Monday, April 29, 2013

Crapcan weekend at a glance: May 3-5

NORTH DALLAS HOOPTIE
24 Hours of LeMons - Eagles Canyon Raceway (Decatur, TX)


Bring your extra brakes and a coolsuit.


WEEKEND SCHEDULE:

FRIDAY, MAY 3
7 a.m. - Gates open
8:30 a.m. - Test Day Drivers' Meeting
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. - LeMons Test Day. $150 per car. Click here for details
1 p.m. to 5 p.m. - Tech, BS and Gear Inspections


SATURDAY, MAY 4
7 a.m. - Gates open
9 a.m. - Drivers' Meeting
10 a.m. to 7 p.m. - Race Session I

SUNDAY, MAY 5
7 a.m. - Gates open
8:15 a.m. - Drivers' Meeting
9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. - Race Session II
3 p.m. - Awards Ceremony

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Cure for Gingervitis: A Rusty Wrap-Up

The K-It-Fwd Plymouth Reliant had a spare 2.2L motor, which NMF Racing surprisingly did not have to utilize. (The Rusty Hub photo)



[Editor's Note: Eric Rood receives literally dozens of dollars for working as a LeMons Guest Judge. He is not employed by the 24 Hours of LeMons and works and writes independently of the organization.]

[Another Editor's Note: We apologize that most of the photos were taken in the paddock with the cars stationary. Our camera crapped out early on Saturday.]

We survived a blustery and occasionally flurry-filled 24 Hours of LeMons weekend at Southwest Michigan's Gingerman Raceway, where we worked the Penalty Box as a guest judge.

By and large, the racers were a pleasant bunch and the racing itself was mostly clean. Well, clean in the sense of no contact; pieces of broken car, freedom-seeking fluids and at least one transponder (or pieces of it anyway) littered the racing surface, but that's par for this hooptie course.

At the end of the weekend, Bucksnort Racing stood atop the heap of heaps with their second race win by just three laps over the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers. Judge Phil has already written about the winners here, so we'll just highlight some of the additional things we noticed throughout the weekend.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Cure for Gingervitis: Day One

Not only did our poor judgely butts last a 9-1/2 day of racing,'but some on the awful cars also made it.

And many more didn't. At one point in the day, no fewer than 10 cars on jackstands could be seen from the penalty box with LeMons wrenches poised underneath and shouting orders to teammates.

Yet some cars state together. Here's our rundown:

As we predicted, Bucksnort Racing's very quick, well-driven E30 leads.This is essentially their race to win or lose, since their car has the pace to match just about anyone.

In second place are the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers and their naturally aspirated Volvo 245. The team barely made the race after some weather-related drama, but Sunday's green flag will find them just two laps down after Bucksnort gained a lap back with a last-lap pass.

The battle for third already looks solid, though the teams fighting for it remain a good distance behind the first two teams. The Blue Shells remain full of surprises; their super-B-Class Accord lunched their rare motor early, but the team's 16-valve Dodge Neon has been very strong and cleanly driven and resides on the podium's final spot.

They're threatened by the Don't Mess With Lexas Lexus LS400, which struggled through some black flags or they could be challenging for the top slot. We look for a solid rebound Sunday from their formidable driver roster, which includes LeMons legend Jeff Bloch (aka Speedycop).

The top B Class car is Team Gutty's Honda CRX, a car renowned for two things. First, the car has a number of super-hooptie home-brewed "upgrades" that we laugh at every time in BS Inspection. But more importantly, the damn thing is super-clean on racetrack and somehow holds together. Their lead in B is more than 10 laps, which is about 17 or 18 minutes at Gingerman.

B Class had never been this competitive in the Midwest before. At one time, at least four B cars resided in the overall Top 10, including the Bad Mojo Opel GT, which somehow got as high as 2nd overall before mechanical issues kicked it down in the class. Still, the formerly butt-terrible Toyota Celica of Apocalypse Racing and the Honda Accord of Marc Labranche's newly christened Frankenstein Motorworks are capable of making B interesting if Team Gutty cannot hold on.

Class C was a two-car battle between the rookie Loose Lugnuts Chevy S10--who had at least a 15-lap lead--and the Red Shirt Racing Nissan Pulsar. However, penalties ultimately cost the Lugnuts, who had to sit the last 90 minutes of the day and watch the Pulsar crawl past them in the standings.

In a distant third for Class C is the hopelessly awful Back to the Future-themed Ford Tempo of the Flux Decapacitators, who somehow miraculously ran a fastest lap of 1:50 in their automatic, 90-HP heap, which is ONLY 10 seconds off the race's fastest lap of 1:40, set by the fast-and-fragile Save the Ta-Tas Chevy Camaro.

In the only-competing-for-honor category, here are three teams of note:

- The Flying Pigs 5.0L Mustang lost their transponder while running 5th overall I must their second outing. They nabbed a replacement and only lost a few laps, but that was enough to punt them from the Top 10.

- The Red Wagon super-cheaty CRX had yet to turn a single lap but had had at least one engine change. We have literally one seen that car only on jack stands this weekend.

- The Supra Troopers' supra-cheaty Trubo motor ate itself after just a couple hours. In a blistering three hours, they swapped in a backup NA motor, which promptly chewed up and spat out a head gasket. Last we saw, the team were desperately swapping out the bearings from the NA motor to the turbo motor.









Friday, April 19, 2013

Cure for Gingervitis: Preview update

The 24 Hours of LeMons race at Gingerman Raceway has already provided a handful of surprises before the race has even begun. We covered out preview of the race yesterday, but here are some additional teams to look for.

[Sorry for the despot formatting. We are working from a phone, which is also why Autocorrect changed 'crappy' to 'despot' in the previous sentence.]

CLASS A/OVERALL

We mentioned some of the contenders previously, namely Bucksnort Racing's BMW E30 with the Don't Mess With Lexas Lexus LS400 also possessing a good chance.

We pegged the Little Lebowski Urban Achivers' Volvo 240 as a contender, but some struggles with their tow vehicle have given them a delayed start to the track. They're still a contender but face an uphill battle.

A pair of E30 from veterans Shitbox Racing and Panzer Racing and the BMW E28 from One Percent Racing all possess outside chances because you can't deny that BMWs excel at crapcan racing.

Those in the Ford camp will find the PEAK sponsored 5.0L Mustang a fast but historically poorly driven entry. A clean race from them could produce a surprising result. The Lincoln Mark VIII of SS Car also looks fast in testing and could surprise.

One last note: The United DuckTape Racing Porsche 944 has three Top 10 finishes in its last three races. If they can avoid the 944 curse, they could shock the LeMons world with an overall win.


CLASS B

Class B could be the most competitive class with at least a dozen very solid Class B teams.

Stalwarts Byte Marks and the Blue Shells both took Class B with a handicap when presented with the choice between Class A with no laps and B with a handicap

Many Class B teams have the pace to win the class, but they have all struggled with either driver or mechanical errors.

We think We're Not Really From Iran's Ford Festiva and Team Gutty's Honda CRX (both with oodles of home-brewed, low-buck upgrades) are the favorites.

The SHO-powered Geo Metro of Charnal House could run away with the class, but they have struggled while developing both car and driver historically. A clean race isn't out of the question, but it will be an uphill battle.

We think four teams have terrific chances to play spoiler: Por Sport's NA four-cylinder Mustang, Smokey Saturn and the Bandits' Saturn SL2, Apocalyptic Racing's rear-drive Toyota Celica and the Usual Suspects' Chevy Monza. Have we mentioned how much we enjoy LeMons variety of entries?

Want some long shots? Bet on the Carbeque Saab or the Bad Mojo Opel Breadwagen.



CLASS C

The banner class of LeMons is pretty much as we described it yesterday, though we underestimated how glorious the diesel I-Mark truly is. The amount of rust is truly remarkable.

The only Class C entry we missed is the Loose Lugs Chevy S10, whose 2.8L power plant has as good a chance as any to take the win in the team's first outing.


INDEX OF EFFLUENCY

We'd have to guess that the odds-on favorites lie with the I-Mark or the Red Shirt Racing Nissan Pulsar, but it's entirely impossible to say who the contenders might be before the race plays out.

Certainly, the Class C teams are all IOE material, but we think Charnal House, Apocalyptic Racing, Bad Mojo and the Pentastar Plymouth Sundance could be in the discussion with a stunningly competent performance.

But enough of our gibberish. Who do you like in the categories and for IOE?







Thursday, April 18, 2013

Cure for Gingivitis: The Rusty Hub's Preview

Having been given a peak at this weekend's entry list, here are our two cents on what to look for at  Gingerman for the 24 Hours of LeMons race.

[Editor's Note: Classing is of course not certain ahead of time and may be subject to change.]

Class A/Overall

The last five Midwest Region LeMons races have been won by five teams: Clueless Racing (Autobahn 11), Bucksnort Racing (Gingerman 12), Subliminal Racing (Autobahn 06/12), Launcha Splatos (Road America 12) and Skid Marks Racing (Autobahn 10/12).

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Layin' down the law, LeMons style


White Trash Racing's Fail Shark Neon is one of the 70 entries for this weekend's race at Gingerman, where our own Eric Rood will be busting cheaters and chastising  miscreants. (The Rusty Hub photo)

This weekend, we travel to Gingerman Raceway, where The Rusty Hub's Eric Rood will serve as a guest judge during the 24 Hours of LeMons' "The Cure for Gingervities" race.


After seeing the entry list, we know we'll see most of the Midwestern regulars, although three of the big teams in the region (Skid Marks Racing, Clueless Racing and Subliminal Racing) are conspicuously missing. We think there's an excellent chance this race will produce a first-time overall winner and probably at least one first-time class winner, too.

Like our Facebook page here and, starting Friday, we'll have updates and photos of BS Inspections, the paddock, the race, the punished and the weather (Because Southwest Michigan in April).

Monday, April 15, 2013

March Crapness: Wrap-up

Like any good crapcan race, we can't let March Crapness end without handing out some subjective awards to some of the competitors, in addition to crowning our tournament winners.

But before that, I'm going to pontificate for a short bit, so feel free to skip down a bit to where there are pretty pictures and bold text if you don't care what I have to say. I won't be offended.

March Crapness basically arose out of a monotonous mass transit commute I had for a few months. I spent a few weeks sketching it out and it soon grew into a monster of a (dumb) idea. In my mind, this was a March Madness for the non-sporting-inclined, where there would be as much randomness as that silly basketball tournament, whose victor I still do not know or care to know.

So I planned it all out, wrote the blurbs, hunted down photos from sources (though most of them came from the esteemed Murilee Martin) and--finally--found some HTML polls to embed. This last bit proved to be something I should have started with, as I inevitably found out. But these are the teething troubles we all discover our first times out, whether it's a silly blog project, an inconceivable engine swap or just trying to get that stupid $500 car to run long enough to get a photo of it passing the checkered flag.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

March Crapness: Your Internet Crapcan Grandmaster Nonpareil

The dust has settled after a see-saw final that saw one team ahead by as many as 60 votes before the opposition rallied back to tie it. After such prolonged and determined efforts, it's difficult to crown just one team the Internet Crapcan Grandmaster Nonpareil.

But when time ran out on the poll, Three Pedal Mafia edged out NSF Racing by just a single vote, 276-275.





Congratulations, Three Pedal Mafia! You are the Internet Crapcan Grandmaster(s) Nonpareil. Relish your title and brag of it often.

Look for a more complete wrap-up Monday and we can't thank enough anyone who voted, posted a link or relentlessly hounded every person they knew to visit our silly blog and vote in this silly poll so that they could be awarded a silly title.

March Crapness has exceeded our expectations by several orders of magnitude and we couldn't be happier that it culminated with a fierce Internet battle between two great teams.


Friday, April 12, 2013

March Crapness: Crap-ionship!!!


At last, we arrive at the finals, where Three Pedal Mafia and NSF Racing face off to see who will be named Internet Crapcan Grandmaster(s) Nonpareil and who will go home with a slightly less cool title.

We stop counting votes at 10 a.m. EST tomorrow.

[Editor's Note: If you run into any trouble with the polls, contact eric@therustyhub.com and I'll look into it ASAP.]

Go to the March Crapness tab for the full rundown, up-to-date bracket and schedule.

Read the introduction to March Crapness here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Tweet about March Crapness using the hashtag #crapness.

[Extra-special thanks to Murilee Martin for assisting with many of the photos. All photos as credited.]


Thursday, April 11, 2013

March Crapness: Third Place (April 11)


Here's a quick turnaround for the consolation match, which will give a very special title that we will definitely not make up on the spot for the winner and be worth its weight in Internet gold.

We stop counting votes at 10 a.m. EST tomorrow.

Please note that there will be a short turnaround for the third-place matchup, during which we will bestow some other whimsical-but-not-quite-as-awesome title upon its winner.

[Editor's Note: If you run into any trouble with the polls, contact eric@therustyhub.com and I'll look into it ASAP.]

Go to the March Crapness tab for the full rundown, up-to-date bracket and schedule.

Read the introduction to March Crapness here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Tweet about March Crapness using the hashtag #crapness.

[Extra-special thanks to Murilee Martin for assisting with many of the photos. All photos as credited.]


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

March Crapness: Flailing Four (April 10)

Holy carp! March Crapness is reaching a fever pitch. Or it's at least almost over so we'll stop spamming you from the safety of our Facebook page.

But first, take a look at the matchups and pick the team(s) you think should face off to become Internet Crapcan Grandmaster Nonpareil, a title that can only The Rusty Hub can crown. (Not because of any copyright laws, really, but because no one else would ever think of such a silly title that every team left in the tournament would want, we're sure.) Enough of my ramblings...

We stop counting votes at 10 a.m. EST tomorrow.

Please note that there will be a short turnaround for the third-place matchup, during which we will bestow some other whimsical-but-not-quite-as-awesome title upon its winner.

[Editor's Note: If you run into any trouble with the polls, contact eric@therustyhub.com and I'll look into it ASAP.]

Go to the March Crapness tab for the full rundown, up-to-date bracket and schedule.

Read the introduction to March Crapness here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Tweet about March Crapness using the hashtag #crapness.

[Extra-special thanks to Murilee Martin for assisting with many of the photos. All photos as credited.]


Monday, April 8, 2013

March Crapness: Effluent Eight/Regional Finals

Today sees the matchups that determine the March Crapness Regional Winners. Happy voting!

We stop counting votes at 10 a.m. EST tomorrow.

[Editor's Note: If you run into any trouble, contact eric@therustyhub.com and I'll look into it ASAP.]

Go to the March Crapness tab for the full rundown, up-to-date bracket and schedule.

Read the introduction to March Crapness here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Tweet about March Crapness using the hashtag #crapness.

[Extra-special thanks to Murilee Martin for assisting with many of the photos. All photos as credited.]


Thursday, April 4, 2013

March Crapness: An Address

In light of some recently discovered shortcomings with our current polling system, we have unfortunately had to delay the final three rounds of March Crapness until next week while we retool and find a polling system that is harder to game and harder to hack. See the March Crapness tab for the revised schedule and note that we'll start the "Effluent Eight" round back up at 1 p.m. EST on Monday.

To be more specific, the April 2 matchup between Team Petty Cash and Duct Tape Motorsports unfortunately had its results tainted by a spam bot that autocompleted the Poll a couple thousand times with a mixture of votes for what appeared to be for both teams (oddly enough), intermixing the spamming with the votes garnered by huge campaigns from both teams and essentially rendering them uncountable. We don't know who wrote and implemented the bot, but we are 100 percent certain that neither team's members are responsible. It's possible that a voter from one side or the other could have written it, but it's more likely that it was just a random third-party attack.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

March Crapness: Change of Plans

March Crapness fans and Rusty Hubbers-

Due to some technical challenges with one of last night's polls, we will be reviewing the April 2 results with some additional scrutiny before posting them. Please bear with us as we deal with these unforeseen issues.

As a result of these complications, we will be postponing the Effluent Eight matchups until April 8, with an abbreviated schedule (schedule revisions will be posted on the March Crapness tab as soon as we figure that out) allowing us to complete the tournament ASAP.

Thanks for your patience with this and I'll have results and more to write on this later today. Check back here and/or on our Facebook page for updates.

-Eric

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

March Crapness: Sweaty Sixteen (April 2)

Today marks the last day with four matchups as we wrap up the the Third Round. Keep in mind that the winners of the today's first two matchups will compete again tomorrow in the Trashed Tranny and Wrecked Rod Regional Finals.

We stop counting votes at 10 a.m. EST tomorrow.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We'll be using Google for the polls from now on. You may notice that you can vote multiple times. DON'T DO THIS. We get a log of all vote and WILL NOT COUNT ANY VOTES WHERE YOU'VE STUFFED THE BALLOT BOXES (even though we live near Chicago).]

Go to the March Crapness tab for the full rundown, up-to-date bracket and schedule.

Read the introduction to March Crapness here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Tweet about March Crapness using the hashtag #crapness.

[Extra-special thanks to Murilee Martin for assisting with many of the photos. All photos as credited.]


Monday, April 1, 2013

March Crapness: Sweaty Sixteen (April 1)

The field narrows and the rounds come quicker now that we've reached the third round. We expect some close results from these matchups so be sure to vote!

Voting ends at 10 a.m. EST tomorrow.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We'll be using Google for the polls from now on. You may notice that you can vote multiple times. DON'T DO THIS. We get a log of all vote and WILL NOT COUNT ANY VOTES WHERE YOU'VE STUFFED THE BALLOT BOXES (even though we live near Chicago).]

Go to the March Crapness tab for the full rundown, up-to-date bracket and schedule.

Read the introduction to March Crapness here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Tweet about March Crapness using the hashtag #crapness.

[Extra-special thanks to Murilee Martin for assisting with many of the photos. All photos as credited.]