Buttonwillow-Arse Freeze Practice on Friday

Arse-Freeze Apalooza, it starts on Thursday as Rye and I pack up the RV and pick Tedders up at Sonoma Chicken restaurant near the San Jose Airport. Tedders flew in from Ketchum, Idaho (we are a national team). And drive down Interstate 5 to Buttomwillow, CA. When we arrive at the race track we expected to park and sleep at the entrance Thursday night, but instead the track personnel processed us in and allowed everyone to enter and find a spot Thursday night. So at 11pm Thursday night, in the pitch black of night we navigate the pits to find a spot. Luckily we run across our VW Rabbit friends from Chim Chim Racing, aka Powered by Bacon. So we pulled in the RV, hooked up to some power and went to bed.

Up at 7am Friday to set up shop, first things first, put up the awning and string some Christmas lights!

Now, here is Mr. Unruly on his way to sign up for Friday practice. Oh how well he fits on that Honda 50!

While we awaited the arrival of our Magic Rabbit, on its way from Sacramento in the early morning, Rye went out and snapped some pictures of an array of very interesting Lemon's competitors.

Here is the latest creation from Evil Genius in Davis, CA. A Model T GT, a Ford Model T body, on a Ford Model A frame with a modern Ford V-8 engine. This is the same guy who built the Death Cab VolvoV8.

Next is a 1958 Plymouth take-off done on a BMW E-30 series car. It is to look like the car "Christine" in the Stephen King chiller. Very well done.

OK, how about a Pac-Man themed Porsche 924 from the racing stable Fartini Racing.

Or Team Petty Cash (painted in the Richard "The King" Petty racing blue) Jeep Cherokee. This Jeep was amazingly quick.

Add in some flower power, hippee style Alfa Romero.

But the most interesting/bizzare was the Fiat 600/Moto Guzi 1000, called the Fiaguzzi 1000. This is a 1964 Fiat 600 with the tiny 600cc motor removed and replace with a 60's Moto Guzi motorcycle 1000cc engine. The huge home style air ducts you see on the roof was an attempt to funnel cooling air to the motorcycle engine in the back. During testing on Friday it was determined that this setup didn't work, more than one lap and they were overheating. They replaced this cooling setup with two large electric radiator fans under the back engine hatch blowing air directly onto the air cooled motorcycle engine. That worked, they ran both days and won the coveted IOE prize for the car "getting the most from the least" and $1501 cash.

After a sumptuous breakfast somewhere on I5 Paul, Nancy and Darrell arrive with our Magic Rabbit.

Off loading and getting it prepared for inspection and practice.

First, we go through inspection, here is the team all dressed up and heading for tech inspection.

Paul and Darrell are carrying the surprise bribe package.

We were lucky to end up with Jay Lamm, the Chief Perpetrator, to do our tech and BS inspection. We flew through the tech inspection, no problems. Then Jay started the BS inspection and wanted to know how much we spend on our crapcan. So here I am showing Jay our books. We started with a residue value of $225 (a determination by Jay himself of what our car was worth immediately after our Thunderhill race in August). To this residue value our books show what we added to the car or at least what we were willing to disclose to Jay that we had done. Our books showed a new total less than $500, of course what else would we say. Jay was suspicious as he should be.

However, at this moment Paul interjected while Jay pondered our calculations, to declare to Jay that we had a bribe for Jay. Jay unwrapped the bribe to find this fabulously printed, mounted and lemonly framed portrait of himself!! Perfect bribe, no further discussions needed. Jay was all smiles and so were we.

This portrait of Jay, the Renaissance Man, Lamm was from a Road and Track article about Jay and his new racing series 24 Hours of Lemons.

The team posed with Jay and his potrait.

Next on our list of to-do's is to get all our safety gear checked, racing suit, helmet, gloves and shoes.

While we were getting checked another marvelous entry appeared, a 1985 Maserati Quattroportte, ie 4 door Maserati and the owner, shown here in his finest Purple Rain, formerly know as the artist Prince, bought this Maserati for only $500. So he claims. It was a favorite of the Lemon's staff, they all got to drive it on the track. Yes, they put in a full racing roll cage inside of this Grand Touring car and its Italian leather seating!

OK, all inspected, check in and ready to race. The Magic Rabbit team stops to pose for the growing team of photographers!

A couple of more interesting entries, the Lincoln Towncar complete with "horsehide and saddle". This car was driven down I5 looking like this, must have impressed a few CHP officers and drivers along the way!.

And here is the Time Bandits, if you watch TV and the "Deadliest Catch" series you will know that "Time Bandits" was the name of a boat in that series. And here is the Time Bandits decked out to catch the Alaskan crabs. Well done.

This banner just made us laugh, "we don't like us either".

Here is our VW Rabbit Warren neighbors, Chim Chim Racing with their new theme, a play on UPS delivery, called JewPS, We Deliver on Christmas. Brilliant, along with their UPS brown uniforms offsite so well with their Hasidic Jewish hats and curls!

OK, here Mr. Unruly looks like a true racer in his pink tux tshirt and his 24 Hours of Lemons knit cap. What a site.

For this race we added a co-pilot, who else but Bug Bunny belongs in the Magic Rabbit. He is tied in, ready to race!

Friday night, after practice, the red Christmas lights show up on the race car.

And the final task, put new "sticker" tires on the front. They aren't any stickier, they just have the paper sticker still on them. A NASCAR term for brand new tires. We only put them on the front since the front tires on a front wheel drive car, like our GTI, does most of the work and therefore wear the fastest. So here is Tedders putting the new tires on the front before we called it day and got a good nights rest before the start of the race on Saturday.

That was our first day. More as I post our race days. Sorry for the delay in posting, just been very busy.