| This weekend's race in the industrial incinerator–like heat of California's Central Valley proved challenging for all in attendance. Despite a dedicated EMT crew whose sole responsibility was making sure people stayed hydrated and cool to ward off heat stroke, many in the paddock felt themselves getting woozy from the temps (yours truly included). Many teams wisely limited their driver stints to half what they would normally run . . . at least those who didn't find themselves making mistakes that landed them in the penalty box. Few teams can rival the organization and professionalism of the guys running the Model T-GT. A testament to this is how many different races in which they've comfortably held first place, even though their outright pace is on par with their rivals. A fragile transmission has held them back from winning many of these races, save for one earlier this year in Texas and another in 2011 at Sears Point. This weekend, though, the T's tranny held together and the team emerged victorious over the next-closest competitor by only two laps. Another very well run team is that of the Harlequin VW Golf. Their gutted but relatively modestly modified hot hatch finished an amazing 6th overall, even though its fast lap time was slowest among the top 17 cars. This is how endurance races are won, folks. While they had two quicker cars in their class nipping at their heels all weekend, none of them could put together as clean or trouble-free a race as the multi-colored VW. A different VW won Class C—well, mostly. This '71 Super Beetle has the heart of a '90s Subaru Legacy throbbing away under its trunk lid. Oh, and it has two steering wheels. Here is an example of a car that uses speed to overcome its inherent complexity and consequent trips to the pits for repair. The car was trailing two other cars at the beginning of the day but outran them over the course of the day. This is not to say the Subaru-powered VW's race was perfect by any means; in the last hours of the race the "Ferdinand the Bug's" shift linkage broke and left them stuck in fourth gear. In this photo you can see Team "Bozo Suckos" Captain and owner (in official uniform) trying to reattach the linkage so the car could be driven onto the trailer post race. Team Tinyvette's ride was another car that suffered mechanical problems. Their issues really started last year when they took the car to the Bonneville Salt Flats to set a land speed record (for a LeMon). They've been signed up for, and missed, the last two races because the hot-rod motor they built for their record setting attempt was too high-strung and blew up. Team Tinyvette scrambled for the last few months to rebuild it and succeeded! They took to the track with great expectations on Saturday morning—this optimism quickly evaporated when the pistons melted, a whopping five laps in. Talk about screwed! In true LeMons spirit, they hung around all weekend lending a hand to other teams in the pits. For this, they took home the "I Got Screwed" trophy. In terms of hard luck stories, the Button-Turrible event will be remembered for a long time, which made picking the "Heroic Fix" trophy winners particularly difficult. Early on the Judges collectively decided that a team simply overheating and fixing their race car would not suffice; most entries would suffer some sort of heat-related malady over the weekend thanks to the nearly 115-degree weather. One team stuck out in our minds because it was the first one we saw at the track; the team showed up before the organizers of the race in order to secure the best possible pit location and ensure their ultimate victory. Things didn't quite go as planned—after backing the car off the trailer under its own power, it mysteriously refused to restart. No big deal, they had two days to get the car running before the race, it could't possibly take that long, could it? As a matter of fact, it took four days for the team to not fix their car. But they never gave up, and even as the awards ceremony was taking place, the "Gladiators" of Team Conan The Bavarian were still working on their BMW 318ti. We had to send somebody over to their (perfectly located) pits to tell them to come get their trophy for the "Heroic *NOT* Fix" Award. According to the team, they "learned a lot" and "can't wait 'til next time!" Bravo. This team made a great first impression at BS inspections on Friday; not only was their Falcon spectacular (in a minimalist sort of way), but they went all out on costumes and theme-appropriate bribe. Not only that, but the car stayed out on track all weekend, turning very respectable lap times for a 49-year-old car and rarely visiting the Penalty Box. The Salton Sea Speed Shop's Ford made such great V-8 noises and was so entertaining to watch scoot around on track that we had no choice but to award it the Judges Choice Award. To win the Organizer's Choice trophy, all a team has to do is one simple thing: Make "Chief Perpetrator" and Dictator for Life Jay Lamm smile more than any other team. While discussing the possiblities for this award, the answer presented itself in musical form. Every three minutes or so, conversations would be interrupted by the blaring song of the Nyan Cat, described on Wikipedia as "a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with the body of a Pop-Tart, flying through space, and leaving a rainbow trail behind it"—something that could only come from Japan. Every time this happened the Yalta Conference–like debate would break down and everyone would crack up. Congratulations, Nyan Cat! Now that they've won the coveted award, we hope to never hear that song again. Please. We beg you. 15-hours-plus is enough. The Regional Award is for a car/team/person who deserves special recognition but might not slot neatly into one of the other established categories. So we make one up on the spot. Obviously The Homer is something special; in the week since it popped up on the internet, coverage of The BMW E30-cum-cartoon has spanned the globe. The YouTube video has more than 200,000 views. It's been on the evening news across the U.S. It is even rivaling Jeff "Speedycop" Bloch's The Spirit of LeMons as the most famous LeMons car of all time. For this achievement, Jay Lamm himself came up with the fantastic award for "Speedycop's Worst Nightmare." It should also be mentioned that The Homer placed fifth (!) overall in the very fast field that comprised the Buttonwillow race. The ball's in your court, Jeff. Photo: IMG_8487 The top prize and the most coveted laurel in any true LeMoneer's trophy case is the Index of Effluency award. We usually look for a truly "turrible" car that doesn't suck nearly as much as it should. When was the last time you saw a Buick Skyhawk? You're forgiven if you don't even know what that is, because they only built a handful of these Buick-badged Chevy Monzas, and for good reason—they were pretty bad cars. So when one shows up at a race track and puts down C Class–competetive lap times, runs the whole race, and winds up in the top third of the field at the end of a grueling weekend, it presents an easy choice for IOE.  from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com | |||
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