Greetings from Ohio

I would venture to guess the judges have seen almost everything, and have an idea of what most cars might (should) cost.  If it is a running car that requires NO work to drive to work and back daily, then you might have trouble convincing them you started with a free car.

If it is a rusted out pile of crap with seized brakes, holes everywhere, and destroyed interior that the owner just wants of his land AND he's not a friend AND you have proof of an advert to come "take this piece of $&it off my property"... then maybe.

Anytime your story starts with, "I had this buddy who had this old piece of crap car he wanted to give to us...", the judges are immediately intrigued (not in a positve way).

^Yeaaaa...I may need to let someone else be the talker. I tend to be that guy.

The last guy through tech at Joliet this year was a Lemons rookie with a very dodgy 944. Jay and Phil really gave him the runaround on this "former dirt track" 944. Even made him call up the seller and confess to how much he sold the car for. But after sweating the guy for a good 15 minutes (which was highly entertaining), Jay finally called the dogs off and told the guy he'd give him zero laps. At which point the driver took it upon himself to claim that his team (of which he was the only person present) was donating $x/lap to some children's charity. Of course, he didn't know that wrapping oneself in the cause of a children's charity is like waving a red flag in front of a bull when it comes to Jay and Phil. I tried to politely advise him to STFU, but he wouldn't be stopped. His confession caused Jay to reconsider, whereupon the guy got 20 laps, probated. Jay made him go through judging again on Sunday morning -- zero laps if he wasn't doing so well in the race, the full 20 laps if they turned out to be a really fast team. I never heard what was the result on Sunday morning with that guy. But if he just would have shut up when he should have shut up, he would have had zero laps, unconditional.

I third the whole keeping your mouth shut during BS.

At CMP a few months ago we waiting in line for the inspection when Jay walked by and said "Let me save you guys some time, it's just a GP" when I stupidly said "It's a GTP" which tipped him off about the supercharger under the hood. Now this wasn't our first Lemons, actually our 7th, which made my actions all the more retarded. But my excuse was that I had about 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 and the transmission in my car had gone out on the way down which was going to leave me stuck 800 miles from home and about $2,000 poorer. If I had been in the right state of mind I would have just smiled and nodded my head.

He was going give us zero laps, but when he heard me he wanted to take a much closer look at the car. After some talking we still walked away with no laps. Later we let Murilee BS the car again and still made it out with zero laps. So saying something stupid doesn't always spell doom for you, but if you mention something that catches their attention then start saying your prayers.

It helps tremendously if you show up to these races with a car that's not really considered a contender on laps, reliability, or speed. they break out the CSI lab on your car if you show up with a Miata or an E30 or (lately) early 90s Sentra SE-Rs. They mostly just laugh and shake their head if you show up in Malaise-era detroit iron or something french; EVEN IF you're so inclined to open your fat yap. If your car has no 'performance' aftermarket whatsoever, all the better.

By the way, Greetings! the Track Pillagerz! are also in Ohio, with about a 50/50 split between cincy and toledo.

We were doing laps for charity for our races and they didn't even look at our Geo the 2nd race.  He gave it the stiff spring bounce (which we failed horribly) and he said, "this thing is so slow you should get laps" (or something to that idea). 

So one of our guys said.. "but we have a milk jug intake!"  Phil, "nice".  Guy, "2%".  Phil, "might have to reconsider your laps."

Another guy on our team, "you wanna see under the hood?"  Phil, "Should I?"  Guy, " you can."  Phil, "ok... yeah... that's a 1.0L 3-cyl right?"  Guy, "Yep."  PHil, "Good luck with that."

Lesson... Coulda gone through BS with a turbo'd built 3-cylinder reliably pushing 130HP and never got checked. *SARCASM*

But that's not in the spirit of Lemons.

We've heard every possible variation on the "free car" story, and what happens to you during the BS inspection comes down to how happy seeing your car on the track will make us. Bringing a Triumph GT6 with Studebaker 289 power? You're in good shape. Bringing an Integra? Better have a really good story.

43hp per cylinder and it's NOT a bike engine? yeah, good luck with that.