I’ve never prided myself on being very photogenic, but occasionally a camera just captures me, as this Murilee Martin shot did: Man and his mannequin. Unkempt beard. Haphazardly knotted tie. Bottomless nostrils. Eyes gazing off toward the barren middle distance somewhere between blind exuberance and utter panic.
Yes, that is a photo of me, mere hours before my first 24 Hours of LeMons experience turned into a cascade of failures that included, in no particular order, a mud-and-grime-caked trackside engine swap, Brazilian cheesebread, many furrowed brows, and the occasional curse-laden description of the weekend-in-progress to a forlorn NPR reporter.
This photo marks in my life a turning point, at which time I contracted a disease as infectious as consumption or Bieber Fever. In the medical field, it’s known as cerebri excrementum, or “crapcan brain.”
Symptoms may include neck spasms from craning the neck to see that rusty ’83 Corolla three lanes over, loved ones’ weariness of the phrase “That would be a great racecar,” unexplained lust for non-GLH Dodge Omnis, and chronic CraigsList combing. The final symptom may be most troublesome for many, who consider the phrase “ran when parked” a challenge rather than an obfuscation of actual running order.
For this writer, the cure for crapcan brain was evident: Start a blog, The Rusty Hub, and write about crapcans. The Rusty Hub was born as a means of telling not only the stories of low-buck endurance machines and the races in which they run, but also of the tales of the sordid and uniquely insane people behind them.
Now, those stories of weekend warriors and the rusty heaps they rode in come to Hooniverse, the perfect community to embrace the winding and occasionally oil-slicked circuits of the 24 Hours of LeMons and ChumpCar World Series. Check back and I’ll have the usual Rusty Hub fodder that the hoons crave: race previews and recaps, features, analysis, interviews, incongruous bits of automotive trivia, and some more surprises along the way.
[Photo: Murilee Martin]
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