As I go about my day sometimes I stumble upon images that, at the time, I think could lead to an FTB post. It doesn’t always work out. Given that I have a lot of this randomness in reserve, I thought it might be nice to share a few of my favorites. Oh, if you have any thoughts about something interesting or cleaver to write for these, please be my guest. The comment box is yours.
In no particularly order.
Enjoy, Gd.
Number 1: Barak Obama RUN DC t-shirt. Straight pimpin’.
Last summer, I was given the opportunity to participate in the 24 Hours of LeMons at Altamont Motorsports Park. It was one of the most memorable events of my life and something I haven’t been able to stop talking about since. This is why I was horrified to learn that this-year’s race was marred by tragedy. To be honest, I have been grappling with how write about this and frankly it is still difficult.
The accident occurred on Saturday afternoon and reports are conflicting with regard to its possible origins, but this much is known. The accident did not involve any other vehicles. Court Summerfield’s Volvo 244 Turbo, painted in Gulf Oil livery as an homage to the Steve McQueen film “LeMans,” hit the grandstand wall without provocation or evasive maneuver. This has led to speculation that the accident was precipitated by a medical incident. Whether or not this is ever proven to be true, it does not diminish the magnitude of the loss.
Court Summerfield was well known in LeMons circles as a talented driver and a gracious competitor. He was also a resident of Alameda and a fixture at Ole’s Waffle Shop, where he worked alongside his wife Vicki. She graciously made the following statement to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“He is such an experienced driver that I didn’t even say ‘be safe’ before he left because he was safe and he was such a good driver. It was really just something that he was happy doing. I’m sure the way he went, he was happy,” she said.
Court was participating in an event that has come to redefine the very nature of grassroots motorsports in the United States. It is truly unfair that he should have perished pursuing a dream that would be unreachable for so many of us without events like this one. Having been there, I feel a profound sadness for all who were present, competitors, spectators and organizers alike. Moreover, I wish only the best for Vicki and the Summerfield clan in their moment of grief.
Daniel Turman (#35 Team WORKS Mitsubeastie, 2007)
PS. Jalopnik’s Murilee Martin did a fantastic job, both participating in and covering the event. His stories can be found here. He even finished 15th like we did.
PPS. LeMons organizers have put together a fund for the Summerfield family. Visit their website to make a donation.
I swear, it was just like this. Sorry, long clip. Just like the LeMons race, but without the Greek subtitles.
Now a week in the rear-view mirror, the 24 Hours of LeMons still completely kicks ass. I am an absolute junkie for the acquisition of permanent memories and doing this event was, well, mainlining them from a firehose.
Elaborate and memorable were the punishments. I have seen a metal squirrel welded to the roof of the Car and Driver entry. I have seen a friend forced to drive with half-melted limburger smeared on the dash. On a 95-degree day. I have seen the People’s Curse-winning TransAm summarily destroyed by an angry mob, only to return to the track roofless and even more inspired to drive sideways in a cloud of superfluous tire smoke. I have seen a pseudo bump-draft happy wannabe rewarded with the grille of Damacles, a radiator-facing set of spikes designed to limit the enthusiasm with which he employed the bump-and-run.
But the penalties were not all. I have seen an all-female team keep a Maserati Biturbo running for more than an hour, on at least a couple of occasions. (Although I understand that a friendly was burned somewhat badly during one of the inevitable overheatings and I wish him a speedy recovery. Apparently the combination of venerable Italian livery and female piloti make even the most rational among us ready to rip the cap off of a boiling radiator, but I digress.) I have entered a dust-and-debris covered chicane flanked by a late-braking Pinto and followed by a 27-foot Cadillac hearse. I found it quite motivational. As was the wrenching of the grizzled veteran two stalls over. I watched him straighten the frame of his Pinto with a winch attached to a nearby truck, while he removed and repaired the radiator, all in about an hour (like Lenscrafters), only to go back out and finish somewhere at the south end of the leaderboard. “Son of a bitch ran me right up into the wall,” he kept saying.
If the event is the Burning Man of latent automotive dreams, then surely there are some good pictures. I will do my best to put some purple prose to them in the Epilogue, but the pictures are probably best enjoyed as a stand-alone entity. Behold the spectacle, thankfully not in Smell-o-vision.
After two days of racing, our bearded Lancer De-Evolution closed out the weekend with a highly credible 15th place finish. Due to our relentless bearditude, fortitude and occasional feats of fastness, the WORKS Mitsubeastie team was presented with the coveted Organizer’s Award at the conclusion, the spoils of having provided our patented blend of hirsute automotive agression for the full duration of the event. With almost no laps lost to repairs or damage, the 69 cars that finished behind the bearded one can only fault themselves for choosing less hairball rides.
Were we not singled out at random (organizers insisted that they penalized us by random drawing), we could have finished as high as ninth. As it was, we were subjected to the egregious, but all too familiar “Highway 17 Penalty” wherein we were forced to follow a Volkswagen Van “pace bus” for what seemed like an eternity, while the members of the field that were within reach sped on. Tough pill, but one that we’re prepared to swallow willingly, along with all of the fine food we bought at the Red Tractor in Dublin with the $500 in nickels that were the physical form of the Organizer’s Award.
No matter at all. This was damn near the most fun you can have while wearing clothes. Organizer Jay Lamm, kudos to you and yours. Altamont Motorsports Park, thanks for making it all happen. And, of course, mad props to all of my coconspirators at WORKS, without whose generosity I would not have had the chance to experience the thrill of harnessing the awesome power of the Mitsubeastie in anger and letting the fur fly where it would.
Crew:
David Lee
Steven Jones
Drivers:
Oliver “Boostman” Simons
Kirk Harper
Jonathan Anaya
Pete Kang
Daniel Turman
I will post a full gallery of the activities and general wrap-up an epic Epilogue, but for now I’ve got some major sleep to get caught up on. For the truly dedicated, Autoblog live blogged the entire event. Day two action is covered in excrutiating detail here. Thankfully, most of our worst offenses slipped under their radar.
This race is really, really long. The green flag dropped at 2:30. Almost 90 cars started. It was really hot and the wind blew like a Revlon 1400 on “high” for about three hours. Then it was a cold-ass dust storm. Day one ended at 10:00 in the pee hours. I am really, really dirty and tired, but not so sleepy. Nonetheless, I will keep this short. Ish.
The long and short? A fur-covered econobox with precious few modifications now sits in 14th position. Right. Out of ninety. Racing begins again at 8:00 in the ay em. I suppose that this is what they mean by “endurance racing.” Thank God it doesn’t actually run continuously. Frankly, I would kinda prefer to pick it up Tuesday, but hell no! First thing tomorrow. Comprehensive details will bore you for days to come, as I catch up to the data streaming through my melon at this late hour, but of these things I am sure. There are ringers in the field. A couple had had fast cars that blew up, cinching the karmic loop tight around their own necks. Others are probably fixing the disasters as I write, hoping to get in on the fun again tomorrow. There are also elaborate penalties for a number of possible offenses (poor driving, smoky rides, etc.), many of which are artful in design, reserved for the most egregious offenders. I saw someone in a $400 driving suit pelted with tofu while planting a tree to offset the carbon release associated with his car’s excessive oil smoke. There were Alfas and Peugeots and Porsches and Hondas and Nissans. There was even an all-woman Maserati team. And of course, several annoying BMWs. Too much stimuli, not enough time.
But none of this matters to me so much right now. The WORKS Mitsubeastie Lancer De-Evolution now sits within striking distance of vanquishing 80 of 90 starters. And I didn’t even break anything on my stint. Second up tomorrow. Did I mention that this is the only fur-covered entry. And 70 horsepower really ain’t so much. A top-ten finish would completely rule. Konichiwa, for now.
I have to sleep. I’m not sure that I can. I must shower. I shall. Like now.
Bearded and sorta fast,
Turman
PS. More later. And some vids and pics. I’m just too done right now.
The night before race day and there are only a few things left to do in the morning. It was a busy night of prep for all, but the tasks were clearly delineated by skill set. I was largely concerned with trying to cut, shave and paint the WORKS logo into three inches of fur through a cardboard stencil I cut with a dull razor through an inch-thick cardboard shipping container that a crate engine was shipped in. But I digress. The heaviest lifting was handled by the competent folks with actual automotive skills.
I also dutifully tested the flame-retardant qualities of said fur clippings (plasticky, but non burning for the most part) in the parking lot and tapped into my latent tagging skills for a piece of art that adorns the aft-most section of the car. But more on that later, if at all. If anyone asks it is purely for added safety and visibility. It has absolutely nothing to do with either $ir Mix-a-Lot or baboons.
I also expanded and refined the official team name, since when victory comes or even the most random media question is fielded it is important to be able to rattle off the full name quickly. Thus, we are now known as Team WORKS Mitsubeastie Lancer De-evolution, or WORKS Mitsubeastie Devo for short.
Ordinarily, I would go to sleep now but I have to study the track layout and try to extrapolate what the proper entry speed is for Altamont’s turn four is with a brakeless ‘72 T-bird on loan from the local demolition derby bearing down on me with evil intentions. I will also be studying the fire-extinguisher instructions shown in the thumbnails below. And I also threw in some pics of the nicely fitted (Camaro) roll cage and multi-point safety harness for the benefit of immediate family (mom, Kels) and close friends. Relax! This operation is strictly pro style.
Behold a most glorious sight! The world’s first bearded race car. Well, at least it’s kind of a race car. At least it has the safety equipment. Still being installed, but it will have the safety equipment. Supposedly, it smells a bit, has a crappy slushbox of an automatic transmission and didn’t do so great on the leakdown compression test (read: down on power). But hell if it doesn’t got some mad bearditude. And hell if it ain’t going to spend the weekend going around and around at Altamont Motorsports Park as fast as six of us sunstroked pseudo Steve McQueens can make it go.
Now, before the bearded spectacle begins in earnest, a few props. WORKS, a Mitsubishi tuning house with shops in San Rafael and at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, has graciously offered FTB a chance to become part of the glorious lineage of the gentleman race driver. Impossibly, this is a lineage shared by the car’s previous owner, but more on that later. This is an event that puts real racing within the reach of those of us with mortal salaries and full-time lives. With the primary stipulation for competing being the simple rule that the cost of the car cannot exceed $500, this is my chance to live the dream. Behold, the democratization of motorsport and the rebirth of the gentleman racer.
Okay, maybe I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself here. And my excitement is certainly tempered a bit by the attendant danger of driving geriatric hoopties at high speed for long periods of time. The attached video shows one lap of last-year’s event from the winning Road & Track entry. Multiply that by oh, thousands, and you get the idea.
As a wee Beard there were many moments of devine inspiration, but the start of the race in the Steve McQueen classic LeMans certainly has a permanent place in the sporting-department pantheon. Straight up, the 24 Hours of LeMans is one third of the motorsports triple crown. No matter how the various forms of auto racing have shifted shape and relative importance over the years, LeMans remains. It is what it is. One of the pinnacles of motorsport, if not sport in general.
So, a rhetorical question: what if one should be given the opportunity to live out the fantasy embodied in the clip? And at minimal cost. Perhaps you wouldn’t get to pilot McQuizzle’s near-mythical Porsche 917, but you’ll still be in a car, and on a track. And it’s still an endurance race. Maybe you’re a bit older, but f&*% all if you’re not still in decent shape. You’re wise enough to fear danger, but experienced enough to think you know how to court it responsibly. Watch the clip again. What do you say? Well, do you do it?
Turman said, “hells to the mo%$erfu@#in’ yeah!” And, as sure as Steve McQ, it’s going down this weekend at the Altamont Motorsports Park. A last-minute cancellation scored the Beard a ride with team WORKS Mitsubeastie. Sure, I’m the sixth of six drivers, which means I might be on pizza-procurement/grease-sweep detail for at least part of the time, but I’ll also be rockin’ some driver’s seat action and dicing for position at the second annual 24 Hours of LeMons. Feel the glory of the return of the gentleman road racer.
