Do you guys find yourself frustrated by the limitations of keeping the car LeMons-eligible? once you've done all the prep work, how hard is it to resist the urge to upgrade it into a proper trackday car? Or is it so thrashed after an event or two that the very idea of making it "serious" is absurd?
btw - I've got a '95 Miata M that's a cosmetic rat. I bought it for $400.....
edit: If one was to put in the elbow grease necessary to make the car semi-pretty, would that be frowned upon?
is it so thrashed after an event or two that the very idea of making it "serious" is absurd?
More than likely.
If one was to put in the elbow grease necessary to make the car semi-pretty, would that be frowned upon?
Yes. Why the hell would you want to do that anyway? Google "Jalopnik LeMons," sit back with a six-pack, and have all of your wildest LeMons queries answered.
Actually, not at all.
The secret is to start with a car that is already 90% there and only needs what the rules allow. I found a car that was being sold for pittance because the interior was falling apart, it needed brakes and tires, and the clutch was shot. Well... the interior was ripped out, brakes and tires are free, and the clutch disk was $40.
We made our car pretty for the first race. After that, well, it's battle scared. One of our 'new' cars - I just took a belt sander to the paint and am letting it rust over the winter.
Gawd no don't make it pretty! 
There is not enough booze and cash on the planet to keep Murrilee from clobbering you with BSFs if you make it too nice. I suggest adding a few dents, getting it dirty etc. They saw the acorn shells in the engine compartment and trunk of the ThunderTerd and we went right on through. 
About clean, nice cars: you should have been at CMP when the guy with the Mustang pulled out his 'build diary'. The look of disbelief on the judge's faces was priceless. Even the cloud of scantily clad young ladies in fishnets that surrounded the judges couldn't keep them from getting whacked with, IIRC, 40 BSFs.
Yeah man, looking nice is the opposite of the point. Also, Jay has a big thing about this (and I should know, being an index of effluency winner) idea. The point is to take as little car as possible as do as much with it as possible. Getting a new coilover set and blah blah high dollar stuff may make the car faster, but it misses the point. It's not, "how fast can you make this car go" it's "how fast can it go for dog biscuits?". In real life, most of us don't even have dog biscuits to spend, so keeping the cars like this makes it easy for every day wallets to compete.
In reply to tuna55: Yeah, but why have it intentionally ugly? My Miata could get some bondo and paint for about 40 bucks and look much better. If I want to run the same car at an auto-X it's kinda nice not to be seen as the town slob. I supose there's a I-don't-give-a-E36 M3 chic thing going on here, but in actual fact most of us do give a E36 M3, so pretending otherwise is kinda... well, you fill in the blank.
Then you are missing one of the points of the race... The race is about putting crap cars on the track. If you give a E36 M3 about the way your car looks (except for your theme), then this is the wrong race for you.
Every one of the cars that I have and am going to will have been bought and prepped for under $2000 all told for the durable equipment (car, safety gear, cage, wheels, etc.).
Rob's right; by the time I'm done with all the tires/brakes/cage I'm expecting to have around $2k in my car (an '83 BMW 320i). I originally figured I'd sand down the car & respray some el-cheapo paint on it since the 26 year old gold is shot and the clearcoat is actually FLAKING off the hood & decklid. Then it came to me: THAT'S THE POINT!. I'll still squirt some rustoleum on the interior to cover the surface rust with SOMETHING, but...it's going to be a modern day Euro Rat Rod.
And that won't stop me in the least from doing autocrosses or trackdays with it when we're done!
I will add that by the time all is said & done, you're going to spend $3k to run a race weekend between the build & the fees...and that's a far cry from $500. If I couldn't run the car again somewhere else after spending that much cash...yes, I'd be disappointed.
Well, when you've got $3k into your $500 car it's hardly crap anymore, is it?
I'll have to wrap my brain around this. It's kinda the opposite of the $200k challenge, where the point is to take a crap car and make it as special/fast as possible. LeMons seems about concealing how special you've made it.
I'm thinking black flat paint and some fun graphics. Under 50 bucks spent, and let the chips fall where they will.
Now THAT's the spirit! 
Goof it up some, have fun with it. Don't ruin it for yourself by getting all serious.
I witnessed several cars "depreciated" with sledge hammers for looking too valuable. After running a black car I decided it's too drab looking out on the track. Do something that'll make you stand out on youtube.
I dont understand why people run cars in lemos that are still useable for anything else. I may be wrong, but it doesnt seem much different than a demolition derby as far as the survival rate of the vehicles. A crappy thunderbird full of acorn shells seems like the perfect kind of car to run, some of the others (spec miatas, old alfas that are still in farily decent shape, porsche 944s, etc) dont really seem like the kind of thing that should be used for that.
^^ And that's what the judges are trying to discourage, it's intended to be a race for crap cars, not $25000 Spec Miatas or IT cars that have been made to look bad.
Jensenman wrote: ^^ And that's what the judges are trying to discourage, it's intended to be a race for crap cars, not $25000 Spec Miatas or IT cars that have been made to look bad.
It seems like alot of people dont have the right idea though. Running a fully prepped race car, or a car that is nicer than many peoples daily drivers doesnt make sense. Of most of the cars I have seen, your thunderbird seems to be one of the closest to how I would interpret the rules (as far as money spent on the car, and what type of cars they want people to bring).
Jensenman wrote: ^^ And that's what the judges are trying to discourage, it's intended to be a race for crap cars, not $25000 Spec Miatas or IT cars that have been made to look bad.
Getting the cars legal for Lemons in safety equipment (cage, switch, seat, harness, etc) is not really trivial and getting the car safe eats up a little more. Getting the car pretty means you have way too much cash...
Some of the cars at CMP had lots of money under their hoods and that is not the true lemons way...
BY the way SVT Cobra Mustang Club (SCMC) is going to have a "Lemons" session on the short track at CMP a few weeks before the April event in conjunction with their event in March there.
Getting the cars legal for Lemons in safety equipment (cage, switch, seat, harness, etc) is not really trivial and getting the car safe eats up a little more. Getting the car pretty means you have way too much cash...
you see, that's where I call bullE36 M3 on this thing. Getting a car pretty doesn't have to be expensive - just labor intensive. There's some warped logic going on when guys are trying to hide their race engines under a layer of grime, and a guy who made a car look great with bondo and rattle can is in danger of having his car smashed.
but.....whatever. Agonizing over this stuff isn't what the spirit of leMons seems to be about. Having fun is. And if some dipwit sneaks a highbucks car in, if the judges don't catch him, Karma will.
Yeah, it's not supposed to be about what you can sneak by the judges but there are a lot of folks that will try to do something like that. There was a certain crappy looking topless 2nd gen RX7 that was WAY fast.
Disclaimer: we were WAY down on HP at CMP, so we have decided to repower the TT with something a little more oomphy. 
Let me just be the Devil's Advocate here and ask what I consider a reasonable question based on my experience:
I was part of a Lemons team in '08 (we ran a Jetta in the Conn event).
But I also race in NASA with a very low-bucks Escort. The cost of the Jetta we built for Lemons (in terms of actual cash, hour of labor and various horse-trading deals) was about the same as my NASA Escort.
The Escort is basically a reliable backmarker car. I've had some great battles with oher low-bucks racers back behind the leaders. I ran it in five NASA events plus one EMRA event in the last year and I had an absolute ball with it. It's still a very decent car right now and I could easily run it in six more events in '09 with ordinary maintainence if I wanted to [*see note at end]
Our Lemons Jetta got fairly trashed and we were one of the lucky teams. In real terms, I think it's best to consider a Lemons car a "one event car".
So why would I build a one-shot Lemons car if I can built an entry-level, multi-use NASA racer for about the same cost? The Lemons event got our group together and that was a great thing. And in it's own way, Lemons was fun. But NASA racing is even more fun and, for me at least, seems more like real motorsports.
I know that some of appeal for Lemons comraderie mixed in with cost and seat time. I ran a NASA-NE open track day in early '08 at Pocono. It cost $225 for FOUR HOURS of track time and they gave me lunch as well. The other racers were a great bunch. And my car was fine afterwards. There are other excellent track time deals too (like the C.A.R.T Circuits Maximus Event at Pocono).
But after doing both Lemons and NASA, and working out the true cost and effort required, I have found that an entry level NASA track car seems to be a bigger bang for the buck. And while it might be fun, I don't really have the time or money to do both.
I realize that some of you guys are real Lemons-heads and that's fine. I'm not trying to knock your fun.....more power to you! It's big world out there and like many other things in life, it's a matter of preference.
But I'm asking an honest question. Has anyone else here thought about this?
*Note: Note: ~THE ESCORT~ is for sale at a sub-Challenge-friendly price because I'm involved in some new race car projects for '09.
I think one big draw of Lemons is that you don't have to plow a bunch of money into a SCCA/NASA road race license (although they accept those licenses in place of theirs) so it appeals to the autocross and time trial crowd. I calculated a while back that an SCCA wheel to wheel license would cost me around $5k by the time I did schools, rented a car, fuel etc. and that was before building a car.
With LeMons the cost of building a car is spread out over several people (it wound up costing us around $600 each to build the car) and the car survived so we can do it again this year for much less money. I don't think you can find cheaper wheel to wheel racing. Sure, it's nowhere near as fast as 'true' racing but it's a lot of fun.
The $600 each thing is pretty common - it's about where we were the first time too. The deal is, if you have joneses to go fast and turn but can hardly afford autocrossing - this is it. You can go with no experience and race wheel to wheel. A guy like that (like me) would normally have to spend a ton of moeny for a license, and then a ton of money to try and make a car fir into a specific class by himself. In this case, you get a bunch of friends together, and even more beer, split the cost up between you, and you get four hours of racing EACH for $600 TOTAL including the car. Not only that, Lemons attrition is getting better - we plan on running the same exact car for the next race. If you have the money to compete in NASA then Lemons isn't for you unless you yearn for the days of cheapo racing. It's not about having a crappy car by definition, it's about creating an arbitrary bar so the hurdle to entry is small and some guy who bought an old ZX2 or something that lasts the whole race can actually compete realistically with the top people.
It's one of those "if you have to ask why..." things.
-Brian
Well that's where a lot of the appeal comes from - "relatively" cheap wheel-to-wheel. For the guy who mentioned the demolition derby aspect, I imagine that a course like Altamont would be much more so than at a Thunderhill or Buttonwillow where the cars will be much more spread out.
At CMP there was a strict 'no hit' rule which took a lot of demo derby out of it, thus cutting down on the need to replace a car every race. I know first hand because I got blackflagged for metal to metal. They withdrew it because there was no evidence.
kreb wrote:Getting the cars legal for Lemons in safety equipment (cage, switch, seat, harness, etc) is not really trivial and getting the car safe eats up a little more. Getting the car pretty means you have way too much cash...you see, that's where I call bullE36 M3 on this thing. Getting a car pretty doesn't have to be expensive - just labor intensive. There's some warped logic going on when guys are trying to hide their race engines under a layer of grime, and a guy who made a car look great with bondo and rattle can is in danger of having his car smashed. but.....whatever. Agonizing over this stuff isn't what the spirit of leMons seems to be about. Having fun is. And if some dipwit sneaks a highbucks car in, if the judges don't catch him, Karma will.
Dude, I think you're still missing the point. Similar to the Challenge, I think it's tough to "get" until you've been there, but everyone here is trying to help you out. Like I said earlier, google "Jalopnik LeMons," sit back with a six-pack, learn pretty much everything you need to know. Here are a couple good ones to start with:
http://jalopnik.com/400309/what-would-smokey-do-24-hours-of-lemons-cheating-tips-from-judge-murilee
and:
http://jalopnik.com/399307/want-to-ensure-absolute-impartiality-from-the-lemons-judges
Anyway, we brought a $500 piece of E36 M3. We'll bring a $500 piece of E36 M3 this year. Not because we want to be all "WE'RE the only ones not cheating," but because we're cheap bastards who aren't going to waste a bunch of cash on a car that could potentially be crushed/rammed a billion times.
All that being said, do what makes you happy. If that includes making the car pretty, go for it. Just keep a couple things in mind:
Regardless of how squeaky clean your budget is, you might get nailed for BSF simply by having a clean car. At this point, getting all uppity with the judges is not a very good idea.
$50 for paint and bondo is 1/10th of your budget, and doesn't make your car any faster.
At any given time, there will be 20 or 30 drivers on course with you who have never driven on a track before, much less wheel-to-wheel, so don't get all bent when your bondo comes off in big chunks in the first turn.
<---Just trying to help. Hope you have FUN!
aeronca65t wrote: The Escort is basically a reliable backmarker car. I've had some great battles with oher low-bucks racers back behind the leaders. I ran it in five NASA events plus one EMRA event in the last year and I had an absolute ball with it. It's still a very decent car right now and I could easily run it in six more events in '09 with ordinary maintainence if I wanted to [*see note at end] *Note: Note: ~THE ESCORT~ is for sale at a sub-Challenge-friendly price because I'm involved in some new race car projects for '09.
I've been passed by this car, it's a clean solid piece deserving of another good home.
(Red Miata # 39)
Jensenman wrote: At CMP there was a strict 'no hit' rule which took a lot of demo derby out of it, thus cutting down on the need to replace a car every race. I know first hand because I got blackflagged for metal to metal. They withdrew it because there was no evidence.
Yes there was. I also got time in the penalty box - did not matter if you were hit or the hitter.
It was tough since most people had no clue on how to race - so you spent most of your time staying out of the way. To say some of the drivers were unpredictable is a bit of an understatement. There were a lot of top notch racers at the CMP event also....
I did not intend to offend on the "pretty" part - but I would spend the budget on ball joints or whatever will help the car make the distance....
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