The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Used Lemons cars adverstised for well over $500
I've seen that used Lemons cars are sometimes available for sums that are well over $500. I saw one as high at $6000. How could someone buy one of these and qualify? I've seen comments in here that you can't go over the $500 just because it already had a rollcage and race seat.
The short answer is, if you are seriously interested in a car that is already race prepped and has already run in the Lemons series you should email the link to the ad to judge phil and / or jay lamm and/or nick pon and ask them if you are ok to buy it and race in the series.
The long answer has been covered a bazillion times in previous threads, and while most of that information is likely accurate, your only true and 100% accurate response will come from the people I mentioned above. This is a unique series and it is run by as small a written ruleset as possible. The rules can be summed up with, "It is Jay Lamm's sandbox. What he says, goes." Decisions on eligibility are often completely arbitrary. All we can do here is give you our opinions based on our experience as prior participants.
It comes across very much as a clique.
You can bring ANY car you want that meets safety requirements. Bring a Lamborghini Gallardo if you dare. What you will NOT be able to do is "run away with a win". You will be given enough "penalty laps" so that you could not conceivably ever garner enough positive laps to win the competition on laps.
Split hairs all you want on what is safety items and budget exempt and what isn't. Reality is, it doesn't matter what the hell you spent. If you are a newcomer and think you can win, you will be given enough penalty laps so that you are convinced that you can't win. If you just want to come out and have fun and allow everyone else around you to have the same level of safe-ish fun, bring whatever the heck you want. Once you experience it and "get it", you'll understand more.
Of course some people never "get it" no matter how many times they participate in the series.
An even shorter answer is you buy the car for $500 and the safety gear for the remainder and hope the Judges agree.
Whatever you buy - just be sure you enjoy working on it.
I have a butt-ton of old Lemons craping up my shop. I almost never sell them. They started out as $500 cars and now the only value is the cage.
Price a cage - seat - fuel cell and belts, then figure out how much the car is worth. Then go out with the intention of having fun and keeping your car running. It'll be a positive experience for sure.
Thanks. That's the about what I was thinking. I already got a car and I spent way way less than what I've seen setup Lemons car ads asking and I got lots of the safety gear with it at the same time. Of course it is a complete basket case and needs scads of work. We're working hard, having a blast, and hope to be at one of the California races this spring.
Our team is me, a co-worker, and my eleven year old son. I've never seen my son excited about hard work. Even if the car gets rejected or dies on the 3rd lap, it's already worth it.
I'm expecting to get a huge pile of laps, to get dumped in class A, and to be in the running for nothing more than the "got screwed" trophy. That way if any of my expectations are wrong, it'll be a wonderful surprise. I swing back and forth between wondering if I've lost my mind and giddyness about how much fun this is.
. I swing back and forth between wondering if I've lost my mind and giddyness about how much fun this is.
You are right on both accounts.
The budget is important, but not critical for having a good time.
There was point where my team was gunning to be competitive in class B. Now we are just building the car we want to race, within the spirit of Lemons, and even if we get penalty laps or class ,.we will still have fun. We'd rather lose class A on the track than lose class B in the paddock.
I've seen comments in here that you can't go over the $500 just because it already had a rollcage and race seat.
I'm a little late to the party, but I'll chime in anyway.
I also saw statements to this effect back when I was starting out, one of them even from Judge Phil if I remember right. This didn't make any sense to me at the time since the safety equipment itself is supposed to be exempt, but it seems like it's never really an issue in practice as long as you get the seller to list a separate price for the safety equipment. That's the letter of the law, anyway. I think the judges are far more concerned with cheaters trying to find loopholes than they are with people bringing honestly crappy cars, no matter what they actually paid. The actual enforcement of the law is more like this:
1. Judge Phil looks at your car and gets an immediate sense of how competitive the car might be.
2. If the car model is a well-known heap of shit, skip to step 4. If it's potentially a ringer, or if it possibly bridges a gap between classes, he bounces all four corners and looks closely at the engine and suspension to see if you have any cheaty aftermarket parts.
3. If evidence of cheatiness is found, he asks to see written documentation. He probably won't believe a word of it, but he will appreciate a good effort toward faking it.
4. He then looks at your team and immediately forms an opinion of how full of shit you are. If you look like a bunch of confident guys who think they can pull a fast one, or if one of your team members looks like Smokey Yunick, or if, God forbid, anyone mentions owning a speed shop or being a higher-up in a car club for the same model of car that you race, then the questions will get more pointed and your chance of penalty laps dramatically increases.
5. If you have bribes, present them now. Realistically, they will only make a very small difference. If he's on the fence about what class to put you in, a good bribe might tip the scales toward the lower class. It might also shave off low single-digits worth of penalty laps. Cheap beer will hurt rather than help. A good, well-executed theme also comes into play here, actually more so than a straight-up bribe.
6. All information thus gained is entered into a super-secret mental algorithm formed by years of owning, working on, writing about, and rendering judgement upon cars of all shapes and sizes. The result is written at the top of your inspection sheet. If you complain, or if you look too obviously relieved, it gets revised for the worse.
When I was new to this, I asked a lot of questions about the budget. Many people told me the same thing they're telling you now: don't worry about the budget. I found this hard to do, but after my first race, I realized how right they were. The dollars you spent don't matter as much as the car you brought. Even if you cheated and got penalty laps, you still get to race. You weren't going to win your first time (or 4 or 5 or 6 times) anyway, so don't even worry about it. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong, etc. etc. It sounds like you're all over this, but once I started typing I just couldn't stop myself.
Anyway, welcome to the party. 
I guess I should ask, what car is it?
Thanks. That's the about what I was thinking. I already got a car and I spent way way less than what I've seen setup Lemons car ads asking and I got lots of the safety gear with it at the same time. Of course it is a complete basket case and needs scads of work. We're working hard, having a blast, and hope to be at one of the California races this spring.
Our team is me, a co-worker, and my eleven year old son. I've never seen my son excited about hard work. Even if the car gets rejected or dies on the 3rd lap, it's already worth it.
I'm expecting to get a huge pile of laps, to get dumped in class A, and to be in the running for nothing more than the "got screwed" trophy. That way if any of my expectations are wrong, it'll be a wonderful surprise. I swing back and forth between wondering if I've lost my mind and giddyness about how much fun this is.
You can absolutely build a car for less than some people advertise them but not everyone can. Our team is lucky in that we can build a complete car without having to pay people to do things. The biggest expense a lot of people run into the full cage. If you have the tools and skills to build a cage, you make cage a car for the cost of the tubing, which is $300.00-$400.00.
If you don't have the tubing bender, welder and good welding skills you will be spend a LOT more. In many cases, that is where people are spending $$$.
...being a higher-up in a car club for the same model of car that you race....
On the other hand, when I mentioned that our two-stroke 96 had been dragged home from a farmer's field by the president of the Northwest SAAB Owners Club before he came to his senses and passed it along untouched to me, Judge Phil seemed neither surprised nor concerned. Woo-hoo! Loophole!
I swing back and forth between wondering if I've lost my mind and giddyness about how much fun this is.
After four years and 12 races I still get this way. And wouldn't change a thing. Welcome to the party!
When I bought my first Super Snipe for $430, I sweated every nickel I spent
on it, making sure that it was an honest $500 car. I actually worried when
I went slightly over budget. I eventually learned that Judge Phil couldn't care
less what gets spent on such a non-competitive piece of sh**, since it does
not have a chance in Hell of doing anything other than setting a record for
the slowest lap times ever. I think he gets his jollies from seeing just
how deep we can go in scraping the bottom of the automotive barrel.
ukemike wrote:I swing back and forth between wondering if I've lost my mind and giddyness about how much fun this is.
After four years and 12 races I still get this way. And wouldn't change a thing. Welcome to the party!
I stopped caring if I lost my mind years ago, so now I just get the giddyness.
When I bought my first Super Snipe for $430, I sweated every nickel I spent
on it, making sure that it was an honest $500 car. I actually worried when
I went slightly over budget. I eventually learned that Judge Phil couldn't care
less what gets spent on such a non-competitive piece of sh**, since it does
not have a chance in Hell of doing anything other than setting a record for
the slowest lap times ever. I think he gets his jollies from seeing just
how deep we can go in scraping the bottom of the automotive barrel.
The judges do a real good job of making sure teams don't get an advantage by spending to much. Now if you spend too much to get a disadvantage that is your business and they don't see a reason to punish you more than you have already done to yourself.
If you are thinking of buying an existing Lemons car, your inspection will be a lot more pleasant if you talk to me first about initial value, etc. I know most of the cars well enough to know which ones have effective cheats (versus the usual ineffective kind).
Conversely, this LeMon is being advertised for far LESS than $500
http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/cto/4781686388.html
It looks like it's been a few years since it raced but should take too much to get it up to date. Not mine, NFI
I try to stay true to the $500 rule. Yes, you can buy a great little Miata or RX7 for $1000 and cheaty your way to victory. Lemons racing, to me, is racing cars (or boats or planes) that were never meant to be raced; taking a land yacht and trying to get it to turn, or taking a unreliable European car and not just throwing a small block in it. Creativity is the foundation of Lemons and watching two minvans duke it out is way more fun than two Civics withe the same Acura swap painted all fast and furious. I agree with CowDriver, get the worst car and put the best parts on it and see if you can do what Detroit or Stockholm were unable to do. Not just buy a factory race car and run the hamster wheel of money.
We're working hard, having a blast, and hope to be at one of the California races this spring.
Well, there's what I'd be worried about.... I hope you bought something interesting - not a BMW, Miata, Camero (spelling intended) or something else race-y.
California races are packed and a lot of teams get put on the wait list. Buy something interesting and have a better chance of being accepted.
Well I was at the Arsefreezapalooza today and from the looks of it we bought an un-interesting car. Actually I had bought it before I started this thread. We're still working on getting it running. For more than a few minutes at a time.
I knew to avoid Bimmers and Miatas. It's an '86 mustang, that is still painted like a cop car (that won't last). Though the previous owner said it had been in Lemons I haven't found any record of it and I can't believe that it would have passed tech inspection. There were lots of things about it that were not compliant with the current rules. We're working on that too. We aren't changing anything performance related other than brakes
Regardless we will have a first rate theme. Honestly I think the theme will be as good as anything I saw out there today, and even if we do get buried under 200 penalty laps It'll be a miracle if we finish. It's nothing near as nice as that Southworst Airlines mustang that lead nearly all day today. I think Southworst didin't get any penalty laps. If the Southworst guys are out there, awesome consistent and drama free driving all day. Very nice.
<snip>
I'm expecting to get a huge pile of laps, to get dumped in class A, and to be in the running for nothing more than the "got screwed" trophy. That way if any of my expectations are wrong, it'll be a wonderful surprise. I swing back and forth between wondering if I've lost my mind and giddyness about how much fun this is.
A better expression of true sanity has rarely been said.
Have fun!
Judge Phil, are you familiar with this car? If you are, do you have an opinion about its "value", it's cheatonium content, or it's status as total crap? Be gentle it's my little bastard baby like it or not.
I have a race/build blog going, to document or publicize our efforts.
http://picknpullracing.wordpress.com
I'm surprised that no one has advocated lying and making stuff up for your documentation. In 5 years of doing this stuff I have tried honesty and accurate documentation as well as just slapping lies on paper and lying my ass off, and both approaches yielded identical results. The only difference is that lying and making stuff up is easier and more fun. Plus when Phil inevitably calls you a liar and accuses you of making up all of your documentation, it's less annoying if you didn't go to all the work of being truthful and accurate.
It also depends on what you bring. If you paid $5000 for a Fuego, then who cares, you're still Class C 0-laps (and rightfully so), whereas if you really paid $500 for a stock Civic, then bring a really good bribe and prepare to get sweated mercilessly because nobody is going to believe you.
So I'd recommend buying something, then making up the documentation so the numbers work and lying profusely when questioned about it. And I'm not talking about little lies either, really go for it. Tell them it's got an automatic when it clearly has a manual; that's worked before. Tell them it's got the crappy transmission option when it's got the bulletproof transmission. Pay some young fresh-faced kids to pose as your team while your real old-timer team members lurk in the background.
@ukemike, looking at some of the photos on your blog, you may have some work to do on your cage. The first thing I saw is that the spreader plate that you have a photo of doesn't seem to be welded completely. Also it looks as though you are going to need to add a passenger side door bar. It also looks like your seat back brace may need to be modified as it appears to land too low on the seat back.
Your simplest solution would be to call Evil Genius Racing and have them update the cage as necessary:
Evil Genius Racing
2214 Rice Avenue, West Sacramento, CA 95691
(916) 275-1039
That will guarantee you will pass tech. At the very least read this: http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=8478 and then send pictures of your cage to john at evil genius. com. It would suck for you to have to fix your cage at the race track at your first event.
Judge Phil, are you familiar with this car? If you are, do you have an opinion about its "value", it's cheatonium content, or it's status as total crap? Be gentle it's my little bastard baby like it or not.
I have a race/build blog going, to document or publicize our efforts.
http://picknpullracing.wordpress.com
The cage looks like a bolt-in that has been welded in. I`ve seen some of those that will pass and some, like our old cage, that Jay told us to get rid of. We ended up patching it up for a few races and getting yelled at a lot before we paid a professional cage fabricator to remove it and build us a new custom cage. It was not cheap, but nobody at tech looks at it twice and we feel safer. We did get t-boned pretty hard a few years ago and the cage didn't budge, so I guess it worked.
I second the recommendation to seek professional help. For the cage.
P.S. - I bet the freeze plugs on the Yugo/Fiat are easy to get at.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Used Lemons cars adverstised for well over $500