Fast and Spurious
Ever wonder what happens to your car after you deem it too unreliable, uncomfortable and unremarkable for your upwardly mobile lifestyle? You sell it to a kid who’s light on cash but heavy on tattoos that he’ll regret later. He happily rolls over the odometer--twice--before deciding that it’s too unreliable, uncomfortable and unremarkable now that he’s got a real job and an actual girlfriend. Plus, it won’t pass smog. So he unloads it on an ex-con who learned how to work on cars while serving three to five. But he never gets around to fixing the ignition, or maybe it’s the damn electronics, so the poor slug sits up on blocks on the dead lawn outside his mobile home-cum-meth lab accumulating rust, empty beer cans and rodents.
Ever wonder what happens to the car after that?
If it’s lucky, it’s donated to a high school shop class or mercifully euthanized in a crusher. If it’s got bad karma, it’s here at a small racetrack in Northern California in the company of 32 other equally miserable derelicts sentenced to life or, more likely, death in a test of driving skill, mechanical savvy and general lunacy known as the 24 Hours of LeMons. That’s no typo. This is a twice-around-the-clock race for cars that cost less than $500. The fun factor is supposed to be high, and the irreverence quotient should be even higher. Think of it as the Doo Dah Parade meets the Daytona 500, with elements of a demolition derby and “The Gong Show” thrown in for good measure.
It’s a cloudless Saturday morning in October a few hours before the extravaganza is scheduled to begin, and several hundred entrants have queued up outside the registration booth at Altamont Motorsports Park. The parking lot of the modest facility, nestled in the hills between Tracy and Livermore, resembles a junkyard sprung to zombified half-life, “Night of the Living Dead” for beaters. I spot a white 1979 Camaro sporting more wrinkles than Mother Teresa after four hours in a hot tub and a ’70 Bimmer whose flamed hood turns out, upon examination, to consist entirely of rust. But saddest of all is a ’79 Caprice painted a post-apocalyptic shade of gray-green. Swear to God, I’ve seen sepia-toned photographs of antique electric chairs that looked less scary than this bomb’s interior.
The provocateur behind this madness is automotive journalist and publisher Jay Lamm. A devotee of old cars, the quirkier the better, Lamm is a regular participant in the Double 500--a 500-kilometer road rally for cars that cost $500 or less. Originally envisioned as a high-concept, lowbrow alternative to the posh and sophisticated California Mille, the Double 500 has developed its own robust following of fun-loving eccentrics and other practitioners of automotive farce. Lamm’s only gripe about that event was it didn’t set the bar high enough to scare off fair-weather types. “Anybody can whip out a checkbook to buy a car that can run a road rally,” he explains. A 24-hour race, on the other hand, would require moxie, dedication and a level of mental instability that comes close to clinical dementia.
My excuse for participating in the inaugural LeMons enduro is that I expect it to shed some light on the dark underbelly of California’s car culture. Well, that and because Lamm is letting me co-drive the crash-damaged, performance-challenged ’89 Toyota Corolla he has procured for the event, and I’ve never seen a car I didn’t want to race. As motor-sports rookie Virgil Watson puts it as he stands next to the ’83 Golf--bought for $200--that he’ll be driving: “Every little boy fantasizes about racing even if it’s just in a piece of crap.”
Although the cars are junkers, there are a handful of ringers among the drivers. Bruce Trenery has raced in the 24 Hours of Daytona, and his son Spencer is a veteran of numerous international enduros. Meanwhile, writers from car magazines have descended on Altamont in such droves that you’d think Lamm was giving away a free dinner. (He is, actually, along with breakfast and $3,000 in prize money to be awarded in canvas sacks filled with nickels.)
As for the rest of the entrants, 179 total, the one common thread is a love of cars. Make that an obsession with cars. For the vast majority of the racers, winning isn’t the goal. They’re just here to compete, in most cases for the first time ever, and despite the FAQ Lamm has posted on the LeMons website--which answers questions such as “Will I die?” and “Where do I hose myself off?”--they have no clue what to expect. Exhibit A is an upbeat group of enthusiasts-slash-racing newbies who met online in a forum devoted to Ford Focus owners. Their street-worthy ’86 Toyota Tercel has been so lovingly prepared, down to the striking Ninja-pirates-with-lasers vinyl graphics (don’t ask), that it’s a shame to let it loose on the track, sort of like using Michelangelo’s David as a pinata.
Many of the entrants are car geeks in Lamm’s own mold--Double 500 veterans who share his off-beat affection for the mechanical orphans, losers and outright weirdos that populate the fringes and junkyards of the collector-car universe. The Organizer’s Choice Award goes to a 1963 Mercedes-Benz 190, a stately dowager of a sedan that owner Ed Adams has tarted up with racing decals and an elaborate but wholly fictitious history, outlined on a placard, lovingly detailing how Stirling Moss raced the car in the legendary Mille Miglia road race. Another fave is an otherwise prosaic Toyota wagon carrying “Vagisil--Itchin’ to Win” signage.
“The people who don’t understand what’s going on here are the people you don’t want to meet at a cocktail party,” says Larry Dickman as he preps his $400 ’86 Lincoln Mark VII, a barely mobile shrine to conspicuous consumption that makes SUVs look frugal by comparison.
Considering that most of the cars are borderline deathtraps and many of the drivers are racing virgins, safety is a concern. Lamm has addressed this issue by requiring roll cages and cobbling together a tight, short racetrack that generally keeps speeds between 25 and 71 mph. Before the race, to demonstrate their ability to stop and corner, cars also must negotiate the Old Lady Mannequin Slalom and pass the Baby Carriage Braking Test. As it turns out, the cars aren’t as bad as they look. The thing is, the $500-or-less purchase price is just the beginning. There is no limit to how much can be spent on what’s loosely defined as safety equipment, and some teams have gone a little crazy on wheels, tires, suspension bits and other goodies.
To discourage the most brazen cheaters, a trio of judges, dressed in black robes and white wigs, is assessing BS Factor penalties. A 1984 Cutlass Supreme Brougham, whose slick powder blue-and-orange paint job hearkens back to the illustrious Gulf-sponsored Porsche 917 and Ford GT40 LeMans prototypes, draws jeers from fans who suspect that it’s a bona fide race car. Driver Alan Galbraith launches into a spirited, convoluted spiel about how it used to be owned by a Mary Kay saleswoman. But the judges aren’t buying, and they nail him with a 10-lap penalty.
At 4 p.m. Lamm intones what may someday become a hallowed phrase: “Ladies and gentlemen, try to start your engines!” Then he and I noodle over race strategy. This consists entirely of his saying, “You want to take the first stint?”
“Well,” I say, “why don’t we both get some seat-time during qualifying?”
“That was qualifying. The race is starting . . . “ He checks his watch. “Now.”
By the time I get on all my gear, strap myself into our apple-red Corolla and roll onto the track, everybody else has long since started racing in earnest. You know those horror flicks when some unsuspecting sap opens a door and steps into a dystopian parallel universe where aliens, gruesome predators or angry ex-wives are trying to disembowel him? That’s pretty much the situation here. As I cross the start-finish line for the first time, I’m transported into road-rage hell, and the air is so thick with testosterone that I think I feel my chest hairs growing. Even as I try to figure out which way the turns go, I’m sideswiped by a sedan dressed up as a police cruiser. It takes me about, oh, 35 seconds to realize that it’s kill or be killed. “It’s nothing at all like racing,” fellow racer Dave Coleman tells me later. “It’s like driving in Mexico City.”
Don’t get me wrong: The LeMons enduro isn’t a demolition derby, and wrecking the opposition isn’t the point of the exercise. But the cars handle so ineptly and the tight, twisty track is so congested that, well, accidents happen. Often. Every five or 10 minutes, the shriek of overstressed tires and the whine of overtaxed engines is blissfully stilled as the track goes yellow so a tow truck can push-start a car that’s spun and stalled or drag a wrecked one back to the paddock. During one of these interludes, I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that the Corolla’s radio still works, though the fingers of my fireproof gloves are so bulky that I can’t find anything better than a Spanish-language station broadcasting what sounds like beisbol.
When my stint ends--prematurely due to engine overheating--I get a chance to play spectator while the team’s third driver, Bill Mertz, gets his baptism of fire. (At the moment, Lamm is too busy levying penalties for various moving violations to get behind the wheel himself.) As I sit in the grandstand watching the carnage mount, I realize that the corroded hulks on the track are the detritus of the Industrial Revolution, the flotsam washed up on the beach of the 21st century, the leftovers, the dregs, relics worth more as scrap than they are as cars. That’s one reason they’re being tossed around with such abandon: Nobody gives a damn about them. They’re a low-buck, low-tech take on the Apollo Lunar Module, dispatched to Altamont on a one-way mission from which they’re not expected to return.
But you know what? Unlike today’s competent but forgettable Camrys and Accords, these old beaters have character. Charm of a sort. Dignity, even. Clapped-out and disfigured with decals, the big Buick station wagon mixing it up with a wheezy Saab turbo still reeks of suburban gravitas, and the remarkably original Datsun B210 with the zoomy/goofy rocket-ship styling evokes the ‘70s just as surely as a booming disco backbeat. “If you love cars, you can see the beauty in any vehicle,” says Anni Chapman, who’s racing the old Mercedes. “This car was built in, what, 1963? It’s been around. It’s got a history. This isn’t real racing. But by taking an old car out and pushing it, we’re giving it some honor.”
The last of the sunlight has faded, and a large yellow moon that looks a lot like a surreal, supersized lemon is rising in the night sky. Still, the paddock is alive with frenzied activity. This comes as a shock to me. Frankly, I’d expected people to bail as soon as they suffered major catastrophes. But everywhere I look, I see teams spending 10 times as much as their broken cars are worth in parts and labor to get them back in the race. They replace clutches, weld axles, Sawzall bodies. The Edge Motorworks guys even cannibalize their street car to keep their increasingly disreputable race car, a $200 BMW 325e, going on the track.
This never-say-die ethic is part of the racer’s credo. Still, the main reason competitors are fixing their entries is because, well, they can. Unlike modern cars, which can be rendered inoperable by a Check Engine light, these babies hail from an era when anybody could stick his head under the hood and figure out what was wrong. Gazing at his pretzeled Camaro, a pony car destined for the glue factory, Larry Eisner says: “You can take a sledgehammer to it. You can tie it to a tow truck to bend it. You can go to Pick Your Part to find anything that you need. And you can fix it right here, at night, without the proper tools.”
Another case in point is the A Team, whose young members have been trying to swap a clutch in their roasted Rabbit since 5:30 p.m. They’re still working when the track lights cut out at midnight, and they’re back at it when the sun comes up Sunday morning. (Although the race is billed as a 24-hour enduro, the action ceases between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m.) At 11:32 a.m., Ryan Miller--who flew out from Pennsylvania to join his NorCal buds for the race--finally hits the track for the first time. He’s at least 700 laps behind the leader.
The Kragen Auto Parts store in Tracy does land-office business as teams scour its shelves for components they can use to MacGyver their cars back to life. Incredibly, only three cars fail to reappear when the race resumes Sunday morning. Cars come and go as the day progresses, thanks to countless collisions, one rollover and lots of painfully close encounters with the gargantuan tractor tires that mark the edges of several corners. But there are always at least 15 or 20 cars on the track. Lamm and I change tires in an effort to find some speed. It doesn’t help. But despite three smashed fenders and a rear bumper held on by duct tape and bungee cords, we soldier on.
As the race winds down, Road & Track’s 1982 Corolla holds what appears to be an insurmountable lead. Then, with 90 seconds to go, its rear wheels lock up. It looks as though the car will end the race in stationary ignominy until Car and Driver’s hilariously hammered ’95 Aurora--sans hood, headlights, front bumper cover, brakes and power steering--sportingly pushes it to the finish line. Their progress is so painstaking that I suspect both cars might expire within sight of the checkered flag. But the Aurora finally nudges the Corolla past the start-finish line, and the race ends with a whimper rather than the bang of a blown engine.
I’m convinced that there’s a morality tale concealed within this lowest of comedy, but I can’t quite tease it out during the long drive home. Several weeks later, while walking through the parking lot at my local Ralphs, I spot a woman driving an old Toyota Corolla that--aside from the reasonably presentable bodywork--appears to be identical to the crushed tomato can that Lamm, Mertz and I had flogged around at Altamont. Intrigued, I call Lamm and ask him what happened to our trusty old beater. He tells me that he abandoned it at the track after the race, one of five cars discarded by their owners like tattered underwear with limp elastic. “I regret now that I didn’t take it home with me,” he confides. “With a new thermostat and head gasket, it would have been ready to go.”
That’s it, I realize. That’s the revelation. The cars that ran for the LeMons were supposed to be the worst of the worst. Most of them were duds back in their distant, short-lived heyday, and their current owners devoted the weekend to driving a stake through their hearts. Yet against all odds, they kept going . . . and going . . . and going. This may prove, as one wag insisted, that really crappy cars run really badly for a really long time. But I think there’s another lesson to be learned, one that says more about us than our cars.
Go to craigslist.org, click on “cars+trucks,” enter $500 as the maximum price and you’ll get hundreds of hits. Granted, most of these clunkers are beyond economical resurrection. But a lot of them are just like Lamm’s lost Corolla--cosmetically marginal, with easily addressed mechanical issues. For less than $1,000, you can have a perfectly serviceable daily driver. But there’s no market for these ugly ducklings. They’re not funky enough to have cachet, and they’re not nice enough to generate desire. It’s easier just to toss them out and buy something newer or cooler or more comfortable, and after we wash our hands of them, we rant about how planned obsolescence is running up the national debt and destroying the environment.
But we don’t have to look to Detroit or Washington to find the problem. We just have to look in the mirror. Because these cars didn’t fail us. We failed them.
