The Planet Blog

What do you get when you combine a shark, a cow, a witch doctor, a Caterpillar, and Chuck Norris?

The 24 Hours of LeMons – Texas style.

As a mock homage to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France, the LeMons series encourages irreverence, redneck ingenuity, and dumb luck in a two-day endurance car race that gentleman racers consider a sign of the Apocalypse. The catch is that you can’t spend more than $500 on your vehicle before adding safety gear, and the grand prize is $1,500 — all in nickels.

To succeed in LeMons, you need to have driving skills, mechanical skills, people skills, and a good gimmick (like turning your car into a tank, complete with a turret). If the crowd is against you for cheating or bad driving, they can name you “The People’s Curse,” and your vehicle is summarily destroyed on the second day by a very affectionate front-end loader.

Of course The Planet fielded a team: Team Chuck Norris.

Beginning at the Beginning

Chuck Norris doesn’t race cars. Cars race Chuck Norris.

In March, Nadja Pollard told me about the race in Angleton, Texas, and sent a link that changed my life … or at least the past few months of my life: http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/. I knew We Must Do This. I asked around the office if anyone else would be interested in playing along, and within a day, we had our core team, comprised of Nadja, Erin Schoenhals, Michael Menefee, Nathan Newton, Tim Schuh and me – Team Chuck Norris was born. We found the preparation to be a straightforward three-step process.

Step One: Find a car. We picked up a Toyota MR2 and a Nissan 200SX as a backup, both solid contenders in their own rights. The MR2 would be a more suitable race car if we could get it running. The 200SX was cheap ($275) and needed VERY little work.
Step Two: Find sponsorship. Doug agreed to have The Planet sponsor our team after we promised that we wouldn’t get hurt, and when he heard that one of our competitors competed in a similar race, he was completely on board. At this point, we welcomed Andrew Siverly, who just happened to have worked for our largest customer, to the team as a driver. The MR2’s engine had yet to turn over, so we kept tinkering.
Step Three: Get it going. Team Chuck Norris was accepted by the LeMons powers that be! The pressure was on to actually build the racer. The MR2’s reluctance to become a fully functioning automobile forced us to resort to Plan B and bring the 200SX into the spotlight. I started feeling the car out by using it as a daily driver at this point …. She wasn’t winning any beauty contests, but she could get you from point A to point B pretty reliably. We ordered a safety cage, seat, tires, and brakes, and we started the transformation from car to “The Fist of Chuck Norris.” (In LeMons, this safety equipment does not count against your car’s value, so we ensured that the car was as safe as it could be). We needed to round out our team with a sixth and final driver, so we initiated Drew Cleaver to the team.

On The Track

“Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a crash helmet. Crash helmets are modeled to replicate Chuck Norris’s skull structure.

Friday morning of race weekend, we unloaded, set up camp, and prepped for practice – the first time our car had been on a track. The car performed quite nicely: it was predictable and stable with no bad habits. Everyone except Erin (who was held up at work) got to turn a few laps to get familiar with the car, the track, and how the two interacted.

It’s said that there are 2 kinds of racers – losers and cheaters. LeMons has a tech inspection plus the “BS Inspection” – a screening process used to catch the most egregious cheaters. Luckily, Justice is NOT blind and can be bought with tequila, steaks, or pastries. We had to convince them that our 1980s-rear-drive-Japanese-sporty coupe was NOT a drift car worth a couple grand. Some cupcakes, hidden money, and having our story straight got us through. The AWESOMENESS of our Chuck Norris hood graphic helped too. The judges either dug it, or feared it.

Start Your Engines

Chuck Norris = Mass x Acceleration

Saturday morning we sent our ringer Drew to start the race. Minutes before green, the car stopped on the front straight. The ignition still cranked over with the key and the accessories worked, but the car just wouldn’t budge. Luckily, our day didn’t end prematurely … one of the wires went loose on our emergency cutoff switch, so we were back in the race after a little tightening, and Drew made up time by driving like mad.

I was in the driver’s seat next, and after getting comfortable with the race conditions, I became braver and more aggressive. Unfortunately, I made an error and passed another car under a yellow (caution) flag. The officials black-flagged me and I went to receive my punishment, which is one of the most entertaining features of LeMons … The judges had a special penalty for us because we were from Texas. I had to swear on a Bible to the following “facts” in addition to sitting out for 30 minutes:

1. Texas isn’t the biggest state in the US … Alaska is.
2. If you cut Alaska in half and made 2 states, Texas would be the 3rd largest state.
3. Quebec is bigger than Texas, they speak French in Quebec, and everything is bigger in Quebec.
4. Paul Newman was from Ohio. Not Texas.
5. James Dean was from Indiana. Not Texas.
6. David Koresh was from Texas.

They spray painted the car with “Alaska #1″ and “Quebec #2,” which still gives us chills. Our next driver was Andrew. Shortly into his stint, he was boxed in on a turn and the back end of the car slid out. Another black flag. The Bible was back out and Andrew swore one of the most awful things I have ever heard: that you could get a better steak in Kansas City than in Texas. This is blasphemy, of course, and Andrew has been in touch with his clergyman to clear his soul of that statement.

Next out was Erin, who drove clean the entire weekend. No drama whatsoever. Nadja followed Erin and as she was out turning laps. A car she was behind blew its engine, and she slid off the track thanks to the oil spewing from the disabled car. Luckily the Bible stayed in the drawer, and we only spent the 30 minutes in impound.

Tim went out last on Saturday and brought the car back with no incidents.

Our first day of racing was over, and the car had performed nicely. We did a full inspection and simply rotated the tires for Sunday. Compared with several teams, that was nothing. The car that blew in front of Nadja was already involved in a full engine swap. Another team had boiled their brake fluid, and hadn’t brought any replacement. We gave them what we had, helped out other teams where we could and called it a night.

On the Road Again …

Land Speed Records Are Set By Those trying To Flee From Chuck Norris.

On Sunday morning we got called to a special “you’ve been very naughty” meeting as our 3 flags the day before had not put us in the good graces of the judges. Luckily there were a bunch of teams in the same boat, and the judges took mercy by resetting the penalty count.

Tim was first and made up some time, but then passed under yellow. The judges weren’t happy, but they went easy on us. They stuck donuts under our wipers and the glaze melted to the glass as we waited in impound. Drew went out next, followed by Erin, Nadja and Andrew.

The black flag waved again when Andrew was forced off by the eventual race winner. By this time the judges didn’t care anymore, and I went back out with about an hour’s work to get to the checkers.

At this point in an endurance race the goal is to finish. I took it easy for a few laps, but the adrenaline kicked in and the spirit of Chuck came to me and ramped up my driving. A couple laps later as I was making a trip down the start/finish straight, I looked in my mirror to see the race leader get the checkered flag just behind me, so I had only one lap of racing left. I put the hammer down and flew under the flag with a well-respected finish!

The Checkered Flag

Chuck Norris IS the “I” in “Team”

The car made it in relative style and comfort – no mechanical problems at all. Our drivers turned laps both days, and we finished the race. Our final result was 26th out of 76 entrants, with 330 laps complete. Everyone was in good spirits and had a lot of fun. The best part is, even after our $275 car went full tilt on a track for two days, I drove it back to our hotel with the A/C on with no problems, and I am still driving it to work!

If the 24 Hours of LeMons comes back to Texas next year, I don’t think we’ll have any problems fielding another team. The race organizers gave our car a residual value of $250, which means we’ve got $250 to spend making the car faster before next year! If you’ve got a running motor out of an 84-89 Nissan 300zx that you don’t need, don’t hesitate to contact me.

I challenge you to have a go at this yourself. You’ll put in some long weekends getting an impossibly crummy car ready to race, but if you like cars and racing at all, you will have a blast. This is about the least expensive motor racing you can do, and it’s worth every penny – all 50,000 of them.

See you at the track,

-Dave
(Chuck Norris)

P.S. If you want to know what the roar of the engine sounded like from inside the cockpit, check out the footage from our in-car camera (note the donuts on the windshield):

P.P.S. If you were curious about what happened to “The People’s Curse” …

Courtesy of Peasant Racing (check out their excellent race coverage)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 11:13 am and is filed under Fun Stuff, The Planet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.