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Sounds like the Gambler 500. Same $500 ballpark limit but it’s not about speed. Just a fun rally where you go off road from checkpoint to checkpoint in beater rigs, the crazier and dirtier the better. The “gamble” is whether your car makes it 500 miles to the end lol
https://www.jalopnik.com/take-a-shit-in-a-bucket-and-look-at-this-gambler-500-ra-1794806737/
That's what I was thinking it was, since I didn't read article...
There’s a few documentaries about this race that highlight the shenanigans that take place off track. I believe bribing race officials is almost mandatory, and the cash goes to local charities. Just a note that the cost for required safety gear is many times the maximum cost of the car.
The rally aspect / 24h endurance is new to me, but trash car races have existed for times immemorial. Or maybe I'm not quite grasping the concept here?
It certainly looks fun though!
It's the 24 hours of lemons. It's been going for a good decade+ now. It's a ton of fun.
Much longer than a decade, I knew some guys that did a lemons race in Illinois about 20 years ago. Wikipedia says they started up in 2006 but I could have sworn I read about those guys before then.
I didn't want to really include the early years since it didn't get big in the car scene until like 2010ish. Pre-2006 I wanna say it was called something else, but yea it's been around in some form for a good long time.
I've only known it as 24 hours of lemons but I don't know if they carried that name on all the races. I know the one my friends did back in the day was named the "Rod Blagojevich Never Say Die 500". I know for a fact is a Lemons race though because Jay Lamm was there and gave them an award for something.
There was an old Top Gear episode with a race in a Nordic country with an interesting take on a price cap
the price enforcement was that anybody could buy your car (for no more than the price cap) after the race.
So I think you technically could enter the race with a brand new tricked out rally car...but anyone could buy it for $500/$1000/whatever.
This is actually how Amateur Motocross in the US works. It's really only for the upper echelon, sponsored riders on pro-affiliated teams as basically a development rider. But you sign a thing saying anyone can purchase the bike for 2x MSRP, so there is less incentive to dump money into an amateur bike and helps keep them closer to what a normal person can afford. Someone can feasibly get a $45k bike for under $20k. It's a nice system, you can spend yourself into oblivion if you like, but someone can take you to the cleaners in that investment later.
Lemons has this rule as well. I think it's been done once or twice.
yeah folk race! the winners are all put up for auction at the end.
you would also not want to enter a brand new rally car in a folk race... it's full-contact racing on a track that's basically all mud.
Does anyone know if there’s a place I can watch this? I’ve done some cursory searches before but didn’t find any full races.
Doesn't really answer your curiosity, but ChrisFix on youtube has a $500 BMW for one of these races. He's done a bunch of contra-deals and donations for the vehicle but is still able to prove he's at the budget mark requirements. His showcase is working on and building the car for these races more than racing in them.
Lemons is an excellent racing league and a fun idea. They have managed to make racing somewhat affordable and kept it from being a “who has the biggest wallet” contest. The race wrap ups on their YouTube channel are also hilarious.
I highly recommend it if you are interested. On their user forums there are lots of already prepped cars for sale so you don’t even have to figure out all of the safety regulations right away. It’s also fun as a spectator so if there is one in your area go check it out for a couple hours, walk the pits, take part in the shenanigans.
Also for a laugh and a good read on the vibe check out their official policy on bribing the judges :
https://24hoursoflemons.com/blog/how-judicial-bribes-work-at-24-hours-of-lemons-inspections/
24h of Lemons! I went to watch a race once. We were actually going to enter a car but we ended up in a less wacky endurance racing league.
The car cannot cost more than $500 for the initial purchase price. But the cheapest part of this car is the initial price. It adds up quite quickly with safety gear and consumables.
Roadkill entered once and to get the car to run they had to put a $600 MSD ignition box on it, the scrutineers called them on it their defence was "Yes its a $600 part but the moment we bolted it to the car it became effectively worthless"
I've seen that, and honestly would love to get a few buddies to chip in and find a jalopy and see how well we can do
Some buddies and I actually got an old firebird with a blown head gasket for lemons. Got it running, and then realized how much more we would have to pay for all the safety gear... We were still willing but had some disagreements for who was gonna pay what when and so the main backer pulled out and the dream went up in smoke...
It doesn't seem like it at the time but the easiest and cheapest part of the process is getting a car. We bought a vandalized RX8 that ran in anticipation for Lemons but we ended up buying a 240SX that was race ready sans motor.
I guess you raffle the car for the amount if there are multiple buyers. Fun take.
Those cars definitely have more than $500 in safety parts inside.
Also the cyber truck could soon qualify as a under $500.
Safety equipment is excluded from the cost cap
The key to winning is figuring out how to make winning things safety related and thus not subject to the price cap. New tires won't blow out unlike the old worn out tire - safety so now you can spend a lot of money on the best racing tires. Good brakes are important so I replaced the warped rotars with competition ultralight racing brakes (if you want to check I can find worn out brakes at a junkyard and you won't the actual brakes were fine). Those are easy/obvious examples, winning teams are really good at finding such things.
My issue with 24h of Lemons is that everyone seems to just ignore the $500 cap and just take the penalties at the end, so it all evens out. Anyone who does try to limit themselves to $500 would be competing against people who didn’t, and might lose even if they didn’t take any penalties.
That is another way to cheap, if the cost of getting caught is less than the gains from winning you just get caught.
And get stuck at the start line?
There used to be a rally like this across eastern Europe, starting in Germany. I think they changed the route to the Balkans after the war in Ukraine broke out. It's not even about being first place, it's really just about making it to the end in the shitbox of your choice. The fun part is breaking down on some random dirt road and having to fix the car together.
Also in regards to the pic in the article: Where the hell do you even find a 190e in drivable condition for less than 500$?
Most of these cars start as non-running junkers. Racers can sell parts off the car and add to the budget but must keep track of it all.
The big investment is time. Looking for cheap parts, making the car reliable, etc.
Finland has similar kind of events called folkrace
Every car that participates is valued at 2000€ and if you refuse to sell your license is revoked. The intention of this is to prevent people from spending too much on their cars and keeping the competition affordable for anyone to partcipate. It's literally called "everyman's class" after all.
The refuse to sell penalty is smart. Keeps people from being overly attached/invested in their car, keeps the focus on the race
shows up in a Power Wheels car
"Y'all 'bout to eat my dust!"