The Cars

So, for those of you who haven't seen the majestic beauties that are currently residing in my driveway, here they are. The red one is the parts car, the blue one is intended to be the runner:



Notice the formidible brickwork serving in lieu of non-functioning emergency brakes. There's only so much that you get for your $200. The blue one isn't too bad on the inside, although we will be gutting most of the amenities (such as they are) to run it in the race:



Although we will be leaving this in for the race. Rest assured, it has a mate on the passenger side of the car as well with just as much racing provenance:



So why were the cars so cheap? Well, here's what the engine bay on the blue car looks like:



After talking around on a few different MR2 forums and the Bobistheoilguy.com forum, the consensus opinion is that the oil smoke that trailed the car was probably boil-off from the oil filler that was left off. Opinion is that I should refill the oil, clean out around the plugs and put in new plugs, drop in a little bit of Marvel Mystery Oil and let that soak in for a few hours, then rotate the engine by hand a few turns (taking the distributor line off for that), then put in the battery and fire it up. Consensus opinion is that the engine is likely to be okay and that the mechanic was looking for a paycheck or just wanting the former owner to just go away. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they are right. I'm off to buy oil and a battery.

"This Is a Non-Contact Race"

Ok, so the video below, maybe it's not perfectly illustrative of the racing in LeMons anymore. They are black-flagging folks who make contact with other folks, at least if they see it. All TARP drivers (a/k/a the true "toxic assets" of our race team) should watch this video; it's the driver's meeting from the Houston LeMons race in October 2008. Good stuff here, especially the part about not fighting over positions in an endurance race:

It Has Begun

We've decided to make a go of it for the 24 Hours of LeMons race in Houston on Feb. 28-March 1, 2009.

Whoa, there, you say! What in blazes is this LeMons thing, and are you crazy? If you know me, you know that your second question is superfluous. But the first one is a legit question. Although you could surf on over to the LeMons site that was so handily linked above, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words and that a YouTube video is worth even less. But I think this is descriptive, illustrative, and it gives me goose bumps every time I see it. So enjoy; more photos and details later: