars Of The Arse Freeze-A-Palooza piece, and when you're done there you can head over to Autoblog to peruse the work of LeMons veteran and rabid fan Damon Lavrinc.

And, of course, you'll need to examine the Über Galleries of past LeMons races- preferably on The Man's clock- and they're just a click away: LeMons Yeehaw It's Texas '08, LeMons Detroit-ish '08, LeMons New England '08, LeMons South '08, LeMons San Francisco '08, LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza '07, and LeMons San Francisco '07.

Because of the vast number of entrants at Thunderhill- over 100- the Gawker Server Hamsters would go into convulsions and keel over dead in their little wheels if I tried to put all the galleries in one big post, and then I'd have a bunch of thugs roll up in the Gawker Enforcermobile to break my kneecaps with bumper jacks. We don't want that, so I've broken the ÜG into hamster-friendly sections based on car make; just click on the appropriate image below to jump to the sub-Über Gallery of your choice. Yes, Mopar fans, the Triumphs outnumbered the Chrysler products at this race- you'd better start preparing some Caravelle Turbos and 360-powered Darts for future events!

We had some seriously crazy results this time around, with my Index Of Effluency predictions way, waaaay off the mark. In fact, three of the top five finishers were IOE contenders, and one of them took the checkered flag! Not only that, a TR7, an XJ-s, and an X1/9 each managed to finish more than 250 laps. This race featured the traditional LeMons themes of BMW electrical system malfunctions, connecting rods clanking onto the asphalt, and teams outraged by penalties they totally didn't deserve, plus more than the usual number of upside-down cars. Lap bonuses and penalties assessed during the BS Inspection process played a major role; 98th-place Krider Racing actually racked up the highest number of laps, for example. I'll go into more detail when it's time for the Arse Freeze-A-Palooza Über Gällery, but today it's time to provide fodder for endless bench-racing arguments. You can see the complete results here.
Thanks to Mad Science Senior and Mad Science for many of these photos. When you're done here, be sure to check out the Loverman's LeMons coverage, then head over to Autoblog to view Damon Lavrinc's work. If that's still insufficient LeMons action for you, we've got the Top Lemons Of LeMons posts for previous races, including Texas '08, Toledo '08, New England '08, South '08, San Francisco '08, Arse Freeze '07, and San Francisco '07

Jack Astro, creator of the Project Car Hell Song, was behind the wheel heading into Turn 1, everything looking fine... right up until the moment when a correct-overcorrect-oh shit sequence took place and the car flipped over. It ended up on its wheels and nobody was hurt, so we say that's a happy ending.

Not so happy for Mr. Astro, however, who now proclaims that my off-the-edge-of-the-map excursion was nothing: "Your shame is weak!" But hey, the Belvedere is running fine and will be driving the 120 miles back to the Bay Area tonight (sadly, the "Why Am I On My Roof" LeMons rule means no more racing for the Chickens this weekend), at which point it will resume being the daily driver for one of the team members. Now that's a race car!

In other news, our favorite Chevy Cavalier race car also flipped over (wheel bearing failure, followed by wheel leaving car, followed by upside-down adventures). Again, we're pleased to report that nobody was hurt.

And... the People's Curse just happened. The victim: The Blues Brothers Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, which aroused much skepticism about its budgetary honesty (the manual transmission sure didn't make the right impression, and the fact that it was waaaaaay faster than the other Crown Vics on the track contributed). There was some talk in the pits about aggressive driving on their part, but Chief Perp Lamm disagreed and told the executioner to take it easy on the Crown Vic... which is now back in driving condition after having the doors, trunk, and hood torn off. I'll get a People's Curse gallery up as soon as possible, but for now I need to get back to spotting for teammate WhatWouldJesseDo, who's out there in the V8olvo.

The Acura RL isn't exactly, whatchucall, a natural-born racer. The only 24-hour run we'd imagine the RL on is if grandpa went off his meds and made for Oklahoma thinking he was Cherokee Bill. But Spoon, a Honda motorsports tuner in Japan, saw potential for greatness in the superengineered luxosedan and worked up a version specifically to compete in the longest endurance race in the US, 25 Hours of Thunderhill. Actually, the entry is also a highly sophisticated test mule with which Spoon and Honda will test the RL's powertrain durability. While nearly every other part of the car is refigured for racing, the powertrain is unusually stock. Just like grandpa's.

Spoon Sports Acura RL Endurance Racecar [Edmunds]

Related:
Acura Introduces A-SPEC TSX Concept at SEMA Show [internal]