Planet Waltenburg: From Lemons to Wieners

As I mentioned in my last LeMons post, the Cannonball Bandits indubitably upped the ante with their latest car theme, "The Nascar Mayer Wiener Mobile," which they raced at the "Sears Pointless" at Infineon in Sonoma -a real, grown up's race track!

The boys raced steadily, with only a couple black flags, no major injuries (besides Joel's finger), and the wiener intact the entire race, which was their main goal!

DAY 1 (Assembly & Inspection):

The team got more than their share of attention for their borderline obscene structure, which they spent several hours welding to the car upon arrival. One of the best parts of the weekend for me was watching the reactions of passersby as the team erected the fruit of their last few months' labor.

After assembly, they went through inspection within which the judges performed a "stability test" consisting of patting the wiener and asking if this thing will stay on. They were told by the inspectors that if a piece fell off on the track they would be penalized an hour off the track. Then they were told by the judges in a later part of the inspection that if they took any pieces off before the race, they would be docked 500 laps. In other words, don't take it off and it better not fall off on the track.

If it wasn't clear then that the judges were well pleased with our wiener, it was when Judge Phil (a.k.a. Murilee Martin) posted the following on the LeMons forum that night:

"The theme ante has been upped with a Corolla FX16 converted to a fairly credible Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Sure, it looks like a Wienermobile built by drunks in a junkyard, working with only a confused verbal description of the original Wienermobile, but we love it anyway."

We also got quite a big mention from Murilee on his Jalopnik site that night!

DAY 2 (Race Day 1):

Good, clean racing by the Bandits. No black flags. Crowd loves us. They even cheered when the moment finally came for Colby to take that thing to the track. Did have to pit after first lap and again after the second lap, plus a couple more times after that for some fine-tuning welds & fender hammering, but then they were off.

Pit stops consisted of, not checking the oil, brakes, tire pressure, fluid levels, etc., but of merely gassing and lots more welding.

Unfortunately, there was one major incident on the track on day one when a Cavalier hit the wall, flipped and caught fire. The driver got out of the car quickly, but was rushed to the hospital with a broken neck, sweeping in an undercurrent of solemnness for the remainder of the weekend.

Video Footage from Perspective of one of the Cars Following Behind the Cavalier

Video Footage from Perspective of the Cavalier

That one gives me chills every time I watch it and really gave us all a sober perspective in the midst of the weekend's lemon freakshow.

DAY 3 (Race Day 2 & Awards Ceremony):

We arrived with over 300 hotdogs, but after the first two days, we could hardly bear to look at another one, so we BBQ'd the rest and handed them out to hungry spectators, fellow teams, and judges, which was another highlight of my weekend.

This is one of the families in the stands that we gave out hotdogs to. When this boy politely asked if we had anymore hotdog hats, Kim couldn't resist giving him the one off her own head. He must have been the happiest kid in the world!

Dave was black flagged for contact with another car on the track. Penalty was waived after the team rushed into the penalty box, beer bribe in hand, breaking into the "I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener" song.

Colby was black flagged for two wheels off the track. As he pulled into the penalty box, explaining to the judge that he had been hit off the track by another car (an MG he mistook as a Miata), he exclaimed, "I wonder where the Miata is!!??" which is exactly what we ended up having to write 100 times on the car Bart-Simpson-style as our penalty.

After pulling the bun and fender back off the tire where the car was hit, we were back out onto the track. Craig closed up the race, finishing in 56th place out of 147 cars, completing 240 laps total! And even more exciting, they picked up the $500-Organizer's Choice award, being deemed the team who "got what the spirit of LeMons is all about".