American Irony - Pt. 2

Here's where I include some of the cars that didn't win anything, except a place in my heart. And then some pics of some of the winners, because they were awesome¹.

#86 - VolvOwned Volvo Wagon. Clearly, this is a take on the Ghostbuster's Ecto1. This was one of Jenny's favorites, and it was incredibly slow. It's best lap time came in a shade under two minutes. But who cares? This theme kicked ass, and the car ran consistently enough to garner a tenth-place finish with 381 laps. During Friday Tech/BS inspection, the team dressed as the Ghostbusters. Enjoy a gratuitous shot of Ecto1 and the Snoopy van entering Turn 11:

#7 Pink Ladies Mazda Miata. I'm including this one for Alan, who is a Miata guy. This team was 3 or 4 women and 1 man driving a smooth Miata that was pretty quick and sounded good. It was also plastered with pictures of women cut out from glamour magazines. It's hard to tell from this picture, but pink racing stripes featured glitter. This little go-getter finished 37th with 232 laps completed.

#38 Team Sucker Punch Chevy Camaro. As you can tell, this is a pretty good theme for a Camaro. It's not hard to imagine a mulleted stud blasting "Runnin' With the Devil" while flying through a residential zone at 110 in this baby. And the team knew that. When we left Saturday, the team's pit board sat next to the car in their paddock area. It read "Wanted: New Tranny." The next day, they were up and running having apparently fetched either a transexual or a new transmission from nearby Grand Rapids. Either way, the car ran for a bit on Sunday. We talked briefly to a couple of the fellas on the team, and they are apparently going to be at Autobahn in October, where Alan and I will make our LeMons debut. The #38 Camaro finished 39th with 176 laps. You can watch some of it here.

#64 Team Lebowski Dodge Neon. This is a natural theme for anyone to pick. Who wouldn't love this theme? They also get a million points for keeping Donny affixed to the car's rear wing for the duration of the race. Unfortunately, they lose 750,000 of those points for not racing a rusted-out Gran Torino with CCR blasting from the stereo. We did discover that Neons run well at LeMons and are a popular option; we saw at least four of them, and the #2 and #6 finishers were both Neons. This Neon finished 22nd with 344 laps completed.

#97 Breaking Dawn Toyota MR2. This mid-engine car was pretty quick and tore through the corners. And it finished dead last. Why?, you may ask. It turns out that the race judges awarded them 500 BS laps during tech inspection for overspending. On an engine. Apparently, the team had grenaded their engine in a previous race. In their quest for a replacement, they happened upon a totaled 2010 Toyota Camry. A few hundred dollars and several custom fabrications later, this car was powered by an engine with fewer than 10,000 miles on it. The engine wasn't even really broken in yet. In reality, the car ran 337 laps, which would have garnered a finish in the middle of the field, around 25th or so.

#411 Speed Fixx Chevy S10. I include this not because it's one of my favorite. In fact, the LeMons forums seem to indicate that this was actually a relatively unpopular car. But when Alan and I first walked through the pits, this truck was having some serious brake cooling issues. As in, their rear drums were on fire. Their solution for the front brakes was to create some last minute ducting Sunday morning, with some helpful signage:

#710 Team S-Audi Audi (Model I don't know or care to look up). This team nailed their theme about as well as anyone else could. For those who've never been 10 and had a calculator, "710" is "OIL" upside-down². The car was also adorned with badges from every oil company and adorned with the finest gold paint Ace Hardware's spray cans has to offer. The team also dressed up for tech inspection and bribed the judges properly. The car itself had a pretty bouncy suspension. So much so, in fact, that it became a three-wheeler in Turn 11:
The #710 car finished 30th with 324 laps.


#308 Corsa Nostra Alfa Romeo (Model unknown/too lazy to look). This was hands-down my favorite car of the weekend. Alan and I decided that we needed this car or at least its engine, which produces the sound of the earth splitting open and releasing eagle-sized bees that will sting your children, carry them off to the nest, cover them in honey, and then drop them off in Montana bear country just for chuckles. Then they'll descend upon you and make fun of your stupid haircut. In other words, this car sounds like evil. And awesomeness. As it accelerated hard between turns 2 and 3, all other cars seemed to get silent because of the noise's intensity. Then it downshifted. And it maybe got Alan's hormones excited and maybe it found the Brown Note³ for me. And the car ran fast. Real fast. It clocked the third-fastest lap of the weekend (1:47.324), though it finished a disappointing 15th.

Hmm...that's a long post. I guess I'll throw some more photos/descriptions up tomorrow night after I'm done with work.


¹ A track map might be handy. We watched most of the race from the short straight between turns 1 and 2. We also started Saturday watching from Turn 11 right by the pit entrance, and we started Saturday watching from the midfield spectator area, which offered an excellent view of the entire track.
² Get out scientific calculator and type in "7108008." Then hold it upside-down. hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
³ Actually, the car's engine noise wasn't of low enough frequency to cause that. I just have "control" issues.