Garrapatas Peligrosas! BS Inspections, Texas Style

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

The 24 Hours of LeMons has been racing at MSR Houston since 2008, and so we’re used to Shiner Bock, 100% humidity, and Taurus SHOs.

Dangerous ticks! The racers seem a bit puzzled by the name of the race, but the event patch is sure to become a sought-after collector’s item in the future.

The Cajun Coonasses’ Rolling Stones-themed “Beast of Burden” Saturn SC features an authentic Keith Richards-style cigarette in its grille now.

The Index of Effluency-winning Fairmont wagon of Property Devaluation Racing now has Brown Car Appreciation Society sponsorship. This car generally eats 1.6 Ford 302 engines per race, but we’re hoping it will manage to contend for an overall win this weekend.

The IOE-winning Sensory Assault RX-7 will feature a LeMons first: an engine-coolant-operated moonshine still in the car. The bottle in the foreground contains the fermented mash. Should work great!

We had high hopes for the Moose Knuckles Racing Porsche 924 after their nightmare JB Weld cylinder-head-repair frenzy at the last MSR race; they got exactly zero laps (half-laps behind the tow truck don’t count) at that event.

Sadly, things don’t look promising for the Porsche, what with the massive engine fire it suffered during practice this morning. Ai-ya!

The green flag waves at 10:30 Saturday morning, and I’ll try to do an update or two if I have the time. Failing that, I’ll have the usual end-of-day race update tomorrow night.

















Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

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, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • NSF Racing NSF Racing on Jun 04, 2011

    Allen Iverson, of the 76'ers, proven right on the "practice" arguement by the unlucky MKR team and their Porsche-b-que.

  • PrincipalDan PrincipalDan on Jun 04, 2011

    Fairmont Wagon. If only a rebuilt 302 and C6 transmission weren't beyond the price range of this class of racing... lol.

  • Douglas This timeframe of Mercedes has the self-disintegrating engine wiring harness. Not just the W124, but all of them from the early 90's. Only way to properly fix it is to replace it, which I understand to be difficult to find a new one/do it/pay for. Maybe others have actual experience with doing so and can give better hope. On top of that, it's a NH car with "a little bit of rust", which means to about anyone else in the USA it is probably the rustiest W124 they have ever seen. This is probably a $3000 car on a good day.
  • Formula m How many Hyundai and Kia’s do not have the original engine block it left the factory with 10yrs prior?
  • 1995 SC I will say that year 29 has been a little spendy on my car (Motor Mounts, Injectors and a Supercharger Service since it had to come off for the injectors, ABS Pump and the tool to cycle the valves to bleed the system, Front Calipers, rear pinion seal, transmission service with a new pan that has a drain, a gaggle of capacitors to fix the ride control module and a replacement amplifier for the stereo. Still needs an exhaust manifold gasket. The front end got serviced in year 28. On the plus side blank cassettes are increasingly easy to find so I have a solid collection of 90 minute playlists.
  • MaintenanceCosts My own experiences with, well, maintenance costs:Chevy Bolt, ownership from new to 4.5 years, ~$400*Toyota Highlander Hybrid, ownership from 3.5 to 8 years, ~$2400BMW 335i Convertible, ownership from 11.5 to 13 years, ~$1200Acura Legend, ownership from 20 to 29 years, ~$11,500***Includes a new 12V battery and a set of wiper blades. In fairness, bigger bills for coolant and tire replacement are coming in year 5.**Includes replacement of all rubber parts, rebuild of entire suspension and steering system, and conversion of car to OEM 16" wheel set, among other things
  • Jeff Tesla should not be allowed to call its system Full Self-Driving. Very dangerous and misleading.
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