Fieros, SHOs, and TTAC Hacks: BS Inspections at the Yeehaw It's Texas 24 Hours of LeMons

by Murilee Martin

October 1st, 2011 12:12 AM

fieros shos and ttac hacks bs inspections at the yeehaw it s texas 24 hours of

Here we are at MSR Houston for the fourth annual Yeehaw It’s Texas 24 Hours of LeMons race. To ensure that TTAC’s coverage of the race remains completely objective, we’ve got three of your most loyal and dependable TTAC scribes delivering hard-hitting, hammer-jack-stomping journalism for y’all.

Sajeev and I are race officials, and Jack “That’s a PLYMOUTH Neon, Sucka” Baruth will be getting some seat time behind the wheels of the Tetanus Racing Neon and Porsche 944. By the way, that pistol in my hand is an “Hijos de Villa” commemorative tequila bottle.

The fact that I’ve been judging for the 24 Hours of LeMons for more than three years, with LeMons Chief Perp Jay Lamm handing me rapid fire louie like Rambo got bullets, has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Lamm is The Greatest Race Promoter Who Ever Walked The Earth (indeed, he is one of the Giants of Motorsport), nor does it alter my certainty that the 24 Hours of LeMons will one day be regarded as the pinnacle of American civilization.

Speaking of integrity, the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court has plenty! I’ve been making special commemorative BRIBED stencils to spray on the cars of teams that grease the gears of justice, and this weekend’s racers got a Houston-centric version that I’m sure they’ll prize for years to come (or until they repaint their cars, which happens every few months).

We had some good themes and costumes on the cars, including this puzzling Whoopie Cushion/Daisy Duke/Big Foam Cowboy Hats arrangement on a Texasified BMW 2002 (they claim it’s a 1602, but the engine is out of a 320i, which de-1600-izes the thing). What does it mean?

Also puzzling were the Scary Clowns. I hope they wear these outfits all weekend!

We set a new record for Fieros at a single race, with three showing up this time. One has an original 2.8 V6, one has a Lumina 3.4 V6, and this Fierrari has a late-model 3.8 V6. Sure, Fieros always blow up in LeMons, but we still love them.

That’s because the Fiero is the American mid-engined sports car!

It’s late and I have to get up painfully early to inspect the 20 or so cars whose teams didn’t have their act together well enough to make it through today’s inspections, so I’ll leave you with this timelapse video showing most of the cars that did make it through our gauntlet today. Check in tomorrow for live coverage from Judge Sajeev!

#24HoursOfLeMons #24HoursOfLeMonsHouston #24HoursOfLeMonsTexas #BSInspection #Houston #Racing #Texas #YeehawItsTexas

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 24 comments

Birddog on Oct 01, 2011

Murilee appears to be living the charmed life of an Illinois governor! Way to go!!

Like Reply
Dvp cars on Oct 01, 2011

......any competition where rapaciously greedy scrutineers routinely run out of those "bribed" stencils is sure to hit the FIA's radar eventually. Flaunting their ill-gotten lucre in the photos seems particularly unwise.

Like Reply

Recent Comments

PeterPuck For years, Ford has simply reworked existing designs originating from Europe and Japanese manufacturers, not being capable of designing a decent car in the USA.What’s the last clean sheet design from the USA? The 1986 Taurus?And they still can’t manage to get things right.why is this? Are they putting all of the competent engineers and designers on the F150? Is woke diversification affecting them, as some rumours suggest? Are they rewarding incompetence?
Brandon What is a "city crossover"?
Tassos What was the last time we had any good news from Ford? (or GM for that matter?)The last one was probably when Alan Mulally was CEO. Were you even born back then?Fields was a total disaster, then they go hire this clown from Toyota's PR department, the current Ford CEO, Fart-ley or something.He claims to be an auto enthusiast too (unlike Mary Barra who is even worse, but of course always forgiven, as she is the proud owner of a set of female genitals.
Tassos I know some would want to own a collectible Mustang. (sure as hell not me. This crappy 'secretary's car' (that was exactly its intended buying demo) was as sophisticated (transl. : CRUDE) as the FLintstone's mobile. Solid Real Axle? Are you effing kidding me?There is a huge number of these around, so they are neither expensive nor valuable.WHen it came out, it was $2,000 or so new. A colleague bought a recent one with the stupid Ecoboost which also promised good fuel economy. He drives a hard bargain and spends time shopping and I remember he paid $37k ( the fool only bought domestic crap, but luckily he is good with his hands and can fix lots of stuff on them).He told me that the alleged fuel economy is obtained only if you drive it like a VERY old lady. WHich defeats the purpose, of course, you might as well buy a used Toyota Yaris (not even a Corolla).
MRF 95 T-Bird Back when the Corolla consisted of a wide range of body styles. This wagon, both four door and two door sedans, a shooting brake like three door hatch as well as a sports coupe hatchback. All of which were on the popular cars on the road where I resided.