The People’s Curse Award winner, Mazda-saurus takes a beating post race.

Probably a good thing for it’s life to end this way!

Last week I dropped by Thunderhill Raceway to check out the 24 Hours of LeMons and walked around and took some photos but I didn’t stay for the entire race. Even though I was there for a while I was able to read comments made by teams and see enough photos taken during the race to know it’s the last place in the world I would wish be been caught in a car. Just take a moment to think about it… First of all you are required to have a “piece” of who knows what that is worth less than $500 and the cheaper the better. How many race cars worth $500 can possibly be considered safe all things considered. Drivers are not required to have any track experience and all they have to do is “purchase” a license. I talked to one team driver who had his girlfriend for a teammate and she has never driven on a track in her life. For those of us that have had many hours of seat time we have a very good understanding of what “not” to do and when “not” to do it which was taught to us on tracks by licensed instructors when there was “not” any other cars on the track for us to hit or lives to endanger. However, in this case anyone with fifty bucks can take the first turn as fast as they want with other untrained drivers as well. To make things worse, even if there are some who choose to drive within their known abilities, they are still on a track with other drivers who may either be seasoned race car drivers going at full speed or worse yet they are out there with the ones who don’t realize how unsafe what they are doing truly is and they too are going as fast as they can.
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Several weeks ago I was asked to run a car in this years 24 Hours of LeMons being held at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows California but since it was so close to the holidays I decided to take a rain check. As luck would have it my wife, our grandson and I just so happen to be driving by Thunderhill at lunch time on my way to Oregon to spend the holiday with my mother. I told my wife that since it was about time to stop and get a bite to eat it might be fun to stop and check out the race.

Since we had a long 8 more hours of driving ahead of us and not wanting spend too much time at the track my wife went to get some chow at the track cafe while I walked around and got some action photos. But instead of seeing cars doing battle on the track what I found was everyone in the paddock working on their cars. Now I had already been warned that the 24 Hours of LeMons was considerably much more laid back than the demanding rigors that I was used to and had even been told at some point they even take a lunch break.
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As exciting as racing in this years La Carrera Panamericana was I just can’t help but want to get back behind Lucky’s wheel for more… A LOT more. But before I go any further, please don’t get me wrong, the effect of having competed in the La Carrera is far from over.

One of the single biggest accomplishments for a car builder is to see his or her project not only perform well but in fact having done it against the very best competitors and having done it at a do or die level and that is exactly how I drove Lucky. Backing up several years ago I remember it was near the end of the year and I was in a very good spot to take the overall points lead for the national seasons championships with only two races left in the season. Right when I thought nothing could go wrong… That’s right… everything went wrong as my car took me head-on into a concrete retaining wall while doing over 125 miles per hour. The good news was I walked away unscathed. The bad news was there was not a single piece of the car that resembled a race car and there was only three and half weeks until the next event in the series. Back in those days I did not have the usual 8 or nine back-up cars that we typically keep on hand for such reasons these days. That meant I had very little time to build and test a car that had already taken me years to accomplish and as everyone knows even the best built car will have “bugs” that usually will only be found while thrashing the car. In an endurance series finding gremlins or any other type of problem can result in a less than satisfactory result and usually any car needs to be “dialed in” regardless of how well built it is.

On the following Monday after the crash I found myself along side my team of dedicated men building a replacement car that had ONLY a roll cage and not a single other part whatsoever in it. I mean NOTHING! With only 3 days before the next race I found myself buckled in the car sitting on Infineon (Sears Point) International Raceway on a test day waiting for the green flag to drop. If you asked me if I thought there would be something that needed attention I would have told you it wouldn’t be if but more like how many. I will never forget that day as I began tearing up the track and going faster and faster all the time asking myself, “When in the hell is something going to happen?” As amazing as it was, the “when” never happened. Not only did I go on to win that years seasons championships but that car kept on going until it had 4 more seasons championships and a lot more and not once did a single component ever break or give me a problem.

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