On Friday, we took over the downtown of a once-picturesque South Carolina town for our car inspections, on Saturday we witnessed a lot of surprising stuff during the first race session, and on Sunday we had winners! The fight for the win on laps came down to the very last lap of the race, with tremendous good sportsmanship demonstrated by the P1 and P2 teams, and we saw some of the greatest cars in LeMons history… again. Let’s see who got trophies and why they got them.
The RC Spiders have become the team to beat in East and South Region LeMons racing, with Class A and overall wins at the 2014 Southern Discomfort race, the 2014 Alabama race, the 2013 Halloween Hooptiefest, the 2013 Real Hoopties of New Jersey race, and now last weekend’s LeMons Fall South race. The way they got that win had the spectators at Carolina Motorsports Park in a frenzy for the last few minutes of Sunday.
For much of early going, the P1 spot was swapped back and forth among the Fast Al’s Race Team Volvo 745, the Sick of Breaking Volkswagen Golf, and the Hong Norrth 1984 Toyota Supra. Then the SOB Golf broke and the Fast Al’s Volvo caught a couple of black flags, and the Hong Norrth Supra took a solid-looking lead. Hong Norrth dominated South Region LeMons racing for several years with a pair of Mazda MX-3s, but the team had struggled since introducing this Supra (which, incidentally, donated its heater to the nightmare cross-country journey of The Worst Car In LeMons History). This time, though, the Supra ran well and prospects looked good for a win… that is, until Saturday night, when the team realized that they had used up all their tires. Unless you’re willing to settle for some 540-treadwear all-seasons from Wal-Mart, you won’t be finding any tires late on Saturday night in rural South Carolina.
Then the RC Spiders heard of the Hong Norrthers’ situation through the paddock grapevine and gave them a full set of brand-new good tires— in spite of the fact that the Spiders were just a few laps behind Hong Norrth in the standings. On Sunday, the Spiders’ Mercedes-Benz W201 spent the day reeling in the Supra, finally getting onto the same lap and then right on Hong Norrth’s rear bumper. With about three minutes to go, the Mercedes passed the Toyota. When the checkered flag waved, a gap of about 10 seconds separated the two cars.
At the awards ceremony, the RC Spiders donated their prize money to the family of a CMP employee who had lost a son in a recent tragedy. Coming on the heels of the story that they’d kept their biggest rival in the race with a gift of free tires, this generosity triggered a huge standing ovation for one of the classiest acts of our series. The RC Spiders are now talking about coming out to the West Coast and challenging Cerveza Racing and their BMW 533i on their home turf.
After six races of chasing a Class B win with their LT1/Saginaw-equipped “whale” Caprice, Halfast Racing finally got their class win. Zero black flags all weekend, lap times close to those of Hong Norrth and the RC Spiders, and a P5 (out of 110 entries) finish for the Halfast guys… and they were overheard discussing getting a W201 Benz of their own.
Cadillac Racing had been pursuing a Class C win in their breathtakingly miserable Cadillac Catera for nearly as long as Halfast Racing had been trying for Class B. Every race, it seemed, the Catera would grab a class lead, break a bunch of parts, get repaired in a frenzy of duct-taping and parts-car-stripping (Cadillac Racing bought every Catera in the Southeast), grab the lead again, then collapse in a heap of broken Opel Omega components. Not this time! With every warning light on the dash flashing ominously, a discordant symphony of tortured machinery blasting from the powertrain, and all the parts cars completely stripped of anything useful, the Cadillac Racing drivers went for broke and pushed the SPORT MODE button. This made no real difference in performance, but the other Class C cars broke down and Cadillac Racing won the class by 44 laps and finished in 25th place.
One of the other Class C cars managed just 19 laps during the course of the weekend… but that was a triumph of staggering proportions for the 1982 Renault Fuego Turbo of Interceptor Motorsports. The team had never driven the car under its own power (except to load it onto the trailer at the time of purchase), and it showed up at CMP with no brakes, no functioning electrical components, suspension problems, and a tank full of bad 10-year-old gas.
Interceptor Motorsports persevered, and the Fuego Turbo made it onto the track. Of course, the drivers were able to enjoy The Turbo Zone for just a lap or two at a time, at which point some incomprehensible French component would fail and the team would pit for a few hours of wrenching.
The team never gave up, kept their sense of humor all weekend, didn’t hate me for suggesting a Renault Fuego in the first place, and got their 19 laps through force of will. For this, they have earned the Most Heroic Fix award.
The other side of the Most Heroic Fix is the I Got Screwed award, and this time the not-so-sought-after trophy went to The Good Guys and their Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. The Good Guys’ adventure started when they lost the transmission of their tow vehicle on the way to the race. This made them late for the car inspections, but they were determined to show up for the parade on Friday night. With no way of fixing the tow vehicle in time, they decided to drive the race car. Somehow, they convinced the Kershaw, South Carolina, police to let them borrow headlights and taillights from the collection of parts Crown Vics behind the KPD station, then began the 20-mile drive to Camden.
Unfortunately, they’d forgotten to secure their hood pins prior to setting out on this journey. You know what happens next: BAM! Broken windshield. So, they went back to the Kershaw Police and talked them out of a Crown Victoria windshield, then hired a mobile windshield service to install it at the track on Saturday morning. Things were going just fine… until their race car’s transmission exploded, oiling down the track and knocking the Good Guys out of the race. Screwed!
The event-specific trophy for this race was the Best Sculpture Award, given to Nemesis Ridiculi for the excellent Road Runner-themed decor on their Nissan 240SX.
The members of Nemesis Ridiculi have been improving their car’s theme for a couple years now, and they looked great at the parade in Camden on Friday night.
When you add their Acme pit bike into the mix, you can see that Nemesis Ridiculi have earned a trophy.
The LeMons Supreme Court’s justices, which included automotive journalist Jason Torchinsky and road-tripping madman Steven McDaniel, were very impressed with the WWF theme of Mom’s Friendly Racing at the Camden parade.
They were a hit at the parade and stayed in costume all weekend. For this, the Judges’ Choice for Mom’s Friendly Racing.
The 1960 Ford Frontenac of NSF Racing (a team known for its love of 1960s Detroit iron) was one of just 60 Frontenac coupes made.
This completely stock Canadianized Falcon finished in 98th place with 76 total laps. There was an engine swap in there, and bad fuel, and brake problems, but the Frontenac stayed eventful all weekend. In the end, we gave NSF Racing the Organizer’s Choice trophy.
It’s a measure of how good the entries were at the ’14 LeMons South Fall race that the Knoxvegas Lowballers didn’t get a trophy for their amazing Maximum Overdrive Duratec-swapped/mid-engined Geo Metro. They won Class C in Alabama at the 2014 season-opener, with their “truck” done up as a replica of The Snowman’s 18-wheeler from Smokey and the Bandit, and their current theme would have won them a big prize at most normal LeMons races.
As for the top prize of LeMons racing, the Index of Effluency, the absolutely perfect Wagon Queen Family Truckster replica was the no-doubt-about-it winner.
Starting with a 1979 Ford LTD Country Squire, just as George Barris did when building the original Family Truckster for the movie, Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws got every detail correct, from the Wagon Queen crown emblems to the dog leash tied to the rear bumper.
The Family Truckster, like the General Lee and the Back To the Future DeLorean, had been a popular theme for LeMons teams over the years (pictured above is the first, which raced in California during the 2008-2010 seasons), so Speedycop knew he had to make his Truckster perfect in order to measure up to the standard set by such creations as the Spirit of LeMons ’56 Cessna or the Bonneville Donk. We think he succeeded.
Yes, it takes more than green paint, some luggage on the roof, and HONKY LIPS sprayed on the quarter-panel to make a true Wagon Queen Family Truckster.
Which isn’t to say that we didn’t appreciate the earlier Trucksters.
How can Speedycop top this? We’ve heard rumors of some even wilder projects to come.
For even more South Fall 2014 madness, check out my complete photo gallery, then check in here regularly for more LeMons features.
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