Hilarious Penalties for 24 Hours Racing

It was my first time to a 24 Hours of LeMons race. As soon as I could see the track, I knew I wanted to do this. How else can you race all day for so little money?  With a set of not-so-serious sounding racing rules we told you about in a another post, there were some very serious safety rules in place at the track. Off-track excursions or spins were subject to penalties and that’s where the 24 Hours of LeMons style fun started. (click the picture to read)

The penalties for a track infraction are wide reaching.  For the worst kinds of repeated offenses, including total disdain for judges, there were simple time penalties, but with a bribe here or there (of course bribes are legal!) you could get off with a written penalties like the ones above.  I won’t guess the political affiliation of “Chief Perpetrator” Jay Lamm.

So what other kinds of penalties did I see? The top photo shows the tires of one team in the stands so they could, “watch and learn how to race.”  Too funny! The car was on jack stands not far away.

For the rest of the penalties, I grabbed some video.  First up is the “Ride the Whip” penalty.

Team Mohawk and their Dodge Neon enjoyed this ride.  The lady drivers got into it! Here’s how it started:

Next is the “Cultural Revolution” penalty imposed by one of the judges and Jalopnik writer/editor Phil Greden. Phil explains how Mao thought his people were “insufficiently revolutionary” and needed a cultural revolution.  “All hail the great helmsman!”

Finally, you’re treated to the Marcel Marceau (yea the French mime) penalty. Here you’ll see Jay explaining why it’s not OK to spin on the track or to drive in a race with one arm out the window. This is the “B Team” BMW we mentioned in the 24 Hours of LeMons driver’s story.

It was fantastic to see all the drivers and judges having a great time. There was no ill tempers and no excessive pride getting in the way. Maybe it’s cause there’s only $1500 at stake or maybe as one racer told me, “This is our time to not think about our real lives.”

Everyone needs that.

What car are you driving in the next 24 Hours of LeMons? I can’t wait to see it!

Only $500 for 24 Hours of Fun Racing

I wrote about the 24 Hours of LeMons (yea, I spelled that right) in another blog about the “Strict Racing Rules”. I expected some easy going people out to have a great time. I found’m!

It took the “Eyesore Racing” shown above 6 months of weekends to put their 94 Mazda Miata together. The car, built for $500 or less by the rules, was made from 2 Miatas practically welded together in the middle. One car had front end damage and no motor and the other had been carefully wrapped around a tree with the front end intact. The engine, including the small rusty-wheeled turbo from a Mexico only Dodge pickup, was resurrected from 4 engines. Where would 24 Hours of LeMons racing be without Craigslist!

The team consists of neighbors and friends making up 4 sets of couples out of Long Beach, CA. In the Phoenix race, their 9th race,  6 of the 8 team members drive including “March Hare” Dave, “Tweedle Dee” Jay, “Tweedle Dum” Dan, “Alice” Sara and “White Rabbit” Sarah and my man, the “Mad Hatter” Kyle who helped with the details for this story. “Queen of Hearts” Caro and “Cheshire Cat” Kurt round out the team.

The combination’s working because team Eyesore won the Phoenix race and became the first every 2 time winner of 24 Hours of LeMons. They won at the Reno-Fernley race, according to this Jalopnik story,  where they were all dressed like Elvis.

Don’t think they were the only team out having fun though… Let me introduce Team “Off Consistently”

I asked Tyler Irwin, what’s with that name?  Duh… nobody beats off consistently!

This 1985 300ZX cruised in from San Diego, CA and is another Craigslist purchase.  Tyler told me it came up on for $300, not running, and they picked it up for $200. They Finished 3rd.

I also found the “B Team”. Swanee and I couldn’t figure out what the black strip running down the roof was until we found their pits. It’s a Mohawk for the B (not A) team BMW. They finished 10th.

Dig team, “Lemon Martini”. Their 1990 Honda CRX. Money’s split between 17 and 20, but they finished 7th in Phoenix.

To show the real spirit of racing, fun that is, I’ll include this last picture.

The “Sac Indicator” tells it all.

Wrapping things up, here’s a video that shows most of the cars competing. Don’t hate the big 4 door Olds 98 you see cruise by. They took 5th!

MyRideisMe.com will be trying it’s hardest to enter this race next year.  Who’s with me?!

Fresh LeMons with ahhh… Strict Rules – For FUN!

Call them “lemons” or piles of crap or simply junk. Still, can you argue these guys are having fun racing them!?

I first heard about the Concours d’LeMons and took note because it was part of the super prestigious and maybe super “snobby” Monterey Concours Week including the world famous Concours d’Elegance. Dating back to 1950, we can’t hate on the big-daddy of Concours Week in Pebble Beach because they now include class “U” Hot Rods: Lakesters and Bonneville Racers. Gotta hit that show one of these days!

The 24 Hours of LeMons, an obvious play on the 24 Hours of LeMans, the worlds oldest endurance sports car race, the “Lemons” used in this race are cars worth not more than $500.  More than anything I’m wondering, what kind of cars get entered and when can I see this first hand?  Turns out, I’ll show you the cars here and see’m first hand in Phoenix at the kickoff event for the LeMons series at Firebird Raceway.

Dubbed the Auction-Weekend Gavel-Tap GP in honor of the slew of high dollar auction that are part of Arizona’s Auction Week, the race is held on the 1.1 mile west course at Firebird. The gates open early Friday, January 22nd for tech inspection, then race session 1 starts Saturday at 10AM continuing with session II at 9AM on Sunday.

If you’re thinking, “So what, junk cars racing, I see that on my drive to Maricopa every day.” then you should have a look at some of the rules and how they’re written. If the racing environment is even near as fun as the rules, this is a must see.

First off, it costs $500 to enter and $100 per racer.  Not too bad if you’re in the race for a 3 days for a little over a grand. But what’s that get you?  The usual things, plus, “sweatshop-made commemorative crap, and anything else we come up with by then.” That sounds worth it…

Continuing down the rules, I was curious how they figure out the $500. What’s that include and not include? In straight forward Enlgish rule 4.1.1 explains:

Lame-Ass Rationalizations: Cars that “should be” worth $500 don’t count; cars that “were worth $500″ before you spent another $2000 to fix them don’t count; cars you’ve owned for 20 years and spent more than $500 on during that time don’t count; “it would have been worth $500 if it didn’t already have a cage” doesn’t count. Five hundred dollars means five hundred frickin’ dollars.

To keep things safe, quite a few safety items are exempt from the $500. That includes Wheels, tires, wheel bearings, and brake components, so that helps, but from the pictures, it doesn’t look like folks are spending alot on high performance wheels.

Just in case any questions come up or a team is just over the limit, the rules include a “BS Factor”.  At the end of the day, teams are trying to win by finishing the most laps, same as most endurance races. So the BS Factor penalizes 1 lap for every $10 over the $500 race car limit. The BS Factor panel of judges run a tight ship and as for appeals, “Get real. There’s no appealing this decision. You’re boned.”  You gotta go read the rules where you’ll also these fun rules:

• 2.4: Whiner Eligibility.
  • “Whiners are not eligible to compete. If you believe that you might be a whiner, please check with a domestic partner, guardian, or health-care professional before getting the rest of your team kicked the hell out of the race.”
• 6.1: Individual Lousy-Driving Rule
• 6.2: Team Lousy-Driving Rule
• 6.3: Why Am I Upside-Down?
• 6.4: Touching a Temporary Barrier
  • “An automatic Lousy Driving Offense With Extreme Prejudice. (You don’t even want to know what that means.)”

See!!??

The final couple rules keeping things honest is the “Claiming Rule” (self explanatory) and rule 1.6: Your Car May Be Destroyed at Any Time.  Through a blind ballot of all teams, one car is selected to be immediately and completely destroyed, right there at the track!

Who knows why you’ll get picked but as the rules clearly state: “It could be your car. It probably WILL BE your car. You’ll have 30 minutes to yank out any safety items you want to rescue, and then it’s toast. Them’s the breaks. Don’t bring it if you ain’t OK with losing it.”

For the $20/day or $30/weekend general-access paddock passes, this sounds like fun on wheels like we haven’t seen since your church’s demolition derby.  Can you make it? See ya there!