What started as a piece of spam in our email in-box linking us to a local race event, has now turned into a full tilt
race project. That one click to the official site of the "24 Hours of LeMons" race at Altamont Speedway sent our
smiles from ear to ear. We decided that we could NOT miss this one. Racing AND partying at the same time?
Sure! Being vintage BMW guys at heart, we figured an old and crusty 2002 would be a prime candidate to win a
13 hour endurance race. Why? Because Shad has piles of parts laying about, of course. So we contacted a
friend in San Jose who was selling his old 1970 2002 parts car/future crusher car for $150 and the race was on...
Since the cars cannot exceed $500 in total build cost we were in a bit of jam when it came to appearance. We
REALLY wanted a flame job on the car but spray paint adds up fast with $350 left on our build budget, so we
could only think of one way to do it: RUST. Instead of spending money on paint for the flames we let the car's
natural ability to rot in the blink of an eye work in our favor and commenced to sanding out our flames. The rest
was up to mother nature...and a healthy dose of Morton's table salt and water from time to time.
The Result:
was the front frame rails were completely shot. The tin worms had
really done a number on them. No problem. A couple of 16gauge
patches later and we were back in business...
the most important thing in a $500 cap endurance race
after all. We had some left over two part epoxy paint we
used to paint our shop walls, so why not give the car a
matching paint job? And what better way to get a mirror
show quality finish than a 4" rollers with 1/2" nap! (with
random Coors splatters for texture...)
puts the final touches on our 'race' motor. Due to a large
chunk missing from the existing intake manifold we had
to 'make due' with converting the car to a dual side draft
configuration from parts we had collecting dust on our
shelves. (Little did we know we'd take a 10 lap penalty
from the Lemons Judges for our resourcefulness...)
Coninue...
