Yesterday was a long, long day on Pike’s Peak. Above 10,000 feet, the Colorado sun bakes the will to live right out of you, while the lack of oxygen starves lungs and engines alike. Constant wrecks and breakdowns shut down the course for long periods, but all these things were just minor irritants, forgotten as soon as the next racer came fishtailing up the hill. The big news, of course, was the demolition of the 10-minute barrier by Monster Tajima, but every entrant got plenty of cheers from the thousands of dust-huffing hillclimb fans lining the route to the summit. Make the jump for some of my photo highlights from the day. (Read More…)

The Killer Bees MGB has participated in just about every West Coast 24 Hours of LeMons race for the last couple of years. The Bees have done quite well, generally finishing in the top half of the standings, but somehow another entry managed to take home LeMons racing’s top prize in each of those races; even a British Leyland product has a tough time when submerged in a field of 150+ entries. This time, however, the yellow MGB finished well into the top 10 of the standings and claimed the IOE in a no-doubt decision. (Read More…)

A BMW has taken the overall win at the Pacific Northworst 24 Hours of LeMons, but it wasn’t yet another dime-a-dozen E30. Nope, the winner this time was the bigger and more dignified E28 5 Series. (Read More…)

History made on the mountain just a few minutes ago: Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima just ran 9:51 and change in his run to the Pike’s Peak summit. Sayonara, 10-minute barrier! (Read More…)

I had to haul my bleary-eyed self out of the sack at 4:00 AM in order to grab this choice vantage point at 11,000 feet, about halfway up the road to the summit, but the sight of this incredible race car just made the sleep deprivation worthwhile. Everything else I see today will just be a bonus. (Read More…)

The reports from Oregon LeMons HQ are in, and we’ve got some very interesting results for you. Sure, a BMW E28 in the lead is on the cool side, but a Jeep not far behind? Not only that, a British Leyland product is in the top ten, a feat long considered possible by, well, everyone. (Read More…)

I’m not at Oregon Raceway Park to judge the Pacific Northworst LeMons race this weekend, because I just had to stay in Colorado to watch a bunch of freaks race to 14,115 feet. However, LeMons Assistant Perp Nick Pon has sent in some photos of yesterday’s prerace BS Inspections. (Read More…)

I’m skipping the Pacific Northworst 24 Hours of LeMons race, so that I can attend this weekend’s Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb. I headed over to the mountain earlier today to drive the course, scout out good camera spots, and check out teams wrenching on their cars in motel parking lots. (Read More…)

The folks in Dearborn spent many decades making Mercuries that were just slightly flashier Fords, and so the car-shopping public had no problem with a Comet that was obviously a Falcon (or Maverick), or a Marquis that was obviously an LTD (or Granada). Not so with GM, whose divisions mostly did a pretty good job of building cars that camouflaged their connections to corporate siblings… that is, until the Malaise Era. By the time Carter was President, you could buy a Chevy Nova with Buick, Pontiac, or Oldsmobile badging. I found this example of the Olds Nova at a Denver wrecking yard yesterday. (Read More…)

When I first glimpsed this Malaise Era compact wagon in my local wrecking yard, I thought “Wow, I haven’t seen a Vega in a junkyard for years!” Then I saw the grille and realized that I was looking at an example of the very rare Monza wagon, which was a Monza snout grafted onto the discontinued-after-1977 Vega wagon. At the risk of enraging the small but very devoted Vega Jihad, I’m going to pronounce this thing The Most Terrible Station Wagon Detroit Ever Made. (Read More…)

I’ve seen a fair number of car-themed tatts inked into the flesh of single-interest car fanatics over the years, including the usual Super Bees, Corvette logos, and Alfa snakes, but this gentleman raises the car-tattoo bar to unheard-of heights by opting to make an impressively high percentage of his body’s surface area an homage to GM’s mid-engined two-seater. This man is now King of the Fieros. (Read More…)

Denver is home to plenty of AMC Eagles, BMW 325iXs, the occasional Vanagon Syncro, and just about every other oddball four-wheel-drive vehicle made. Until yesterday, however, the only Justy 4WD I’d ever seen was this Crusher-bound example. Then this extremely clean red Justy 4WD showed up in my neighborhood. (Read More…)

We’ve seen some Volvo 240s do very well in the 24 Hours of LeMons, but never before has a 240 this terrible managed to crack the top 10 in a 100-plus-entry 24 Hours of LeMons race. This hacked-up ’92 244 has a creaky, squeaky much-worse-than-stock suspension and an octillion-mile non-turbo B23 engine, but it still beat up on most of the E30s, 190Es, and Integras in the Capitol Offense race over the weekend. (Read More…)

Yes, it is possible to buy an ugly, theft-victim 1998 Mercedes-Benz S500 and sell enough parts off it to get the purchase price under 500 bucks. No, it is not possible to win a weekend-long endurance race at a twisty, technical track with a monstrous, bloated, ungodly complex luxury sedan… yet the Team Opulence—We Has It S500 has done just that. For the second time. (Read More…)

The Mercedes-Benz S500 of Team Opulence—We Has It ended today’s session as the lap leader. This massive dreadnaught took the win on laps at last year’s Capitol Offense, but has cooked its brakes in race after race since that time. (Read More…)