Did She Just Say "Mile Of Cars"?

(Clip contains NSFW language)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the famous “mile of cars” quote from Used Cars — but no matter. This weekend, nearly a full mile of cars went racing. The goal? A Guinness World Record.

This was the scene yesterday at Thunderhill when two hundred and forty two cars lined up for a LeMons race. And here’s the information:

Q: What’s this about a world record something Thunderhill something Lemons something?

A: We are (collectively, as a group) going to attempt to a Guinness World Record for “Largest Auto Race” at the Thunderhill Lemons race Sept 13-14th.

Q: Who the hell are you?

A: Just some run-o-tha-mill Lemons racer ( Snowspeeder) with his own fancy sheet of paper from the GWR folks in London. Seriously, they’ll hand these things out for just about any ol’ thing dudes want to do these days. Anyway, Jay thought I’d be just the right kind of idiot to see this through for us, so I’m coordinating all of this world record bidness.

Q: So what’s the current record?

A: Surprisingly, there is no current world record for this category with GWR. In some ways, this is easier, and in some ways, this makes it harder. I’ve had to negotiate things like not having FIA certification, using flags for the race start as compared to audible signals and other super detailed items.

Q: Ok, cool. Why bother doing this?

A: To help raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, for starters. Also, Jay thought David Vodden needed something new to talk about over the loudspeaker, so…

Q: So Guinness World Records will be there, I hear?

A: No. Not that *I’m* aware of. GWR’s “adjudication process” is where they fly out from London/New York and personally certify your record after the attempt, and it’s very expensive (north of $7,000 USD). Eff that noise. We are collecting our own evidence to “prove” our record, and GWR will review it and make a judgement on if our record will be certified at a later date. I will, however, be putting cool GWR “Official Attempt “stickers on the cars during Friday tech inspection. If you see me in the GWR shirt, say Hi!

Q: So what do we have to do to get the record?

A: In short – nothing special, other than take a look at the ALSF question at the bottom. Participants have plenty to do to keep things safe, so please concentrate on that. I’ll try to dot all of the “I’s” and cross all the “T’s” to give us the best chance at getting marked official.

Q: When do we get our World Record ?

A: Whoa, hold your horses there, speedy. *IF* GWR reviews our evidence and decides to certify our attempt as a world record, we should know by the end of the year. Yes, it takes a long time. After that, you’ll certainly be eligible for your own personalized GWR certificate. I’ll talk to Jay about how folks get the information they need to buy their own yellow participation certificates, if they want. Maybe we’ll figure our a group buy or something to save on shipping from London.

Q: So we’re going to be in THE Guinness Book of World Records?

A: Maybe. They publish it once a year, and not every world record is printed. If they do, my guess is that the full record won’t name names, just refer to the event.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:

Q: How can we use this to raise money for our awesome charity partner, Alex’s Lemonade Stand?

A: Good question. I’ll be chatting with ALSF on some ideas. My initial thought is that we ask teams/individuals to share news of the GWR attempt on social media, and ask their fans to donate to ALSF on behalf of the team, but I’d love to hear your thoughts. Ideas?

They say club racing is dead; I say it’s never been more alive.