While no one is really sure what the actual goal of a LeMons race is (Winning? Getting away from your family? Having the best theme? Index of Effluency? The People’s Curse?), I’m pretty sure it’s not winning. I mean, let’s say you get your crappy car around the track the most times — so what? There’s an old saying, “You know how to make a little money in racing? Start with a lot of money.” Case in point — if you somehow manage to win, you get handed $1,500 in nickels. Like serious — several hundred pounds of nickels. Even if you got your car for free (sure ya did), the cost of putting in a cage, tires, brakes, racing gear, travel, food, gas and entry fees are in the $5,000+ range. Spending $5,000 to get $1,500 is dumb. Teams that cheat (i.e. spend more than $500 on their cars) are even dumber. But dumb has never stopped anyone from doing anything. Stupid, neither. Case in point: last weekend’s race. In fact, the deceit got so out of control at Arse-Freeze-Apalooza that a new class of LeMons racer was born — the Mega Cheaters!
Now, if there’s one thing I know it’s cheatin’. Hell, my co-conspiriter — Judge Martin – wrote the book on cheatin’. At every race we find a dozen (or doubel that many) teams that can’t bare the thought of not running adjustable shocks. We ding ‘em ten, maybe twenty laps. Big deal, end of story. Something changed at this year’s Thunderhill. Maybe it’s because LeMons is getting more popular. Or maybe because Northern California has seen so many damn LeMons races. Or — maybe — teams are just assuming that we don’t really check. Regardless, there were multiple teams that ignored the rules and went for broke, spending much more than $500 on their car. Let’s meet ‘em.
-800 Laps
Lost Cause Racing
Whoever thought they could fool us using a FC RX-7 with the hood, snout and tush painted black is a crackhead. Er, I mean, is a member of the aptly named Lost Cause Racing team. Seriously, is there anyone breathing that thinks this particular car is worth less than $501? Mustang owners put your hands down. I was busy busting helping others, but negative 800 laps can only mean one thing — Jay Lamm himself dropped the hammer on Lost Cause’s dream of sleeping atop all those shiny nickels.
-1,200 Laps
The Dead Smurfs
These guys. Not that there was anyway they could have known 25 Hours of Thunderhill E2 class winner Evil John Pagel would be running tech, but come on boys — at least beat on the body with a hammer to make your lie look possible. Anyhow, John — who has personally prepped more than 30 Miatas for racing purposes — took three looks at the Dead Smurfs’s car and said, “It’s worth $5,000.” Of course, I had to hear their BS story for myself. Naturally, there was no paperwork. They claimed they got it for $500 because it was running funny. Then another guy said $450. They never explained how they got it running good. Then they spent another $500 on a turbocharger. And another $100 on an intercooler (at least) And they couldn’t answer my questions when I randomly pointed at bits of their engine and asked, “How much was that?” So, we figured 1,499 laps were in order. But then Jay reminded me that the Dead Smurf’s were going to let two of the Surrender Monkeys drive their car. As such, we lowered the total to minus 1,200 laps. The Smurf’s were good enough to tag it on their hood for all to see.
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Posted By: Jonny Lieberman |
Tags: 2008 Arse-Freeze-Apalooza 24 Hours of LeMons Arse-Freeze-Apalooza Krider Racing LeMons Mega Cheaters Thunderhill Thunderhill LeMons
While I have quite a few things to say about the last event and upcoming events, I can’t hold back any more. I’ll try to be relatively brief here since this is only one of the many places info is posted about the addiction known as LeMons.
Judge Lieberman himself races or has raced the V8olvo with a 5.0 that “fell off the back of a truck.” So your Honor, just how well does a 5.0 bounce after falling off the back of a truck and presumably onto concrete. Odds are you would need to be moving pretty good too for something like that to happen. I’ve hauled plenty of motors, their heavy. They slide around more under braking than anything else. Although I punch a hole through both layer of the tailgate once with a Jeep tranny, gear lube and broken bungee.
Moving on to the Miata and Mega Cheaters in general. The main difference between a Miata and a Spec Miata is bunch of safety gear and the Mazda Speed kit. The Spec Miata suspension kit from Mazda Speed is only about $1300 which would be a 130 lap penalty. The rest of the stuff would fall under safety and wouldn’t count against the $500 anyway. Since Spec Miata is a huge class, I am sure there are plenty of second hand parts available. A 1200 lap penalty is good for a $12,000 overage. For that much we could be racing insane Corvettes or even LS1 Volvos with 6 speeds.
If you mean coil overs when you say adjustable shocks? You can buy cheap ass kits off eBay for $50 shipped. Toss the crappy springs they come with, replace them with better second hand springs and that’s that.
As far as why do people do it, it’s still on a track and we can drive as fast as possible. Better cars, especially better handling = more speed. For me more speed usually = more fun.
Both Martin and Lieberman couldn’t resist either and ran a V8 in there Volvo to make it “competitive.” They are just as guilty as the rest of us. Just not sure who they are lying to the most, us or themselves.
Troy
MSR Houston 10/08
#35 Mad Cow MotorsportZ
Troy,
While I appreciate the analysis, I haven’t bothered explaining our car here, because I’ve done it too much already. It was a $450 Miata. It was someone’s toy at some point, because it had lowering springs, Konis, and a JR CAI when we got it. It also took a good 10 minutes of warm-up before it could idle on its own, and was lightly but uniformly beat to crap.
We sold every cosmetically passable bit of that car (interior, mostly, and some odds and ends) and spent about $600 on a turbo system. Net-net, the budget was $457.
And we got a bum rap in tech. I don’t know how much of what Jonny wrote here is hyperbole (doesn’t sound like what I heard from the team…), but clearly I should have been there to defend the team and the car. Instead I was foolishly having Christmas dinner with my family.
But I’m not pissed off in any way. -1200 laps meant we certainly wouldn’t be competitive, thus shattering any illusions we might have had in the first place.
So we had fun. Lots of it. Before penalties, I think we would have finished about 77th. No way to know, since mylaps can’t deal with negative four-digit lap totals correctly. (We clearly finished ahead of Krider, but that’s not what the score sheet shows)
And honestly, *that* is what LeMons is about. We all had a blast, and we’re already talking about another car for Reno.
-Zandr
#94 Dead Smurf Racing
Dudes,
It’s pretty simple - you don’t want to get penalty laps? Then don’t show up to a LeMons race with cars like a a BMW or Porsche newer than 1980, a Miata or a VTEC Integra. Can you get these cars for less than $500? Perhaps, but it’s like driving a red sports car and trying to talk yourself out of a speeding ticket - you’re guilty until proven innocent.
A judge is going to be a lot more welcoming and sympathetic to someone showing up with a Pinto, Hornet, Fiat, B210 or an old Turd-cel. These cars are the true spirit of LeMons, and all the more rewarding when you finish…let alone win.
Kurt G.
ZZ Uber Das Driver
WOW!!!
So much smack talking. Hmmm. how to respond to Troy… You caught us! We spent $77,000 on a 1984 Volvo and a 1985 Ford 302.
Also, for the record, Phil and I raced the V8olvo BEFORE we were in anyway associated with LeMons.
Also, I took the V8olvo through BS inspection way back when. Our papers were in order.
I wouldn’t give $100 for that piece of junk Volvo. I’ve seen seen it up close several times and it is a legit turd.
I agree with the above–a pinto is a Lemon, a pacer is a Lemon, a Honey Bee is gawd aweful, a 3 series is a car I wish I had to commute to work in.
Just my .02
-Bill
AFAIK, blue shocks means Tokico HPs, and purple springs means Intrax. I have a pair of HPs for another car that I haven’t been able to find anyone to give away to yet, so they can’t be that valuable. Intrax springs painted purple in California have no connection other than the name to the quality Intrax stuff made in Europe. Seriously, I’ve heard of people scoring H&Rs and Bilsteins for an E36 from a pick-your-part on half-price day. $6000 per corner? Not even Motons cost that. Blue shocks and purple springs from a junk yard is totally believable.
Here’s where this leads: For literally a few pennies more, or even no pennies more, the Frankenmiata could have very clever adjustable-height spring perches, but they won’t do it, mainly because they are afraid of being penalized for not being crappy enough. And they actually went to the store and spent money to buy crappy looking PVC plumbing to replace a free polished aluminum tube that happened to be taking up space in someone’s junk pile but looked expensive.
Elsewhere, teams are admonished not to de-slime their machines for fear of the penalty gavel. You have to work on it. Can’t it be clean first? It’s not like that costs anything.
I originally thought the spirit of LeMons was simply about doing much with little. There’s progress, with the new rules keeping each race from being a bash-fest that will destroy a car and require it to be completely rebuilt before the next one. Not to mention reducing the collective need for physical therapy.
Craftsmanship, or crapsmanship? Is there room for both, or will anyone who thinks deburring edges and chamfering holes is a matter of self-respect be sent packing?
If we’d wanted to be really competitive with the V8olvo, we’d have done the same junkyard suspension mods (not to give away all Hellhammer’s low-budget speed secrets, but the modified mid-90s Thunderbird swaybars and redneck strut-tower tops worked wonders) and hot-rodded the living crap out of the Red Block B23 that came with it, thus saving 250 pounds over the front wheels. If we’d really wanted to get into some proper Smokey Yunick-grade cheating, we’d have swapped out the fragile-ass Dana 30 rear for a Ford 9″, which would then have enabled us to add power to the 302 (which would be equipped with aluminum heads to alleviate the nose-heaviness problem) without fear of nuking the differential. What we did instead was take a mess of junkyard parts and build a very reliable car that runs middle-of-contending-pack lap times (provided there’s a good driver at the wheel) and gives each driver plenty of seat time plus the glory of a V8 soundtrack.
That said, if I had it to do over again- and, in fact, I do- I’d build a pure Index Of Effluency machine. That’s where the real LeMons fun is… and sooner or later the perfect Lancia Scorpion or Renault Fuego Turbo is going to end up in my driveway.
Spec Miata is not just a suspension package on a stock Miata. Sure that was the vision for the class but it has evolved. People are now dropping $7000 for “custom stock” engines that last less than 3 races.
The mega-penalties are for teams that are mega-unprepared. There isn’t a big-ass rulebook because it’s simple - don’t overspend. If it looks like you overspent, be prepared to back it up. I’ve always been there to take my cars through BS because I know what was done to them and how much it cost. All it would take is for a teammate to go “um…” when the judge asks if we changed springs for them to think that something fishy is going on.
BTW, I happened into a $500 Miata (actually it was $500 complete with a hardtop - the hardtop was then sold off the car for $900 - bringing the car build starting point to negative $400). It’s coming to a race near you. I’m on the Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC Craigs list every day looking for LeMons cars.
The danger for a team that scores a super deal on a contending machine, pinches pennies, spends sweat instead of dollars, and documents everything in judge-pleasing fashion is running afoul of the People’s Curse. We saw that happen in Houston, with a Miata that survived our judging and a personal inspection by (experienced Miata racer) Chief Perp Lamm and hit the track with zero penalty laps… only to get crushed by a bloodthirsty mob that assumed it was cheating like crazy.
The same thing might have happened to the Superkak Racing ‘94 Mustang GT at LeMons South. The team bought the car at a cop auction for 1900 bucks, sold 2500 bucks in parts off it, added hot cam and suspension stuff with the resulting $1100 budget, and documented the whole process with a 100% convincing paper trail (in a huge 3-ring binder with full cross-referencing, etc). They were feeling pretty good about themselves… until the rumors of “that cheating Mustang” ran wild in the pits. Matters weren’t helped when they knocked off the best lap time of the entire race early on Saturday, but then the Salazar Racing BMW team really made a name for itself with its super-aggressive driving and let the Superkak guys dodge a bullet (which didn’t matter, anyway, because their legally juiced-up motor blew up on Sunday).
That’s why the Frankenmiata guys had that big “How We Built This Car For 500 Bucks” display out at Thunderhill. So keep that in mind, racers: even if you’re legit, you need to sell it to the mob!
To Everyone and Especially Johnny and Murilee,
Funny you mention the “How We Built This Car for 500 Bucks,” thing. I was thinking the same thing. We have had some disagreements and misconceptions among our team. Some team mates felt we should hide some things. I knew our stuff was legitimate, especially the incriminating stuff (suspension). I think I’ll post it at the race this time around.
Regarding the V8olvo, I just don’t think that the falling off the back of a truck story would pass your judgment. Bribing aside, you guys didn’t believe my receipt for the suspension parts. I’d rather Tip ya than Bribe ya. It’s all fun ’til someone gets cursed.
I also wish we could run against the V8olvo and Escuripe (Whatever they call that thing) Alfa.
I am in agreement with Oldcarsmell regarding craftsmanship. One of the main objectives on the 240Z build was durability and longevity. These cars have a great racing history. They still set records today. I was very tempted to put a V8 in the car since it’s the TTAC car. I’ve got 3 Mark VII EFI HO 5.0s sitting around. One in a complete running car I picked up for less than $130 another in a $200ish car. It would have been even cheaper than our straight 6. Jay said they’d love to see a car like that but we were messing with a good thing. Not only does he have a Miata, he’s got a 240Z. Our straight 6 turned out better than I expected and was a set up I had always thought would be cool. Well, it is pretty cool.
As far as future LeMons cars go. I’ve got two irons in the fire. An interesting entry level, try to stay out of trouble late 70’s Celica. I bought it cause it was cheap and already has a cage in it. I would like to be a car for newbies. Then there’s the potential future Index Of Effluency contender Ford Pinto. My Pinto plans could turn out to be more sinister than the 240Z. I just don’t know if I can make the thing turn.
I’ve got team mates who really want to build another car, particularly another Z. So maybe the Pinto and Celica will become a bit moss encrusted as they wait for some attention.
Thanks for the replies. Hope to see you guys in February.
Troy
#35 Mad Cow MotorsportZ
Zandr,
I forgot to mention the Miata thing. I know guys spend lots of money on Spec Miata motors. It’s a very precise stock motor. The point I am really getting at is the penalties are beginning to exceed the alleged crimes.
Like the 535 BMW guys said, 150 lap penalty put them right out of the race. I wouldn’t think R comps would get you thrown out, just disqualified. We had a set at practice just cause a friend had them, never raced on them though.
The reality is anything more then a 10 lap penalty is probably going to put someone out of contention for first place. Even with all the different cars, I don’t think there have been a whole lot of landslide victories but maybe I am just uninformed.
Troy
#35 Mad Cow MotorsportZ
If Jay saved the PolyOrchid 7-series BMW and Blues Brothers cop car from complete destruction because he believed they weren’t really cheating, why didn’t he save that non-cheating Miata in Houston? Was the Texas excavator operator not as talented as our California guy?
Sarah, I can’t speak for Jay regarding the Miata in Houston or anyone else for that matter. While we didn’t vote for the Miata, there were rumors they changed motors Saturday night. Supposedly they were running slower on Sunday. I don’t know if any of that is true.
The Thunderhill guy told me three times it was o.k. to use the driftpad. Then Jay talked to them ex post facto and they then told me it was only for driving slow…
Whatever… Roosting fat drifts on the Thunderhill skidpad was too fun!!! Those R compound tires wear out too quick though.
I like the post that said I was escorted off the premises by the cops, ahahaahaha.
In retrospect they should probably make all BMW’s illegal at Lemons, they are just too fast, even those with 270k on them. Except for the Shark 528, does that thing only have 3 gears??? I went around those guys like they were going backwards. I don’t think that thing was really a BMW, maybe an Alfa with beemer badges?
I love the Datsun B210, that car rules and is the true spirit of Lemons, keep rockin 210 Team!!!
Bo
Bo Duke- So, your best lap time/speed(1:36.896, 70mph) was on your 143rd lap, just 8 or 9 laps before you were caught with the 60 TW racing slicks and your day ended. When did you put them on?
Along with your 1988 3.4 liter(182 bhp) i engine and some kind of performance lowering springs and shocks(used or not).
Mean while I was running, in our Shark, consistent 139s at 68.5 mph on 15″ 200 TW tires, a 1983 2.7 liter(126 bhp) eta 350K mile engine and stock height springs. Hmmmmmmm
-60+ more ponies
-5 year younger car
-60 Tread Wear racing tires(16″ or 17″ wheels)
-3″+ lower performance suspension
And you were barely 3 secs and 2.5 mph faster.
What would’ve been your times without the racing tires?
Why did you bring the 60 TW tires to the track? Or put them on your car during the race? Who ground off the tread wear print?