Last Cars Reviews Blog: thunderhill

We've been following the exploits of the Faster Farms Plymouth Belvedere LeMons car- which was driven to the race- and now there's another chapter in the Legend Of The Chickenmobile.

Jack Astro, creator of the Project Car Hell Song, was behind the wheel heading into Turn 1, everything looking fine... right up until the moment when a correct-overcorrect-oh shit sequence took place and the car flipped over. It ended up on its wheels and nobody was hurt, so we say that's a happy ending.

Not so happy for Mr. Astro, however, who now proclaims that my off-the-edge-of-the-map excursion was nothing: "Your shame is weak!" But hey, the Belvedere is running fine and will be driving the 120 miles back to the Bay Area tonight (sadly, the "Why Am I On My Roof" LeMons rule means no more racing for the Chickens this weekend), at which point it will resume being the daily driver for one of the team members. Now that's a race car!

In other news, our favorite Chevy Cavalier race car also flipped over (wheel bearing failure, followed by wheel leaving car, followed by upside-down adventures). Again, we're pleased to report that nobody was hurt.

And... the People's Curse just happened. The victim: The Blues Brothers Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, which aroused much skepticism about its budgetary honesty (the manual transmission sure didn't make the right impression, and the fact that it was waaaaaay faster than the other Crown Vics on the track contributed). There was some talk in the pits about aggressive driving on their part, but Chief Perp Lamm disagreed and told the executioner to take it easy on the Crown Vic... which is now back in driving condition after having the doors, trunk, and hood torn off. I'll get a People's Curse gallery up as soon as possible, but for now I need to get back to spotting for teammate WhatWouldJesseDo, who's out there in the V8olvo.

Filed under: Motorsports, Etc.

Click above for a high-res gallery of the "Tinkerbell Rosso" Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor

The "24 Hours of LeMons" is an event comprised of low-budget $500 race cars, i.e. lemons. The so-called "crap-car enduro" has enticed various members of the Autoblog team over the years into covering, and more recently participating, in the event. When asked to join Team Tinkerbell Rosso for an upcoming race, we knew it was time to take up the cause again and now find ourselves booked for the "Thunderhill Arse-Freeze-Apalooza." The event, scheduled during the last few days of December, promises dreadfully cold weather but plenty of offbeat racing fun. Our six-part weekly series takes you behind the scenes with our new race partners, the Tinkerbell Rosso racing team and their 1996 Crown Victoria "Police Interceptor."

Our earlier blogs (Part I - The donor vehicle, Part II - The teardown, and Part III - The build) introduced you to the car and tracked our build progress. Now the team is hard at work preparing the former taxi/police interceptor for the race in less than one week! The madness begins after the jump.

Gallery: LeMons 2008: Team Tinkerbell Rosso