Plenty of Mazdas (including the Protege, Miata, RX-7, and— depending on how strictly you define a Mazda— Ford Probe) have taken the win on laps at a 24 Hours of LeMons event, so the fact that the Hong Norrth 1994 MX-3 wore Mazda badges didn’t shock anyone. No, what shocked everyone was the crazy series of lead changes during the race’s last hour, with a Saab 900 Turbo, BMW 325i, and Honda Prelude slugging it out with the Mazda for the checkered flag. (Read More…)

The RBankRacing Saab 900 Turbotook the overall win at the 2010 Southern Discomfort race, but almost everyone many observers felt that performance was a fluke. (Read More…)

Here I am, back in Carolina Motorsports Park in South Carolina for the second annual Southern Discomfort 24 Hours of LeMons, and the seventh LeMons event to take place at CMP. The ’10 Southern Discomfort really was uncomfortable, with freezing-ass temperatures and plenty of frigid mud all around, and that scared off many of the usual Southern LeMons teams this time… but the joke was on them; the 50 or so teams that had the guts to show up will enjoy beautiful 70-degree weather all weekend. (Read More…)

A proper coffee-table car book ought to be heavy on the grainy action photos, light on the words, and include photographs of Škoda 1101 Sports and Renault 4CVs at Le Mans. Sports Car Racing In Camera, 1950-59 qualifies for inclusion in even the most crowded coffee-table real estate. (Read More…)

This 1985 Volvo DL was the first race car I ever worked on, and it had a storied history during its two-year run of 24 Hours of LeMons races. Now that much of its running gear has been transplanted into the 1927 Model T GT, the ol’ race Volvo is free to a good home (sort of). (Read More…)

We’ve seen the Unununium and Ununquadium Legends of LeMons, but we mustn’t leave out the nearly-as-amazing Ununhexium Medal Winners! (Read More…)

You have no idea of the agony I went through, narrowing down the Legends of LeMons Unununium Medal winners down to just four recipients. The Ununquadium medal goes to those outstanding 24 Hours of LeMons teams that have attained near-Unununium Legend of LeMons status… and they’ll get their Uuq-287 medals just as soon as we find a way to deal with the 2.6-second half-life. (Read More…)

First of all, nitpickers, I know that unununium was renamed Roentgenium in 2004. Atomic Number 111 will always be unununium in my heart, and (as soon as I can find a cheap source for the stuff) it will be used to stamp out the Murilee Martin Legends of LeMons awards for the most psychotic inspiring 24 Hours of LeMons racers of each season. The ’10 season produced a bumper crop of LeMons Legends, but only four received the coveted Unununium Medal. Let’s see who they are! (Read More…)

Imagine California’s Central Valley with no personal-injury attorneys and a glut of sub-50-buck Model Ts, Essexes, and Oaklands. (Read More…)

Yes, somehow a Ford Probe— one of the least reliable cars in 24 Hours of LeMons history— has taken the overall win at a 24 Hours of LeMons race. Not only that, the BoomPowSurprise Probe won by a commanding 32-lap margin, meaning the car could have nuked its engine with nearly an hour to go and still won. (Read More…)

The midnight-to-midnight 2010 season-ender is underway at Palm Beach International Raceway! (Read More…)

I’ve got this intimidating stack-o-car books to review— it’s been five months since the last one— and so I figured I’d skim them all and pick out a few winners. I cracked this one open, got hooked right away, and read the whole thing while ignoring the rest of the pile. (Read More…)

As we saw in the prerace sneak preview, the 2010 Arse Freeze-a-Palooza 24 Hours of LeMons featured a brain-dissolvingly great assortment of entries, so impressive that one of the greatest of all time may have been lost in the frenzy: the Apollo 18 Mini Moke. (Read More…)

We didn’t have quite the 180 cars that signed up for the Arse Freeze-a-Palooza 24 Hours of LeMons at Buttonwillow Raceway Park— only 162 were ready when the green flag waved this morning— but it was still the biggest field in LeMons history. With the first session done and the racers in a frenzied all-night wrenchathon to get their heaps together by Sunday morning, we can tell you that the always-contending POSRacing F’ed-Up Express E30 sits in the lead… barely. (Read More…)

With nearly 180 entries, the 2010 Arse Freeze-a-Palooza will be the biggest 24 Hours of LeMons race in history, and it also promises to have the highest concentration of never-belonged-on-a-road-course awesome machinery ever gathered in one location. At this moment, I’m wearing the LeMons Supreme Court judicial robes and busting cheaters, which means that I’m finally allowed to share some of these fine machines with you and not ruin their grand entrances at the track. (Read More…)