LRS Blog

I hope that it is just not me, but this is soooooo cooool!

You're not alone, I think it's badass.

We are heading out this am! I will try to send in updates.

So is that wing on the roof to keep you from flipping during those high speed spin outs across the infield?  NASCAR STYLE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

We had a great time today. We were told we had the best BS bribe in the history of the race   jalopnik.com/.../1004076893 . Here is a link.

What was the bribe?

We cooked them steaks.

jalopnik.com/.../lemons-judges-believe-in-honest-out+front-bribery-not-the-shameful-furtive-kind

Everyone on our team agreed that times this good don't come around very often.  YeeHaw LeMons Texas 2008 was everything we thought it would be... even after we began removing ourselves from contention via penalties.  We knew that we were out there with lots of people who have never raced wheel-to-wheel before.  We knew the judges would not listen to any excuses.  We knew we had to run a clean race, and yet... we were not quite able to pull it off.

Friday was test-n-tune day.  Right away we blew a power steering

O-ring and did not have a spare.  A fellow LeMons contestant was at our

car within minutes with an enormous assortment O-rings - problem solved!

There is great karma here.  We had fun cruising the pits in our 70's vintage, lightly-modified Harley Davidson golf cart.  Favorite pastime: pull up to a group of people sitting in an $8K golf cart, challenge them to a race, wait for them to finish laughing, then leave them with two black stripes and a wheelie.  Never got old.  :-)  Strangely, not everyone appreciated this.

We had an early, casual visit from one of the judges to our pit area.

He proceeded to tell us that our documentation sucked and that we had

better come up with something extraordinary to appease him.  Said our

current story would probably be good for a 100 lap penalty.  Was he

serious?  Doubtful, but we decided not to chance it.  At Formula M

Racing, we believe in the old addage "Go Big or Go Home" and to that end

we got busy and bought the makings for a giant shrimp cocktail (12"

across) and a couple of pounds of filet mignon.  When it was our turn

for the BS inspection, we brought the gas grill over and treated the

judges to Surf 'N Turf on the spot.  They bought our bribe hook, line

and sinker.  Even after hearing the lumpy cam and seeing the Holley

4-barrel carb they only assessed us a 2-lap "symbolic" penalty for

having a crappy fake Craigslist ad (which incidentally was not fake).

Score: Mullets 1, Judges 0.

Saturday our second driver got a ten minute penalty for hitting a cone

while exiting the track.  He claimed it was the car in front of him, but

of course it didn't matter.  In the words of Jay Lamm, "You're Boned".

Sad mullets.  Score evened.  The air brake, which had been very popular,

suffered a broken cable at about 2pm and was strangely silent the rest

of the day.  Other than that, Saturday turned out okay and we ended the

day in, I believe, 6th place.

Sunday the proverbial roof caved in.  We had repaired the air brake

overnight (and changed the picture to something more, um...

"interesting") but it only lasted one hour before breaking again.  It

began flapping wildly at any speed over 30mph and we were sure a black

flag was imminent so we pitted and cut the brake off of the car.  Then

our second driver incurred a 3-wheels-off penalty which we dispatched

with a get-out-of-jail free card, only a minute or two lost.  With no

lifelines left, our next driver went off track briefly and was assessed

a 15 minute penalty.  To add insult to injury, the owner of the track

assessed a team penalty for doing golf-cart wheelies in the pits!  That

hurt.  Another 15 minutes in the penalty box.   At that point we could

do nothing but stand there and watch our 5th place standing slowly

erode.  Seeing as there was no longer any hope of a podium finish we did

what all red-blooded Texans would do and "stepped 'er up a notch".  A

little later, two cars, one apex... you can probably guess the rest.  We

suffered a crunched fender, popped radiator, bent core support and

another 30 minute penalty.  After the penalty was served, we needed

another 20 minutes to repair the car.  The score was now solidly in

favor of those acursed judges and we were forced to hang our mullet-clad

heads in shame.  Hmmm, nice sandals Bubba!  You too, Cletus!  Payless?

Nope, red tag at Pick 'N Save!  Etc.

We did manage to claw our way back up to 10th place by the end of the

race and so just barely met our goal of a top-ten finish, and we snagged

the "Best use of Banned Technology" award for the FULLY ARMED AND

OPERATIONAL air brake, so everybody went home happy.  Unlike those nutty

East and West-coasters, we did NOT drop our car off at the junkyard

after the race.  After 6+ months of work, that car is part of the

frickin family and will more than likely be back to compete next year.

We'll be older and wiser.  Mullets will be longer.  Golf cart voltage

will be higher.

We would like to thank our sponsors for their generosity:  Late Model Restoration (a.k.a 5.0 Resto), Apex Driving Academy, Argent Labs, and Coleman Associates.  Thanks also to the entire LeMons staff for their hard work and always-friendly-never-bent attitude - you put on a first class event.  And we know first class - just check the mullets!

-Formula M (as in Mullet) Racing

motorheads.net/formula_m

Sounds like a good time! Minus all the penalties...

there has to be some good mullet racing video somewhere, right? I want to see the golf cart too!

We are working on vids and pics. I'll let you know when we have them.

We are the 1st car listed in part 1.

jalopnik.com/.../24-Hours-Of-Lemons-Texas

More pics www.flickr.com/.../25041948@N06