The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Our Crappy Race → Number 43 Camaro claimed by Jay? Yes
Between the sweet smell of race gas and the waffles from the chicken and waffles it made my stints much easier.
I just think its awesome that Pratt and Miller shows up to our Lemons races with an uber cheaty car and tries to get away with it and are totally cool about not.
They get an A+ in my book. if you're gonna do it, do it right.
I just think its awesome that Pratt and Miller shows up to our Lemons races with an uber cheaty car and tries to get away with it and are totally cool about not.
They get an A+ in my book. if you're gonna do it, do it right.
+1.
Sorry, but I disagree. It's totally against the spirit of Lemons to bring a cheaty ringer. The point of a series for $500 crapcans is that you aren't forced to compete against guys with deep pockets and tons of build experience. You can run your raggedy craigslist hooptie and be just as fast (or faster) as anyone else, and not go broke doing it. I don't care who's getting advertising for what business out of it, it simply unlevels the playing field, and stacks the deck against us normal schlupps. In my book, cheaters suck. Play by the rules, and you can feel good about it of you do well. I would think a cheaty win would be a hollow victory indeed, but not everyone thinks like me.
Those caught blatantly cheating should be punished accordingly, that's why I gave Jay kudos for what he did. You don't get to beat me in this race because you have more money than me. You get to beat me because you're a more skilled driver (you'd better be pretty damn good, I beat Tony Stewart), or because your $500 race car is better than my $500 race car (the way mine all keep breaking, that's almost a given). Nothing is more satisfying than being the fastest in a legit car. I was quite proud of my 1:55.113 at Summit Point for that reason.
I understand a lot of people go over budget on necessary repairs, just to keep their car going. I went about $100 over before South Fall because I didn't read the rules closely enough, and assumed that fuel system being part of safety equipment meant I could replace the pump without affecting the budget. After buying the pump, I reread, and found out I was wrong. Fuel pumps aren't included in the fuel safety category. I told Phil what I'd done at BS inspection. He knew it was an honest mistake because he's gotten to know me pretty well after 9 races, so he opted not to penalize me. He also knows the Lincoln will go real fast for a little while, then suffere some random and unexpected ailment, and be sidelined.
I'm not saying everyone should be super anal about every penny. But, if you're over budget yet decide to buy go-fast parts anyway, and then try to hide them, you are WRONG. In SWAT the guys on my team had a saying: "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'." It may sound catchy, but it's the wrong attitude. In Lemons, if you aren't racing a true $500 crapcan, you are not in the spirit of the series.
/soapbox
i think this stuff is expensive enough without spending extra money on high-buck go fast parts, but if someone else wants to do it, i leave the punishment up to Phil & Jay. i figure that's what BS laps are for. i think they've been getting a little bit light on those as time has gone on (proving conclusively that liberals are soft on crime 
), but that ain't my department.
my only expectation is that if you cheat and get caught, don't get in a huff about it. take your medicine and smile. by that measure, these guys are OK in my book.* getting pissed off about getting caught (or really, getting pissed off about anything) is what is really against the spirit of Lemons (IMO). i don't care if someone is faster than me b/c they spent more money; i'm not even the fastest guy on my own team, so whatever.
*Memo to the P&M Supra guys: the reason you just wove through 6 cars in 5 seconds is b/c there was a yellow, not b/c you suddenly got that good. 
In complete agreement with Mr Copper, The real point and spirit of the race WAS to take a real Sh*##y car and see how far you can make it go, hence the $500 limit.
If you take home a trophy with anything else you didn't win it, you bought it. Yawn.
Im all about cheating in the light of exploiting loopholes in the rules, in other words not really cheating, just creative thinking. Its that kind of creativity and evil genius that makes the world go round.
But the blatant stuff like this, yeah, I gotta agree with Speedycop. Honestly at least humor me and try to cover it up. Bring the cheaty heads with you and swap them after tech. But to just throw it out there and hope you dont get caught....meh, lacks imagination.
i guess it's the sheer ballsiness of it that i find amusing. i would have loved to have been standing in BS when that went down.
Team Lebowski was next to them during BS inspection. It seemed like everyone and their brother was looking at the Camaro, yelling out penalties, and taking pictures. It was interesting to hear the noise of the building crowd when they pulled the valve cover. Hell, even our team quit looking at our car to check out the pure cheatonium they had. Would have been interested in what we would have seen if Jay had pulled one of the cylinder heads as he threatened.
As a side note, Phil almost laughed at my beater after reviewing the Camaro...
It wouldn't be racing if it didn't have cheating. I expect that's part of the reason the rules are the way they are - "cheating" isn't against the rules like it is in "real" racing, so much as it is an intrinsic and inextricable part of the scoring rules. Absolutely heinous cheating like this is funny - especially when you realize they lost to an Alfa Romeo.
What's the point of bringing a machine gun to an arm-rasslin' match? It would be far more impressive if the P&M folks won a race w/ a Kia.
Anybody can do well w/ a supra turbo, or a 7.0L V8.
But they have always been easy to get along w/ on and off track, so I do hope they come back. With a Peugeot.
What we need to do is send them the Lada. I've always wanted to see that one do well. Or any of Speedycops projects. Let them have at it with something totally off the wall.
Let 'em come back with anything they want, with a 1 L displacement limit....I'll bet they could build the world's fastest 3 cyl Metro
It wouldn't be racing if it didn't have cheating. I expect that's part of the reason the rules are the way they are - "cheating" isn't against the rules like it is in "real" racing, so much as it is an intrinsic and inextricable part of the scoring rules. Absolutely heinous cheating like this is funny - especially when you realize they lost to an Alfa Romeo.
we all lost to an alfa.
we all lost to an alfa.
he he.
Had they not received the penalty laps, what would have been their lap count? Anyone know?
Let 'em come back with anything they want, with a 1 L displacement limit....I'll bet they could build the world's fastest 3 cyl Metro
Oooh Ooooh! The mini! or maybe the sChitroen!
Let 'em come back with anything they want, with a 1 L displacement limit....I'll bet they could build the world's fastest 3 cyl Metro
+1
I like Jim's idea for the future!
As for last weekend, I think it all went down just right. Let them build it, let them get penalized, let em race it. If it is waaa-hey over the top like this car obviously was, I think the claim was perfect.
Everyone laughed and had a good time about it. Some of those laughs were at the expense of the P&M guys and they were great sports about it, too.
Who cares what they brought? With all the penalty laps, there was no chance for them to win. If they're cool about it, and helped others out as needed, "high five" for joining in the fun. It's just another part of Lemons that mixes up the field of cars.
It would be really cool to see them bring something crazy, crappy, and rusted...and have them set it up to be a top 5 contender.
What I think is fun about them bringing a cheater, is watching, hearing the car race especially from another car. You know that had to be a well sorted F-body. Just the size of the tires/wheels on it said it was a handling machine, let alone the HP.
As long as they enough penalty laps for the cheating, I'm cool with it.
It's kind of like the guys from the Hennessey Tuner school that show up at every Houston race with a XR4Ti, built with stuff they had "lying around the shop" ... including a huge honkin' turbo. It always gets a huge amount of laps, and it always breaks. (Plus, the guys are pretty much jackwagons on the track too, and usually get a bunch of black flags. They are one of three teams that I can think of off of the top of my head that I don't look forward to racing against.)
That being said ... I'm fine with letting them show up and race, as long as they put on their big girl panties and accept the penalties/claiming.
As always, YMMV.
What we need to do is send them the Lada. I've always wanted to see that one do well. Or any of Speedycops projects. Let them have at it with something totally off the wall.
I've got an extra Prefect for them. Stock 4 banger and all. You could clock the 0-60 with a sundial, IF they can get it running...
davisriley wrote:What we need to do is send them the Lada. I've always wanted to see that one do well. Or any of Speedycops projects. Let them have at it with something totally off the wall.
I've got an extra Prefect for them. Stock 4 banger and all. You could clock the 0-60 with a sundial, IF they can get it running...
There is no such thing as an "extra" Prefect - only an unbuilt Prefect.
Had they not received the penalty laps, what would have been their lap count? Anyone know?
I looked at that when I posted the results the other day. I think they would have ended up in 5th place without the laps, but I may have miscounted or may be misremembering. YMMV, IMHO, BOHICA, etc.
You know it just dawned on me that we were the only NON CHEATING Camaro to finish the race. Well by finish we were like 5 laps off for a missed yellow and a black flag. We also had a couple new guys on the team and they liked to mow the lawn...
I have to say I was sort of rooting for them to come back from 200 laps. It made it interesting. We still beat them (I think) with our skunky whatever 305/350. Now everyone else beat us because they probably had a grand into tires while we went racing with Goodyear Eagles from 1990 at best and stock brakes. So not everyone was cheating (a little bit). We changed our motor the night before crossed our fingers and blew a testing day trying to figure out our carb. The underside of our car looked like the titantic and if there was any stiffness to the suspension it was because rust was caked somewhere.
Secretly I was a little jealous, I would have liked to have something that fast on the track. I also would have loved to see a Camaro take it instead of being labeled HORRIBLE. I also felt a little sorry for the guy since he said he built it with his kid. That being said winning with the cards stacked in your favor never really feels as good as flogging your car to death and squeeking across the finish line. I REALLY felt bad for the Save the Ta Tas Camaro, those are some really nice guys and I am hoping to see them at the next Gingerman.
So we'll be back with our stock rear end, and our crappy brakes. We have to buy new tires because the cords are showing on the 1990 Eagles. We'll put in solid laps and we'll drive it on the edge to make up a couple tenths. Hopefully next time you won't see us in the grass as much and we can put that bright yellow Camaro into victory lane. None the less from our perspective, we had fun whether it was 29th or dead last.
We'll keep working on it until we can pass someone lol.
A 3rd-gen Camaro finished second at the first Houston race. That's the best F-body performance, by far, in Lemons history.
And, yes, it was pretty cheaty. Camaro-drivin' Anna did a good job of distracting the Lemons Supreme Court. Won't happen again.
That's why we made her a judge at the Colorado race. You should see how those carefully-thought-out lies fall apart when she starts grilling the schmucks on some cheat-o-riffic team.
All these stories of how it sounds and how fast it was, yet not a single video for those of us who werent there.
How about some action?
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Our Crappy Race → Number 43 Camaro claimed by Jay? Yes