"What Would Smokey Do?"

Jalopnik and it's nonstop coverage of all things LeMons is easily one of my favorite blogs. They share my reverence for Smokey Yunick, about which little more need be said, other than the man was a mechanical genius and wrote an autobiography that is simultaneously both a tremendous work of art and the best argument for the need for authors to have editors. Which I'm sure my writing affirms.

Regardless, among many Jalopnik posts that should be useful to our race team is this one entitled "What Would Smokey Do? 24 Hours of LeMons Cheating Tips." Check it out.

While on that topic, the real question may be why cheat in the first place? Why do we even care? One entrant who went on to be a BS judge at the LeMons South race this year provides us with a pithy answer:

"You may be asking yourself why they bother. Why put so much time and effort into cheating when even founder Jay Lamm describes the race as a "waste of time." Sure racing is cheating, but LeMons isn't really racing. It's Burning Man gone retarded, a beer-soaked monument to high school shop class. And this is where you're wrong. Obviously, the nickels provide little motivation. But every other puzzle piece is present. Problem solving, driver skill, team work, metal-crunching surprises, wheel-to-wheel action — it's all there, in multicolored spades. To quote Willie Sutton, who, when he was asked why he robbed banks, said, "because that's where the money is." LeMons my friends, is racing in its purest form. And racing is cheating."