Ladies and Gents, as I type this I must attempt to hold back my heart palpitations from interfering with my typings...news has arrived from Jay Lamm, the almighty LeMons head honcho himself, that a miracle has occured. An email today unveiled plans to run a LeMons race at the legendary Road America race course, in Elkhart Lake Wisconsin. This is the Holy Grail of American auto racing folks, and in response to this news we have decided to focus soley on this one event. It falls on Monday and Tuesday, August 20-21

Why Monday and Tuesday, you ask? That brings me to the clever part. We wont just be running one of the greatest courses in America, but will be piggybacking on the ALMS weekend. That means the largest teams in the worlds (save F1) will be running a four hour enduro on Saturday. These are the big boys, carbon fiber enblazened bringers of the storm that is world class international endurance racing. But their race...it will be little more than a support event for possibly the biggest LeMons race in history. Preliminary information suggests up to 250 competitors signing up. Needless to say, we have already entered, and number 22 will stay on our quarter panel. All our efforts will be going towards this glorious weekend.

Because we axed the June race, we will hopefully be replacing it with a track day or two to dial in our rear suspension, that has proven to be a handful under hard braking. Turn 5 is going to be a Lemons muncher to the max, so Team Carbeque is going all out to make sure this goes smoothly. Let us know if you want in, we will need some help! (also, if anyone has a spare SAAB 900s engine/trans, you never know when it might come in handy).

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When we met up at Gingerman for our first race, a bloke signed on to our lunacy called Sam. He uses the forum handle tsog, we call him soggy, and he became a good friend of the team that weekend. He wasn't the fastest driver, but he was solid and consistent, and had the good sense to come in when our front wheel lugs loosened up (one actually fell out, YIKES). He also cooked us all Cheddar Best sausages and soggy sammichs, consisting of a few pounds of the best bacon and cheese you could buy, and (willfully) spent the nights outside in a hammock he brought with. There he is in the hat, passing around an ancient bottle of Jameson among the judges in the post race celebration...lookin' good Soggy! He took the checkered flag for us!

Well, not too long ago he took the insanity into his own hands, and bought a lemons prepped Simca 1204. Now, this Simca isn't just any old 1971 French Mopar microcar, it was built by LeMons legend Spank, who has built a reputation among our crazy community of bringing the craziest crap to our crapcan races. Spearheading the "Class C Onslaught", Spank has single handledly brought a tsunami of tetanus and cylinder wall shavings to nearly every west coast race, taking the storied "Index of Effluency" prize multiple times. Some of the cars he's prepped include a Minimoke dressed up like a lunar rover, a classic Mini Cooper in full Mr. Bean livery (including an armchair on the roof..oh and a TURBOCHARGER), a 1971 Citroen ID19 that he got running AFTER checking in and setting up his pit stall, and famously a Simca 1204. This car captured the heart of tens of people as it circulated around Thunderhill at the 2011 Arse-Sweat-A-Palooza, with headscratching reliability and a slowness that would make James May proud.

From The Truth About Cars, "The SimcaCUDA, aka Le Mopar, is a 1971 Simca 1204, which could be purchased in Chrysler showrooms back in the day alongside rebadged Hillman Avengers and rebadged Mitsubishi Galants. What kind of madman would dare to race such a terrible car at brutal, hilly Thunderhill Raceway? We're talking about Unununium Legend of LeMons honoree Spank, of course. This is Spank's third Index of Effluency trophy, following his 998cc Austin Mini's win at the '09 Buttonwillow Histrionics and his 1971 Citroen ID19's win at the '10 Sears Pointless race (he went on to drive the Citroen from San Diego to Miami, in order to race it at the '10 LeMons season-ender, so you know we're dealing with a serious madman here)."

Ultimately winning the Index of Effluency, and pushing the second place Mazda Miata back to the pits after it ran out of fuel on the last lap, the Simca went down in history as one of the most famous lemons cars of all time.

A little while after the race, Soggy (after completely being bitten with LeMons fever, thank us for that!) purchased the car from Spank, however the French Chrysler was located all the way in California. Soggy, living in PA, posted a call to arms in the LeMons forums, and being the community it is, several of the lower IQ brethren stepped up to help the Simca traverse the country. As I write this now, it is traveling through the midwest and is closing on Pennsylvania with the speed of a slinky rolling down a 2000 mile long staircase, changing hands multiple times. Good luck with your new ride Soggy, we hope to see you at Gingerman this year!

Notice the "Eyesore Racing Tow Service" emblazoned on the side of the car, the team fielding the Miata it pushed home at Thunderhill...

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As I'm certain you've all heard by now, the company that birthed our thrifty carbeque has passed away. We have been cheering them on these last few years, with signs of hope occasionally brightening our day. I personally can't say that the closure makes me feel any better (after all, it was rather clear what would happen to SAAB after GM dropped them and went into restructuring).

The team has learned so much about what makes our 900 a SAAB, all the little details that someone in Sweden thought up that made us smile or chuckle. Things like the fantastic visibility from the curved windsheild, or hilarious backwards engine that allows us to do a total clutch job in under an hour, or the central mounted ignition switch that you can reach just fine while fully strapped in gave us confidence in it's ability (when it was really our ability in the end that kept us from TOTAL DOMINANCE)...

So if you have a minute, take a look at The Truth About Car's eulogy, they do a great job as usual summing up what so many people looked at as more than a car company, but as a lifestyle.

PS. I figured it be pertinent to mention that Czechoslovakia only exitisted to 1992, it is now known as the Czech Republic. -e

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Cheers to the Rolling Chicane Limo Service, for breaking new grounds in lemons hilarity, er...history. Twenty-seven glorious golden feet of totally unbalanced American Iron getting on (and off occasionally) track at Buttonwillow a few weeks ago. Hats off to you guys!

Photo credit goes to eyesore racing!

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While looking around, perplexed at our video "Are you afraid of the SAAB?" getting nearly 1,000 views (ok, rounding up a little there), I noticed a bunch of referral links coming in from a Czech Saab site called www.saabinfo.net. Someone out there made what I can only assume to be a raving fanpage about their saber-toothed stateside heros!* Maybe they didn't watch the video of us getting passed for nearly 40min...er but anyway, were famous! So what if it's a few countries away, they still sell EBC's and eat slow cooked meat over there, so why not? There you have it folks, our crappy car breaking new ground in media communication once again.

*Google happens to have a translate feature that reveals that this is just our mission statement that someone going by the handle "Laf666" translated. The translation back to english is pretty hilarious, however. Check it out, thanks for the publicity guys! http://www.saabinfo.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1392&Itemid=17

"Of course, that there will be racing team after all! But we are not just any ordinary race of the "smell of gasoline, burnt rubber and the dizzying speed" (though of course with all that counting!), It is a race 24 hours Lemons!"

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