And the Real Winner Is…
Yes, Saab purists, someone has installed an incorrect two-stroke three-cylinder engine in a Saab 96. Well, it’s mostly Saab 96; the Adopted By Jets Saab was assembled from a bunch of random Saab parts found in some Saab fanatic’s back yard. Today, Index of Effluence glory!
The top photo comes from the New England LeMons race in the summer, because I was too busy working the Penalty Box for our 24-straight-hours race to shoot many photos this time around. How about a photo of the melted piston on the engine the 96 started with?
The race ended at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and the party began at that moment.
We’re pouring the drinks and readying for an even wilder, more effluent 2011 season!
As for the other major awards: Organizer’s Choice went to the Nutjob Racing New York-themed Honda Wagovan, which was driven to Florida from Brooklyn. Most Heroic went to the amazing Spank and his cross-country-driven Citroën DS (which lost all oil pressure and developed a rod knock midday Friday, but still went out to take the checkered flag at midnight). The I Got Screwed award went to Clueless Racing, whose CRX was neck-and-neck with the winning Probe for most of the race… but then threw a rod with a couple of hours to go.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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Congrats to Spank on another well-deserved trophy! Congrats to Adopted By Jets for beating out a tough field for the IOE! That car was a serious contender in Stafford as well. Congrats to Nutjob Racing for both making it to the track despite the weather in the northeast, and winning the Org Choice. Nice work with the theme!
My engineer dad owned a string of 5 or 6 two-stroke SAABs back in the 60's. Looking at that engine reminds me of something that he was fond of saying about about those two-strokes: "The red-line is the same as the destruction point of the materials of the engine." He proved that several times over the years. Fortunately the engines were so small that a short block could be easily carried in the trunk.