Just in time for the end of the world, last weekend the un-dead Killer ZomBee MGB, quasi-official race car of our sister site Atomic Toasters, participated in the 24 Hours of Lemons “Goin for Broken” race at Reno Fernley Raceway.
This grueling non-stop event out in the desert took place over a full 24 hour period, in contrast to the usual 2-day endurance races here on the west coast, with the green flag dropping at 10am on Saturday morning, and the checker finally waving at 10am Sunday.
The bucket of bolts bona-fide race cars of over 70 hopeful teams took to the track, pressing on through the blazing heat of day, lightning storms at sunset, bitter cold of the desert night, early morning rain and hail at sunrise, and (surprise!) even snow.
Yes, hell froze over.
Still we pressed on; trudging thru everything Mother Nature (and competing teams) could throw at us.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faPojCZfx9s[/youtube]
(some 3am racing action, with a little bonus love-tap just for fun)
Amazingly the Killer ZomBee, still running on a motor “borrowed” from what used to be a certain “Super-Spouse’s” daily driver, kept on ticking lap after lap. 341 to be exact. Enough to secure a 34th place finish, and one of its best showings to-date. Beyond all odds, we actually made it to the very end.
The only problems encountered the entire weekend were yet another broken throttle cable (a recurring issue with our mismatched hodgepodge of used MGB parts) and a dead alternator resulting from a the author being too cheap and lazy to upgrade to a proper kill switch.
Yeay Kill Switch! (Lemons inside joke)
A quick tour of the paddock while holding the dead alternator resulted in numerous offers of help from the greatest crowd in racing, however the perfect fix came from Lemon’s legend and utter madman “Spank” of Mr Bean Mini/Schitroen/Simica fame, who just happened to have a complete spare Mini motor at the ready, and loaned us its genuine Lucas alternator just in time for the race. A quick inspection revealed the regulating circuit had come apart, but most of the components were still floating around inside. A new screw swapped in from the old unit and 10 minutes later we were ready to take the green flag.
Thus, the Killer ZomBee ran the entire 24 hours on a full tank of genuine Prince of Darkness brand electrical-smoke, and even a set of genuine Lucas driving lights – one of which actually worked!
When the dust had settled, our merry band of west-coast misfits (a phrase coined by ZomBee guest diver Erik Torgeson of cheap race organizing and Free Range Racing fame) had a banner day! Our good friends Eyesore Racing took overall win with a repeat performance at Reno, Team Petty-Cash took the coveted Index of Effluency trophy, “Crazy-Mike” took the Laramie Equalizer Award, and our sister team Stick Figure racing/Volatile Ram took the Organizer’s Choice trophy with their crazy twin-engined MRolla, which consisted of the front half of a Toyota Corolla welded to the back half of an MR2. It was both brilliant and terrifying, proving to be a real rocket on the straights.
(From the Official 24HoL Highlights Album on Facebork)
And the Killer ZomBee finally received its first racing trophy ever, taking home “Judge’s choice” – admittedly more for its manners and goat-headed tenacity than anything resembling performance.
This award has proudly found a home in the display case next to the Bee’s other trophy, the Rue Britannia, or “Worst British Car” from the inaugural Concours d’ Lemons. If you can’t be the best, you may as well have fun being the worst.
And while we do not really run the Bee in hopes of winning anything, it is nice to finally have a chunk of welded broken metal scraps to show the wife, exclaiming “See? It was all worth it!”
And now, having conquered both the racing and car-show circuits, the Killer ZomBee now sits behind the bushes waiting its turn to take over the world… GO BEES!
A special shout out to Portland’s Dave Marden and Team Continental for sponsoring our mis-adventures!
(Images courtesy of the 24 Hours of lemons, Will Campbell and Judy Kiel – photographers extraordinair, and the author’s own collection)
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