LeMons Good/Bad Idea of the Week: Cessna Airplane Wing Provides Serious Downforce for Honda Civic

In the early days of the 24 Hours of LeMons, teams that added spectacularly ridiculous devices outlawed by other race series qualified to win the Dangerous Banned Technology trophy. Teams sporting Chaparral 2J–style sucker fans, leaf-blower superchargers, active aerodynamics (including a variable-angle rear wing actuated by a bowling-ball pendulum mechanism in the trunk), and similarly banned/dangerous "upgrades" vied for the trophy (which was discontinued once the technology got a little too dangerous). However, one DBT-seeking team in Atlanta became so addicted to its idea that it has stuck with it since the 2009 season. Meet the Our Lady of Perpetual Downforce Honda Civic and its Cessna 172–sourced variable-incidence wing! This car had a weird history even before it became a LeMons racer; as a prank on a future teammate, it was painted purple and outfitted with every custom, gangsta-style accessory that Manny, Moe, and Jack could find while the owner was out of town. When the poor guy got back to Atlanta and found that his once-inconspicuous Civic sedan looked like this, the decision to LeMon-ize the car was an easy one. The team decided that it was going to pursue a Dangerous Banned Technology trophy at the Southern Discomfort 2009 race. It went to a military-surplus auction and paid scrap value for the cooling fan from a huge self-propelled howitzer, then powered it with a four-cylinder motorcycle engine. With full skirts and elaborate ducting, the sucker-fan setup really did create a couple hundred pounds of downforce, but the motorcycle carbs weren't happy with the Civic's high-pressure fuel pump and sprayed tremendous quantities of fuel into the sucker fan's intake. With visions of a massive explosion launching the car into the stratosphere, the safety-crazed killjoys at LeMons HQ wouldn't allow the car onto the track. So, out came the sucker fan. Hitting the track without the advantage of its super-sucker technology, Our Lady of Perpetual Downforce finished 74th out of 94 entries. Still, the team's technology was so banned and so dangerous that we felt we had no choice but to award it the coveted Dangerous Banned Technology trophy. Success! By this time, the geeked-out engineers on the Our Lady of Perpetual Downforce team were hooked on the DBT chase, and so they took a trip to an airplane junkyard in Alabama and bought a section of Cessna wing, complete with adjustable flap. They mounted it on the Civic's roof using an ingenious air-spring device that makes the wing pop up under deceleration (e.g., when the car is about to enter a turn), then added a compressed-air-actuated decklid wing for good measure. This arrangement was a little on the finicky side and required constant tweaking by the team, but it did provide enough downforce to make a noticeable difference while cornering at Carolina Motorsports Park. The team replaced the purple paint job with a more Cessna-esque livery, changing the car number to 172 while they were at it. They also went for an "Otto's Crop Dusting Service" theme, donning barnstormer-style flying suits and scarves. It appears that Otto's Crop Dusting Service has a lucrative side business involving midnight flights across the border. It should go without saying that the Our Lady of Perpetual Downforce team won its second consecutive Dangerous Banned Technology trophy at the 24 Hours of LeMons South Fall 2009 race. While preparing for the Southern Discomfort 2010 race, the OLOPD team got to thinking: If a variable-incidence wing helps keep the car on the track during turns, why not add a rudder to help steer the car? Yes, that's a terrible idea—and thus perfect for LeMons! Most LeMons teams would have rigged up a sketchy rope-and-pulley rig to the steering shaft in order to make the rudder respond to steering input, but Our Lady of Perpetual Downforce installed this slick air-actuated setup. Did it work? Not at all! Still, this technology was sufficiently banned and dangerous to win the team its third Dangerous Banned Technology trophy. Even after we discontinued the DBT prize, the Our Lady of Perpetual Downforce Civic kept its active-aero setup and continues to race with it to this day. Service from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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