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First of all, I must make it perfectly clear that all serious 24 Hours Of LeMons aficionados consider the Index Of Effluency trophy, which goes to the team that accomplished the most with the crappiest car, to be the real winner of the race. However, winning that prize requires a combination of guts and madness that no amount of advice could ever give you, so we're just going to give you the inside scoop on grabbing the checkered flag for your team at the race by finishing the most laps. This is the real 200-proof stuff here, folks, straight from Rob Krider of Krider Racing , Jeremy Gunter of Team SCHWING , and David Swig of Motoring J Style . Between the three of them, they've got two wins and at least four Top Five finishes, so pay attention! First up is Rob Krider, whose Krider Racing team won the LeMons SF 2008 race in an Acura Integra and grabbed fifth place at the LeMons Arse-Freeze-Apalooza 2007 race in a Nissan Sentra SE-R. When I was behind the wheel at Altamont, I latched...
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Is it better for a car to go out in a blaze of glory on the racetrack than to die an ignominious death of a thousand minor failures? We can all ponder that question as we study the corpse of the Team Come From Behind Probe, which didn't finish in the top 50 at Altamont but hung in there for most of the race despite some broken parts. Yurikaze found the Probe- roll cage still intact- at the Ecology yard in Long Beach, and was kind enough to share his photos with us. Make the jump to read Yurikaze's description, plus see the entire gallery (and a bonus gallery of the Come From Behind Probe during happier times). Yes, that's the Vanilla Pride Little Tree air freshener I handed out at the race ! galleryPost('DOTJLeMonsProbe', 3, 'Come From Behind Probe Down On The Junkyard'); I was walking through the Long Beach ecology looking for an engine for my AE86, and came across this Ford Probe with a rollcage sitting at the edge of the import section. Noticing the rollcage...
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We got a look at the Top 50 Lemons of the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont on May 10th/11th, but what about the other 40 cars? Some finished just a few laps shy of the Top 50, while others seemed to bring out the yellow flags and tow trucks each time they sputtered onto the track. That's why we're doing the Official Jalopnik Über Gallery, which has a separate gallery for every single car that came to race. Many of these cars are veterans of previous LeMons races; check out the Thunderhill LeMons Über Gallery to see some familiar faces. Plenty of the galleries below contain 20, 30, even 70 photos, not just the three apiece you see on this page; to see an entire gallery for a car, just click on one of the thumbnail images and navigate within the gallery from there. We've done our best to spell team names correctly and to get the makes and models right, but mistakes do happen (and some cars- the #69 taxi comes to mind- just resist identification once they've been LeMon-ized...
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Even though we vowed to crush Team Make:Way's Escort like a drained beercan beneath our hobnailed racing shoes (as the Lord Humungus would say about their car , what a puny plan!), the little slushbox-equipped Escort managed to evade the wrath of Odin and hang on for a respectable 33rd-place finish at the race. They had a scary moment when a front wheel parted company with the vehicle on the track, but for the most part they kept on knocking out lap after lap. Good work, Make:Way, and next time we hope to see some junkyard turbocharging on that thing! [MakeWayRacing.com] galleryPost('LemonsAlt88', 9, 'Team MakeWay At 24 Hours of Lemons');
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We've seen the cars that finished the race , but what about the ones that spent more time in the pits than on the track? Our pit space was sandwiched between a couple of never-say-die teams: the Snowspeeder Pilots Association, whose MR2's engine ate its rod bearings, and Team SSPP22, whose Volvo 780 Bertone broke its steering rack as an appetizer and damn near everything else for the main course. Then there was the Wedginator , which was pushed or dragged off the track more often than British Leyland workers went on strike, and the Car & Driver Fiero, which held the dubious title of Fewest Laps Completed, thanks to clutch-related maladies. Heroes, all of them! Let's take a look at some of the repairs we caught on film in the pits; thanks to Zack Spencer and Amy Judd for their photographs. galleryPost('LemonsAltRepairs', 9, 'Broken Parts and Bleeding Knuckles');
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We really want to love art cars, but the problem with a lot of them is that the artists involved just don't get cars . For every genuinely awesome Camera Van or Pedal Regal , you get a hundred beater 323s with plastic army men or dinosaurs epoxied all over the sheet metal. But take heart, fans of car-as-art, because the participants at the 24 Hours of LeMons race continue to raise the bar with the themes for their cars; check out the gallery below for a sampling of some of the art cars we saw at the race at Altamont last weekend. Thanks to photographers Zack Spencer and Amy Judd for contributing photographs. galleryPost('AltamontArtCars', 9, 'Art Cars of the 24 Hours of LeMons');
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We followed the exploits of LTDScott and his Team Porcubimmer during the run-up to the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont, and some of you are probably wondering how it went for the "Pricks Outside" guys when the real deal went down. Well, we have good news and bad news for you: the good news is that the car looked amazing (as did the coordinated team outfits), but the bad news is that a cascade of mechanical woes kept the Porcubimmer off the track for much of the weekend. Fuel system, clutch, you name it. When it was on the track, however, it was fast; for a glorious- if regrettably short- time on Saturday, the spiky 325e was in the #1 position. Take heart, Porcubimmer fans- we're pretty sure we haven't seen the last of this car's angry face! [Porcubimmer.com] galleryPost('PorcubimmerAltamont', 9, 'The Porcubimmer At Altamont');
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We showed you the Top 44 Lemons at the Altamont race last October, followed by the Top 50 Lemons at Thunderhill in December, and now it's time to see the results from the Altamont race last weekend. Get any group of car freaks together, bring up the concept of the 24 Hours of LeMons, and you're sure to get endless debate about which cheap heaps should dominate. Well, here's where reality comes into play; this is how things actually played out on the track. We'll show the other 40 cars later on, when we put up the traditional LeMons Über-gallery, but for now it's time to examine the beaters, clunkers, and buckets that came out on top! #1: Krider Racing - Death Proof #2: Spirit of San Diego #3: Motoring J Style #4: Axles of Evel #5: Box Wrench #6: Pit Crew Revenge #7: Tresulators #8: Mother Cluckers #9: Onset #10: Team 60 #11: Fancy Junc #12: Size Matters Chrysler #13: Third Time's A Charm #14: Dilligaf #15: Black Metal V8olvo #16: Duwey Chydum and Howe Taxi Co #17...
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When racing started at Altamont on Sunday, we knew we had some catching up to do; thanks to overestimation of fuel consumption, some pit slowness, and a penalty incurred by yours truly (more on that later), we started the day in 44th place out of 90 cars. We had the power, we had the skilled drivers, and we had a block of Swedish steel that could shrug off hits from the biggest opponents. And, speaking of the biggest opponents, a certain bullying orange Plymouth fared quite badly in a series of paint-trading incidents with our own WhatWouldJesseDo ; see that orange paint on the tire in the image above? galleryPost('LemonsAlt97Damage', 9, 'Black Metal V8olvo Damage Will Buff Right Out');
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Last October, the highest-placed Detroit car at the 24 Hours of LeMons Altamont race was the Spirit of San Diego '81 Chevy Malibu, grabbing a not-too-shabby 20th place . This time around, minus the fins and plus some mean-looking black paint, a good ol' American V8/rear-drive machine has left all them furrin cars (save one ) eating Detroit exhaust, as the Chevrolet drivers finished a mere three laps behind the #1 car. We're not sure what they changed (though the Malibu does appear to have wider, lower-profile rubber now), but it sure worked! By the way, I'm still working on the traditional Top 50 Cars and Über Gallery LeMons posts; you'll get 'em soon. galleryPost('LemonsAlt7', 9, 'Chevrolet Malibu Like A Rock At Altamont');
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Those of us at the 24 Hours of LeMons race on Saturday afternoon were beyond heartbroken when Court Summerfield died at the wheel of the Team Cant Am Volvo 242 Turbo. Not only was Court's death a major loss for the LeMons racing community, it was also a tough blow for the city of Alameda; he lived on the island and worked at Ole's Waffle Shop, which is as much a part of the city's soul as are old cars parked on the street. I hung out with Court before the race on Saturday morning and I'm still unable to believe that this could happen to such a nice guy and great driver. The words of his wife made us feel a little better, however: "It was really just something that he was happy doing. I'm sure the way he went, he was happy." Check out the Cant Am Volvo in action during happier times, at Altamont and at Thunderhill Photo credit, above: Gianna Babb [San Francisco Chronicle] galleryPost('LemonsAltamont39', 8, 'Court Summerfield and the Team Cant Am...
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Those of us at the 24 Hours of LeMons race on Saturday afternoon were beyond heartbroken when Cort Summerfield died at the wheel of the Team Cant Am Volvo 242 Turbo. Not only was Cort's death a major loss for the LeMons racing community, it was also a tough blow for the city of Alameda; he lived on the island and worked at Ole's Waffle Shop, which is as much a part of the city's soul as are old cars parked on the street. I hung out with Cort before the race on Saturday morning and I'm still unable to believe that this could happen to such a nice guy and great driver. The words of his wife made us feel a little better, however: "It was really just something that he was happy doing. I'm sure the way he went, he was happy." Check out the Cant Am Volvo in action during happier times, at Altamont and at Thunderhill Photo credit, above: Gianna Babb [San Francisco Chronicle] galleryPost('LemonsAltamont39', 8, 'Cort Summerfield and the Team Cant Am Volvo'...
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With all the excitement of the race, I totally forgot to post photos of what the Black Metal V8olvo actually looked like by the time we had it all painted and bedecaled. Thing is, we didn't have time to apply the decals until we actually got the car to the racetrack. First of all, some commenters have wondered about the skulls mounted on the front edge of the car's roof. Those aren't just decorative skulls that just sit there . Hell, no! These are anatomically correct med-student skull replicas, and they're equipped with crowns of plumber's tape, Fiat indicator lights for eyes, and Dodge minivan vacuum motors operating the jaws! With high manifold vacuum (i.e., idling, cruising, decelerating), the vacuum motor pulls the skull's jaw shut; low manifold vacuum (i.e., gas pedal mashed to the floor) allows springs to pull the jaw open. I'll write up the fascinating details of how to build such important racing accessories for yourself, but for now let's check...
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In the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Thunderhill last December, we watched a Nissan Sentra SE-R place fifth (if not for a wheel stud failure, they'd have done even better). We thought the Krider team members were pretty cool guys, so it was great to see them at Altamont; this time their ride was an Acura Integra with a grisly horror-movie theme. They drove consistently quick laps, didn't break down or get destroyed by a big Mopar, and their pit stops were very efficient... and now they've got a trophy to show for it. Congratulations, Krider Racing! galleryPost('LemonsAlt08Winner', 14, 'Krider Racing Death Proof Wins 24 Hours of LeMons');
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The inaugural race of the 24 Hours of LeMons season just concluded and we're being told it looks like the winner's Krider Racing in their Integra. Murilee will have more shortly from Altamont but he predicts our very own Team Black Metal V8olvo will come in somewhere in the top 20. Give 'em all a round of applause for not only finishing after yesterday's tragedy , but for making all of us damn proud. Keep your eyes on our 24 Hours of LeMons Altamont tag for more coverage throughout the upcoming week. ( Photo Credit: Flickr )
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