Racers have the option to rent a spot in the huge garage, or rent out a spot in the parking lot. The action in the garage was crazy before, during, and after the racing was done for the day.

When was the last time you saw an old FIAT like this? It’s in its natural state, broken with the hood up. They call it the Fiat Abarf, and it wears its inspection stencils proudly. And at one point during the day, it DID barf all its coolant over the pits! And before you even go there, I didn’t fix it again. How many times have I heard that one in my life…

This early Mazda RX7 had the General Lee theme down, including the Dixie horn, which it played to alert the pit crew to get ready every time it came in for work.

This old Ford Galaxie was all sorts of awesome. It was big, old and loud, and just look at it! Sadly, its driveshaft launched itself through the floor early into the event. I was looking forward to watching it go wheel to wheel with all the stuff it dwarfed on the track.

Another one from the “when was the last time you saw one” column comes a Chevy Citation X-11. These were built back in the early 80’s for the SCCA crowd, and sported the 2.8 V6 and fancy alloy wheels. All I remember about Citations is that they were generally unreliable and the radios were mounted vertically in the car. I’ve only heard about X-11’s and this is the first one I’ve seen in person. The lady on the roof was a nice touch. It did well until they suffered some sort of front suspension failure late in the day.

If you grew up in the 1980’s, you’ll recognize this one. This Nissan 240SX was appropriately transformed into Inspector Gadget’s “pursuit mode” police car! I was hoping to see a mid-80’s Toyota Van with the same theme, but no dice this time. The car had two loud speakers mounted to the roof that blared the Inspector Gadget theme the entire time it was on the track.

Another 80’s themed vehicle was this Dodge Daytona car from “The C-Team”. It had A-Team quotes stenciled all over the thing, and the pipe roll bar up front was a nice touch.

How about a Dodge Daytona “Hellkitten”? Pretty sure this one had Turbo Mopar power under the hood. They had trouble early, but sorted it out enough to get it on the track.

A $500 Corvette? I don’t know how they did it, but here’s a sprint car-themed C4. Gradually, this thing began to blow blue smoke until the thing could have doubled as a James Bond car.

That strange thing you see there is a Citroen SM, fielded by veteran LeMons team Three Pedal Mafia. It’s a SM, so naturally, they had a S&M theme. Yeah, those are spikes, a whip, and a ball gag. Their pit antics were a little NSFW. Oh boy.

In this shot, you can see a Fox-body Mustang and a 3rd-gen Firebird going head-to-head around a turn, as they were meant to do in their heyday! Depreciation hit these two particular examples hard enough to become participants in the LeMons series, which is great for regular guys looking to have fun on track.

This is the only shot I got of that Galaxie I mentioned earlier on track before it puked its driveshaft. A whale among fishes, and I love it!

People found creative ways to signal their drivers to pit in during the day. My buddies who entered the event didn’t think to bring a sign, so they used these sweet rear window louvers to signal the driver of their 1976 Datsun 280Z that it’s time to pit in. Best pit sign EVER!

The parking lot had its share of cool rides, as you would expect. Check out this battered AMC Gremlin. It drove itself there, and looked ready to roll out on the track! And there was a Gremlin mask inside the car for the driver to wear, so there’s that.

Another parking lot gem: this Ford Gran Torino was just PERFECT. It had the right stance, the right color, and the right attitude. I wanted to drive it home. I definitely creeped on it all day.

Midway into the race, cars really started to have issues. I sadly missed seeing it, but this PT Cruiser shot a GIANT fireball from out under the car on the track and puttered off to the side. They spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what blew up.

Nothing to see here, just a Saturn SC2 engine swap in the paddock…

This “GTO” was actually a Saturn sedan fitted with the infamous Endura Nose. It made me laugh all day. These guys were fighting the car for a lot of the race.

Here’s a scary one: this mess belongs to a 1980’s Nissan Sentra. The brake rotor somehow broke apart, and it took out the wheel hub, the wheel, and the fender! They had to pack it in after this happened.

This VW Vanagon looks a little funny, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s a Vanagon body attached to a Toyota MR2! It was surprisingly well sorted, and was fun to watch. The driver sits right in the middle of the vehicle.

The team known as Sorry for Party Racing, had a catastrophic driveshaft failure during the day in their 1980’s Firebird. While they were waiting on team members to source a replacement, they fashioned a drinking vessel out of the small end of the old shaft. All I know was that there was whiskey in the shaft, and they called it something like “The Chalice of Failure”. Genius!

All day, I noticed people doing really weird, out-of-the-ordinary things. Well, some of those people were being punished for doing stupid things on the track! Every time you do something dumb, you get black flagged and have to report to the judge’s garage bay for whatever punishment they doll out. I’m not sure what this guy did, but he had this cinder block chained to him by the judges and had to do laps around the pit garage. I saw two other people that hit each other on track doing laps around the garage while duct taped to each other!

…And more punishment. Thompson has a golf course that surrounds the racing facility. Judges made the drivers of this car hit their car with golf balls before they were allowed back on the track.