The 24 Hours of LeMons Sears Pointless race last weekend was host to 148 teams racing $500 cars. Once the checkered flag dropped on Saturday night, then the action switched from the world famous twelve turn technical road course of Infineon Raceway to a sloped four lane wooden straight track for teams racing $5 cars –pinewood derby cars.
Since Speed:Sport:Life had featured a Racer Boy story on Pinewood Derby, it only seemed right that we should represent at this event. So to prepare for the race we built three fresh cars and brought my son’s Boy Scouts of America District Champion car. Why four cars? You wouldn’t ask Penske why he brings four cars to Indy. We did it to hedge our bets, of course.
We built our #38 hero car, to look similar to our LeMon’s Acura Integra, red, sleek and lightweight. I’ll admit I got a little crazy with the Dremel on this one. We had so much Tungsten in the trunk in order to put the center mass toward the rear that we had to carve away the rest of the chassis to make the 5 ounce weight.
LeMons actually encouraged cheating in this event so we built our toxic waste delivery car, the toxic waste being 14 ounces of molten lead. To really make this car wicked fast we picked up a set of nickel plated polished axles and some crazy thin and super fast wheels from Maximum-Velocity.
A bunch of LeMons teams arrived with cars, some were decorated to match their actual racecars, some had different contraptions to attempt to make them faster. As the eliminations began all four of our cars won their first rounds.
We were feeling pretty good until the guys from the ZZ Uber team ran their first round. These guys built a remote controlled electric engine pinewood derby car. It was absolutely ingenious and was insanely fast.
Or cars were crushing the “old school” pinewood competition, especially our overweight and Maximum-Velocity wheels equipped toxic waste delivery car, but we couldn’t even touch the RC car. It was a blur as it went down the track. The car was built creatively and was perfectly executed. We’ll admit when we get out engineered and beat. They cleaned house in the pinewood race. At the end of the event they ran the car up the track backwards, using the track as a launch pad to propel the car fifteen feet through the air. You’ve never seen anything like it at a pinewood race.
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We had to settle for not winning the pinewood race, which was fitting since the following day we finished second best in the LeMons race as well. But like Ricky Bobby’s daddy told him, second place is the first loser. Congrats to Team ZZ Uber. Outstanding ingenuity, we just wished we had thought of it too.
I think you weren't watching the same pinewood derby race as the rest of us. The ZZ car with the RC motor did take first overall, but the finals had only 3 cars: the ZZ car, the mousetrap car with the white coat hanger that extended about 4" off the front end, and our 5-ounce carbon fiber car. The ZZ car won overall, while our CF car outraced the mousetrap's head start to take the win in the traditionally-powered class. Maybe your car lost out to the ZZ in the semis?
I figured that when your Sausage-mobile body slammed our MR2 in the last hour of the LeMons race it was maybe to make up for the Pinewood defeat? No?
Cheers Rob.
I totally agree with your recollection of the finishing order. The RC car wasted us in the semis.
I'd like to publicly apologize for the contact with your car at the end of the race; that was totally my fault. I was a desperate man taking insane chances in an attempt to win the race in the final moments and tried to stick five feet of Acura Integra in a four foot hole. It was a dumb move on my part and I hope your car wasn't damaged too badly. It was by no means pinewood payback. That isn’t how my team likes to operate and it was an uncharacteristic move on my part.
Hey Rob, I was just teasing about the contact being a quid pro quo. No apology necessary, please don't worry about it at all. While I think my reaction at the time in the car was something like "WTF?," when I got out of the car and saw the standings, it all made sense. Our car wasn't damaged at all except that it now has a nice red stripe on the driver's side.
Cheers, Rob. Good luck at T-Hill.
Awesome… I wish I could have made this LeMons race.
Cool story Rob
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