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We were all shocked by the Honda CBR900RR-powered Geo Metro that won the 24 Hours Of LeMons , nearly as much as we were shocked by the fact that its scary-ass chain drive didn't kill anyone. Now LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman has found a great in-car video made by the maniacs that took the checkered flag in the Metro Gnome. It's got echo-y flashbacks, 9,000 RPM upshifts, and- repeatedly- the sight those of us at Thunderhill saw all weekend: the little red Metro somehow avoiding chain failure and/or getting squashed like a bug by a Crown Vic… and passing everything on the track. Here t'is:
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LeMons racers really need to be ready for the unpredictable to take place on the track; sometimes you'll whack into the wall , sometimes you'll blow up , and sometimes other drivers will make apparently unwise decisions. Here we see a nicely edited video, put together from in-car footage shot in the Pandamonium Racing BMW during the 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza race last weekend. We see some drivers who have Chicane Perception Disorder, an extremely ill-considered track reentry by an off-roading Mustang, the Unsafe At Any Speed Chevy Corvair showing some funky handling characteristics, and much more. The Pandamonium driver's shouted comments on the action really add comedic value here. When you're done here, be sure to check out LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman's 20 Coolest Cars Of The Arse Freeze list. Thanks to Adam of Pandamonium Racing for sending this in!
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LeMons racers really need to be ready for the unpredictable to take place on the track; sometimes you'll whack into the wall , sometimes you'll blow up , and sometimes other drivers will make apparently unwise decisions. Here we see a nicely edited video, put together from in-car footage shot in the Pandamonium Racing BMW during the 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza race last weekend. We see some drivers who have Chicane Perception Disorder, an extremely ill-considered track reentry by an off-roading Mustang, the Unsafe At Any Speed Chevy Corvair showing some funky handling characteristics, and much more. The Pandamonium driver's shouted comments on the action really add comedic value here. When you're done here, be sure to check out LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman's 20 Coolest Cars Of The Arse Freeze list. Thanks to Adam of Pandamonium Racing for sending this in!
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LeMons racers really need to be ready for the unpredictable to take place on the track; sometimes you'll whack into the wall , sometimes you'll blow up , and sometimes other drivers will make apparently unwise decisions. Here we see a nicely edited video, put together from in-car footage shot in the Pandamonium Racing BMW during the 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza race last weekend. We see some drivers who have Chicane Perception Disorder, an extremely ill-considered track reentry by an off-roading Mustang, the Unsafe At Any Speed Chevy Corvair showing some funky handling characteristics, and much more. The Pandamonium driver's shouted comments on the action really add comedic value here. When you're done here, be sure to check out LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman's 20 Coolest Cars Of The Arse Freeze list. Thanks to Adam of Pandamonium Racing for sending this in!
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Most racers see a blown head gasket as a huge setback, but not Tony, Tony, Tony, and Tony from the Italian Stallions Fiat X1/9 race team. They know it's time to fix it again! I predicted that the Stallions would finish just 27 laps before the race, though I was hoping they'd do better. Come on , I thought, it's an X1/9! As it turned out, the Stallions managed to knock off 260 laps at Thunderhill- nearly ten times my guess. Not only that, they turned a best lap time of 1:39.258, which is down in BMW E30 and Acura Integra territory. Of course, it is a Fiat, so the team members probably knew they wouldn't be kicking back in a nice warm motel room and swapping race stories on Saturday night. Hey, why is the engine running so hot? Turns out that some sort of cooling-system drain valve on the engine let go late on Saturday, which resulted in overheating and a blown head gasket. Hey, no problem! Here's Tony removing the cylinder head, no doubt enjoying the bracing effects of...
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Though the cars themselves must cost less than $500, the cost of the required safety equipment pushes the build cost of a typical LeMons car well above two grand. That stuff is worth every penny! Here we see the Timmy's Kids '81 Audi 4000 getting into big trouble down Thunderhill's long straight and bashing into the concrete barrier. The driver was totally OK, thanks to his 5-point harness, helmet, and cage (as were the drivers of the Plymouth Belvedere , Yugo GV , and Chevy Cavalier that flipped during the race). Here's the aftermath, courtesy of Mad Science 's camera. Thanks to Patrick of Huey Newis And The Lose for the video!
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The 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza had chills and spills , with an all-time high number of entries on the track. Here's the complete roster of participants, ranked by lap totals. 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...
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At every 24 Hours Of LeMons race, the teams vote on the car they'd like to see destroyed… and they get their wish! This time it was the manual-trans-equipped Crown Vic of Blues Brothers Racing. The Curse was a really tough call this time; sometimes a team really stands out for its overly aggressive driving (e.g., Salazar Racing at LeMons South ), and other times the perception of budgetary cheating dooms a team's car (e.g., the Bum Steers Miata at LeMons Texas ), but this time things weren't so black-and-white. I wasn't on judicial duty when the Blues Brothers' Crown Vic went through the BS Inspection, so I don't know how the team explained away that manual transmission (which is a tough conversion ), and the engine power seemed orders of magnitude beyond what the other Police Interceptors on the track were managing. Maybe they were completely legit, or maybe they were doing some Smokey Yunick-grade cheating, but it's the mob's perception that counts here...
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The People's Choice award at the 24 Hours Of LeMons goes to the team that best embodies the spirit of the event, and the crop of contenders at the Arse Freeze-A-Palooza was the best yet. Chief Perpetrator Lamm determines the People's Choice winner by wandering the pits and seeking the opinions of the rabble (in the old days, the rabble had a chance to vote directly, but that turned out to be too much hassle). There were several really strong contenders, including the Family Truckster Pinto. The Faster Farms Chickens team was also considered a People's Choice powerhouse, but they ended up taking the equally coveted Dangerous Banned Technology trophy for their bowling-ball-actuated ironing-board wing . And, of course, you've got to include the mighty Porcubimmer on the People's Choice short list. Pricks outside! But it's hard to argue with a team that builds a 400-pound particle-board steam locomotive that towers eight feet above their Mustang, so in the end it was...
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As serious LeMons addicts know, the team that gets the Index Of Effluency award- which goes to the team that accomplishes the most with the crappiest car- is considered the real winner of the race. Yes, yes, we know that this team wasn't even in the Index Of Effluency You Guess The Laps Pool , but their performance at the 2008 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza was nothing short of miraculous . This is the team that rolled their B210 into a ball at the 2007 Arse Freeze-A-Palooza , going end-over-end what seemed like about 50 times and convincing Chief Perp Jay Lamm that perhaps night racing with $500 cars at an unlighted track wasn't such a great idea after all. As you can see in LeMons Supreme Court Justice Loverman's photo above, the results weren't pretty. After they dragged the Datsun's carcass back to the B210 Racing pit, the team found a butter knife sitting on top of the alternator. How? Why? Weirdest damn thing. So, of course they had to use that knife...
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Toilet plunger differential grease seal and all, the Metro Gnome CBR900RR-powered Geo has won the 2008 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza! Many said it could never happen, and others said they couldn't be legit, but the 900cc Metro Gnome proved them all wrong and/or pumped up the conspiracy theories to higher levels. The internet connection speed here reminds me of one of those circa-1976 300 baud handset-cradle modems, so you'll have to wait until I get back to civilization for the in-depth coverage of what transpired over the weekend. For now: Congratulations, Team Metro Gnome!
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We're in the final hour of racing here at Thunderhill, and we can't say who the favorite is at this point. What we can tell you is that oil-coated VWs burn really well. Here's the scene under the hood of the Squirrels Of Fury car. Oh sure, you've seen LeMons cars with holes in the engine block before, but the Squirrels take it to a new level... Yes, that's a flashlight shining all the way through the block. The car had been leaking oil for quite a while, so the engine compartment and underside were thoroughly coated. When Mr. Connecting Rod finally decided he'd had enough, the resulting blast of hot flying metal and combustion gases set the oil alight. Many thanks to Zandr Milewski of Team Dead Smurfs for the unspeakably amazing burning-VW photographs! galleryPost('LT08BurningScirocco', 8, 'Squirrels Of Fury Scirocco Has Serious Overheating Problem');
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We've been following the exploits of the Faster Farms Plymouth Belvedere LeMons car - which was driven to the race - and now there's another chapter in the Legend Of The Chickenmobile. 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...
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We were all pretty excited when a genuine, Marshal Tito-grade Yugo showed up to the track on Friday night and a crew started putting a cage in it right there in the parking lot. Hooray! We've always wanted to see a Yugo in a 24 Hours Of LeMons race, and here it was happening before our eyes. Unfortunately, the amount of time we got to spend enjoying the sight of a fine Balkan machine duking it out with Mazdas and BMWs was extremely short; it didn't take long before the Yugo got a little bit wiggly in turn 4, got clipped by another car, and rolled over a few times. The driver was unhurt- we were all holding our breath until we saw him clamber out, what with that somewhat iffy Zastava build quality and all- but the car didn't fare so well. And yes, the top of this Yugo wasn't very shiny... but when you see the opportunity to use CB radio slang in a headline, you take it. Once again, thanks to Mad Science Senior and Mad Science for the photos. galleryPost('LTH08YugoWreck'...
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You're probably checking the calendar to make sure it's not April 1st, after seeing that headline. Really- as of last night, the Cape Coventry TR7 is the current 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza leader! However, you Triumph fans shouldn't get too worked up, because even by TR7 standards... well, this car isn't in such great shape. In fact, it's in such rough shape that LeMons Chief Justice Loverman decided to give it 50 bonus laps, and when you add the 100 laps it actually finished today, it's winning! Of course, it will take a miracle tomorrow for Cape Coventry to keep that lead, but owners of British Leyland products need to believe in miracles! Full standings below: galleryPost('LTH08SatLeaders', 3, 'Lap Leaders For Day One At Thunderhill'); Yes, the Black Metal V8olvo is sitting down pretty low in the rankings, and I'm the one to blame for that; I had a case of brain-fade after getting a black flag and mistook the road to the closed...
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