When you bring a 40-year-old air-cooled Volkswagen to a LeMons race, you expect to finish way, waaaay down in the standings. When your Type 3 Fastback pulls off a 39th-place (out of 123) finish, you get the Index of Effluency!
Nobody thought a Volkswagen would ever win, just as nobody believed it possible for a Nissan Z, Taurus SHO, or Saab to win. Today is Mitsubishi's day of improbable triumph!
Remember the Mid-Drive Crisis Mitsubishi Mirage? They all laughed when it entered the track! Well, nobody is laughing now, because the innovative Mitsu with the mid-mounted driver's seat now sits at the top of the Yeehaw It's Texas LeMons standings!
I'm too busy to take many photos during a LeMons BS Inspection— the gauntlet through which all entrants must pass in order to prove that they stayed within the $500 budget— when we have 120+ cars. Timelapse video time!
We're back at MSR Houston once again, and the LeMons Supreme Court sweated its way through a super-swampy hot day in Texas. Lots of Taurus SHOs, lots of BMW E36s, a couple of Mustang IIs, and much more!
When your rings go bad and crankcase pressure starts a-buildin' up, you'll get oil a-gushin' out of any escape it can find: dipstick tube, filler cap, wherever. Cars dumping oil on a race track get in trouble. What to do?
We've been led to believe that the driver's seat on street cars should be one side or the other, but why? Team Mid-Drive Crisis converted their LeMons Mirage to mid-drive, and we can see that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
We saw a record four rollovers in last weekend's 24 Hours Of LeMons Texas, and the rollover parade started about five minutes after the green flag. Here we see what happens when an Escort ZX2 gets shoved into a Gremlin.
The third race of the '10 LeMons season took place at MSR Houston last weekend, and we witnessed an impossible Taurus SHO victory, four rollovers, two MGBs, and our first Renault Le Car racer.
We've learned that any Nissan Z makes an utterly terrible 24 Hours of LeMons car, but a super-rusty, duct-taped-together 240Z?
First a Saab takes the overall LeMons win, then a Ford Taurus SHO wins the very next race? What's next, an Eldorado?
E30s? Miatas? Supras? Forget 'em! With Day One of the '10 Gator-O-Rama LeMons in the books, the standings are dominated by a group of cars that brings tears of joy to our eyes!
We spent the day watching the Crewe Le Pew Renault Le Car buzzing around the track. No black flags, no mechanical problems. Sure, it was incredibly slow, but it had the look of a survivor. Then: disaster!
We see this all the time during the BS Inspection: team can't get their shit together to finish their LeMons racer in time, so they bring their "real" race car and ask to be allowed to drive it.
The race started two hours ago, and I've been so busy dispensing Texas-style justice that I've only now had a chance to break out the computer for a quick update.
With 120, or 140, or whatever the number of entries at the 2010 Gator-O-Rama 24 Hours of LeMons, we're totally beat. Here's a gallery of what we saw today.
We've seen the future of LeMons racing, but it seems only right that we wrap up 2009 with a look at the champions of the past season of 24 Hours Of LeMons events.
The Organizer's Choice (formerly People's Choice) trophy goes to the team that, in the eyes of the Chief Perp, really gets the point of the 24 Hours Of LeMons.
Even though we tend to emphasize the Index Of Effluency winners, the team that takes the overall win at a LeMons race has accomplished the nearly impossible: keeping a $500 car running all weekend and avoiding penalties.
As we keep trying to make clear, the Index Of Effluency is the top prize, the pinnacle of all LeMons awards.