What if ur car is picked to be destroyed at the beginning of the race? (Page 1 of 3)

people's curse is done usually the 2nd day, and generally to the team who has the most jackass drivers, or a super cheaty car that SOMEHOW got through BS under the judges radar.

From my experience, that radar might as well be an MRI, these guys know their stuff, and are not fooled very often.

Anti-cheating on the cost rules is handled by an judging process called BS Inspection wherein several lovely gentlemen with a taste for fine alcohol and a love for horrible jokes take their carefully trained eyes (and occasionally boroscopes, dynamometers, and the damned bounce-on-the-fender trick) to your car in an attempt to determine how much money you actually spent. They take their appraised value of your car and compare it versus the $500 budget limit. For every $10 over the limit, you're docked 1 lap (say you're docked 10 laps - you start your first lap with a score count of -10 laps instead of 0 laps). No cars are destroyed in this process.

Where cars are destroyed, however, is the "People's Curse" - each team is issued a ballot and can vote for any car in the race for any reason. This typically means you pissed them off somehow - driving like a total dick all day long, usually. These ballots are collected at start of day on Day 2.

According to the new 2011 rules, all cars receiving 10% of more of the total vote are given a black flag penalty. All cars receiving more than 20% of the total vote receive a nasty-but-nonfatal attack of some kind (we have no idea what this means in practical terms, because it's completely new for 2011), and all cars appearing on more than 1/3rd of the ballots are subject to complete and utter annihilation at the hands of some form of construction machinery.

Bottom line, don't drive like a prick and you'll be fine. Factor it into your risk analysis - it's really no worse than losing the car to a catastrophic mechanical failure or a crash (except you aren't in the car at the time).

And no, they don't pay you if they destroy your car. "At your own risk" means it.

EyeMwing, Baron, your information helps very much and answers all my questions, thank you! I think your answers will help other newbies understand things as well.

PunisherBass - agree will cost much more than $500, but I am hoping to slip in with normal streeet tires (as long as they are in good shape: not-bald, not cracked), standard brakes (in good shape). Seats, belts, helmets, racing suits, towing hitches, fire extinguishers, emergency cut-off switches = I'm happy to buy and of course can be re-used on another car. So the most significant expense I'm guessing the biggest expense will be the roll bar / crash cage. I was going to start with a somewhat simple rollbar I have from a sunbeam tiger, not currently being used (single bar with triangular base on both sides that bolts into the floor)  and add some additional pieces to it. I'm going to try to get a car similar to a sunbeam tiger in size so this works. If I'm required to weld the whole roll bar together then I guess I need to re-think that. Id' rather not screw up my tiger roll-bar unless I actually rolll... !

Is there a good existing forum discussion about the roll bar /crash cage rules that you could refer me to?

This is roughly the sort of shape for a roll cage http://www.autopowerindustries.com/Imag … ageKit.jpg

Have a look at the cage in the link and imagine that in conjunction with the rules from the link in Jiggermysters post.

Basically, it has to be the right sort of tubing, it has to be good 360 degree welds everywhere and it has to be sat on at least 24 square inches of plate, again welded all round.

And don't forget the rules about harness height and seatback distance, they might influence the positioning of the horizontal bar across between centre uprights.

If I were you I'd get my car to a professional cage builder and have them do it - you have no idea how soul crushing it would be to fail tech on either cage bars, plates or welds....none of which can be easily and quickly fixed.

Now, all of this sounds like it's a complete pain in the arse..and it is to an extent...but don't let that put you off, Lemons is a complete hoot so gather your team, pick a car and get LeMoning!

Hope to see you on the track soon

Steven

Looks like a bolt-in roll cage is not allowed... I was hoping to bolt into the floor but maybe weld the rest so I could transfer the cage to another (convertible) car of the same type if needed. Perhaps maybe also convertibles are not allowed? I was thinking Fiat 124 spider or Alfa Romeo spider (graduate), sure they can be found in pathetic condition...

Ok thanks for letting me know, I was guessing there would be a whole bunch of banged up Mazda Miatas racing, but guess I was wrong! Probably not too easy to come by for $500... Happy New Year!

This is probably the easiest/quickest way to get on the track  -

http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=7654

Hey Nerd!

I run an MGB that flipped at a Lemons race a year ago, and trust me, you want a DAMN good cage in a convertible. (see my avatar at left) DAMN good.

I had an Autopower bolt in kit that was 100% legal, under the idea that Autopower knew what they were doing and if we wrecked the car I would just transfer the cage into another MGB.

Turns out we destroyed the cage, and ended up putting a custom new one in the same car. The 1st kit plus shipping and getting it welded cost me about what the 2nd custom cage did, so in the end I spent TWICE as much as I had to. Skimping here won't save as much as you hope.

To make matters worse, even though the first cage did do it's job, part of it failed due to the design (by professionals). Evil Genius John did the structural analysis on the failures and discovered it had several design flaws. (and I was told that when Autopower was contacted and informed about it, they basically blew him off)

Had the driver died in my car I could never have forgiven myself. It all happened in an instant.

Even though I was trying to do it all right we had a close call. Don't skimp $$ on the cage. It's the most important investment when something goes wrong. And in Lemons things WILL go wrong.

Do yourself a favor and spend your available play money on a good custom cage first. If for no other reason than peace-of-mind. Everything else can come later.

If you have them build the cage a little tall, you can theoretically cut the down-tubes off at the floor and reuse it if needed. OR... Just bang the snot out of the wreck until it looks like a car again. Add duck-tape and get back out there.

Welcome to Lemons!!

If you don't mind trashing the original car the rest of the way (by the time it's been used in one of these races, it's never going to be good for anything ever again anyway), you can totally remove a complete, assembled cage just by cutting it off at the floor.

That's what Spec Miata is from some of the war stories I've heard.

Spec Miata? Spec Pinata? same difference

It's called "Smashed Miata" for a reason, they'll run ANYTHING, I just sold my mom's old crashed up rusted out street car to a SM team for way too much money