Running the 24 hours of LeMons is a confluence of the bizarre. Mix 100 parts jalopy, going faster than you ever have in rush hour traffic, a race track, Halloween, and the attempt to take all the seriousness out of a race driver while still trying to keep the participants out of harms way and you're only a couple steps into what this is about. For the uninitiated, the basic concept is that you'll be racing wheel to wheel in a $500 car. Since you don't actually want to die in the process, safety equipment is exempted from the base cost.

Some people wrench on their heaps for months, substituting elbow grease and tears for the shine the years have taken off whatever four wheeled crate is unfortunate enough to be subjected to this. Other folks approach the LeMons in a caffinated sleepless frenzy, a spur of seat of the pants inspiration. Then there's the lazy people who slap a roll cage into something they just pulled out of the local river and managed to get the engine to turn over once. Ours was a parts car with a bent chassis that happened to run, and miraculously survived the 2007 LeMons at Altamont, more through divine intervention, luck, and a couple hours of field medic bandages than any sort of skill.

If you've seen Shawshank Redemption, LeMons is kind of like how Red describes the inmates. "I'm the only guilty man here" he says about the prison. "My car is totally legal and legit. We didn't spend a dime over $500 on it!" is echoed like a bible passage up and down the grid. For the record: I totally believe all of you. You betcha. Put it in writing. Any series where bribes are practically written into the rules, well, go into it with your eyes open and just have fun.

The team was put together by Ken Huey. We were: Ron Dale, Kim Dale, Jim Breazeale, John Montano, both of whom are from EASY (European Auto Salvage Yard, http://www.easypor.com/ ), and myself. Like so many other teams, we were just there for the fun of it, some laptime, and the spectacle of what other ridiculousness on four wheels we might encounter. All I wanted to accomplish was practicing my heel-toe in traffic when I wasn't bombing down the back straight of Sears Point at 95 MPH, headed towards that blue and yellow tire barrier on the brakes with a 911 breathing on my back bumper. That, keep the car clean, and work on traffic.

We carried some residual value from the previous event so we added a few suspension components and better rubber but were otherwise unchanged from the last go-round.

The more automotive stuff you do, the more you start meeting people you know from other events. I ran into some of the PRC folk we race with. Jay was running the 101 E30 BMW team. I had the pleasure of sharing an otherwise freezing cold lunch line in conversation with his lovely wife who runs grid for our races. Jarusak Dusuntia I met from my SCCA autocross days was there for his second event. Jalopnik's Evil Genius V8olvo was there. Anything that brings the motorsport community together is a good thing, and if nothing else, the 24 Hours of LeMons proves that if it moves, someone somewhere will try and race it. Doesn't matter if it runs on dino-juice, sunlight, gravity or muscle.