Everyone on our team agreed that times this good don't come around very 
often.  YeeHaw LeMons Texas 2008 was everything we thought it would 
be... even after we began removing ourselves from contention via 
penalties.  We knew that we were out there with lots of people who have 
never raced wheel-to-wheel before.  We knew the judges would not listen 
to any excuses.  We knew we had to run a clean race, and yet... we were 
not quite able to pull it off.

Friday was test-n-tune day.  Right away we blew a power steering
O-ring and did not have a spare.  A fellow LeMons contestant was at our
car within minutes with an enormous assortment O-rings - problem solved!
There is great karma here.  We had fun cruising the pits in our 70's 
vintage, lightly-modified Harley Davidson golf cart.  Favorite pastime: 
pull up to a group of people sitting in an $8K golf cart, challenge them 
to a race, wait for them to finish laughing, then leave them with two 
black stripes and a wheelie.  Never got old.  :-)  Strangely, not 
everyone appreciated this.

We had an early, casual visit from one of the judges to our pit area.
He proceeded to tell us that our documentation sucked and that we had
better come up with something extraordinary to appease him.  Said our
current story would probably be good for a 100 lap penalty.  Was he
serious?  Doubtful, but we decided not to chance it.  At Formula M
Racing, we believe in the old addage "Go Big or Go Home" and to that end
we got busy and bought the makings for a giant shrimp cocktail (12"
across) and a couple of pounds of filet mignon.  When it was our turn
for the BS inspection, we brought the gas grill over and treated the
judges to Surf 'N Turf on the spot.  They bought our bribe hook, line
and sinker.  Even after hearing the lumpy cam and seeing the Holley
4-barrel carb they only assessed us a 2-lap "symbolic" penalty for
having a crappy fake Craigslist ad (which incidentally was not fake).
Score: Mullets 1, Judges 0.

Saturday our second driver got a ten minute penalty for hitting a cone
while exiting the track.  He claimed it was the car in front of him, but
of course it didn't matter.  In the words of Jay Lamm, "You're Boned".
Sad mullets.  Score evened.  The air brake, which had been very popular,
suffered a broken cable at about 2pm and was strangely silent the rest
of the day.  Other than that, Saturday turned out okay and we ended the
day in, I believe, 6th place.

Sunday the proverbial roof caved in.  We had repaired the air brake
overnight (and changed the picture to something more, um...
"interesting") but it only lasted one hour before breaking again.  It
began flapping wildly at any speed over 30mph and we were sure a black
flag was imminent so we pitted and cut the brake off of the car.  Then
our second driver incurred a 3-wheels-off penalty which we dispatched
with a get-out-of-jail free card, only a minute or two lost.  With no
lifelines left, our next driver went off track briefly and was assessed
a 15 minute penalty.  To add insult to injury, the owner of the track
assessed a team penalty for doing golf-cart wheelies in the pits!  That
hurt.  Another 15 minutes in the penalty box.   At that point we could
do nothing but stand there and watch our 5th place standing slowly
erode.  Seeing as there was no longer any hope of a podium finish we did
what all red-blooded Texans would do and "stepped 'er up a notch".  A
little later, two cars, one apex... you can probably guess the rest.  We
suffered a crunched fender, popped radiator, bent core support and
another 30 minute penalty.  After the penalty was served, we needed
another 20 minutes to repair the car.  The score was now solidly in
favor of those acursed judges and we were forced to hang our mullet-clad
heads in shame.  Hmmm, nice sandals Bubba!  You too, Cletus!  Payless?
Nope, red tag at Pick 'N Save!  Etc.

We did manage to claw our way back up to 10th place by the end of the
race and so just barely met our goal of a top-ten finish, and we snagged
the "Best use of Banned Technology" award for the FULLY ARMED AND
OPERATIONAL air brake, so everybody went home happy.  Unlike those nutty
East and West-coasters, we did NOT drop our car off at the junkyard
after the race.  After 6+ months of work, that car is part of the
frickin family and will more than likely be back to compete next year.
We'll be older and wiser.  Mullets will be longer.  Golf cart voltage
will be higher.

We would like to thank our sponsors for their generosity:  Late Model 
Restoration (a.k.a 5.0 Resto), Apex Driving Academy, Argent Labs, and 
Coleman Associates.  Thanks also to the entire LeMons staff for their 
hard work and always-friendly-never-bent attitude - you put on a first 
class event.  And we know first class - just check the mullets!

-Formula M (as in Mullet) Racing
  http://motorheads.net/formula_m