By Eric Rood
As a follow-up to the roadracing Cessna 310 and the self-propelled pop-up camper, inimitable 24 Hours of LeMons builder and racer Jeff Bloch, known in the crapcan world as Speedycop, will run an upside-down Chevy Camaro at this weekend’s LeMons race at New Jersey Motorsports Park. The build had previously been kept a secret, but it will join the extremely long list of Bloch’s crazy builds. I don’t have many other details, but I do know that it will surely rank with the backwards Ford F-150 (on a Ford Crown Victoria frame) that scared drivers witless at a few previous LeMons races.
[Sources: 24 Hours of LeMons forum]
Jeff Glucker
˙ǝɯosǝʍɐ sı ʇɐɥʇ
¡ƃuılıǝɔ ǝɥʇ uo ƃuılǝǝɥʍ ʇnoqɐ ƃuıɥʇǝɯoS
˙suǝddɐɥ ʇɐɥʇ uǝɥʍ ʇı ǝʇɐɥ ı
We've had backwards and upside-down… what's next, a Chevy Van/Ford Econoline/Dodge Tradesman on its side?
We've yet to see this.
<img src="http://theletter.co.uk/images/lc/vw_fox_inside_out_car.jpg" </img>
Alright. Slap a roll cage on it.
But where?
Intentionally left as an exercise for the reader.
I hear Speedycop owes more on this car than it's worth.
There's a phrase for that, I can't remember it.
The trick wasn't to flip the car over, but to get it to keep going. Seems like he got that right.
He's not the first one to get that right.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/IVNVVzL.jpg" width="550">
Yeah, but they flipped it back, which is almost like cheating.
Cool, but LeMons is now something very different than "cheapest racing possible."
By the hour, it's still the cheapest wheel-to-wheel racing there is. One could pick nits and suggest Chumpcar, but it comes down to details of what you race and how you build it.
That depends upon where one is sitting.
<img src="http://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LWA13/372-UG-Pacific_Northworst_24_Hours_of_LeMons.jpg" width="500">
It still is. Builds like this are the exception to the rule.
I'd argue that LeMons has always encouraged innovative solutions to non-existent engineering problems in addition to being cheap racing. For most, it provides an inexpensive avenue to wheel-to-wheel racing.
For a crazy few, it's provides the route for them to chase down the cascading stream of automotive "What ifs." Speedycop is really at the top of that clapped-out pyramid.
There's at least a couple of pics on Car and Driver's blog:
http://www.caranddriver.com/photo-gallery/lemons-…
According to the story, his clutch let go yesterday.
6.3: Why Am I Upside-Down? Rule: You're upside-down because you have no business being out on a racetrack. Any driver who puts a car on its roof is out for 12 months.
Speedycop was clever in removing the roof.
I'm only sad that this took away some of the attention from the Rolls Royce that debuted as well.
ok. so i have been wondering this all weekend. were the side pipes functional?
Is it me or does anyone else want to do a LeMons race??