Mustangs vs Escorts│CMP 2026│24 Hours of Lemons

Añadido: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Hey kids.

[00:00:01]>> [cheering] >> It's Dr. Eric and Dr. Neil. Today, we're back from Carolina Motorsports Park in the Lemons Block Party and we're learning about inertia.

[00:00:26]This was Lemons 30th race at CMP. Piston Liberation Front was there with their Toyota Previa Yute. [music] It ran most of the weekend until it barely got back into the paddock.

[00:00:36]Hey kids, it's time for our first lesson, inertia. An object at rest wants to stay at rest.

[00:00:45]>> [screaming] [crying] >> As the name of the race implies, the BS inspection is held in downtown Camden with a parade of hoopdies that go to a block party. The town really turns out for this and it's so much fun. The crowd made this one of the best block parties anyone can remember. The teams also brought awesome themes. We'll start with Stall Wars, which is a Star Wars Jawa theme. These are of course famous scavengers from the Star Wars movies and what better place is there for scavengers than a Lemons [music] race?

[00:01:14]Swamp Donkey Racing were also back with their mobile margarita machine with a pull [music] start. That's awesome.

[00:01:21]Rooster Racing had a great Victory Garden 944 and what's not to love about a Futurama theme from Lagavara Racing in their Honda Civic. Oh, do you like my Atlantis Express ship? Oh, yes.

[00:01:34]We also had the Wolf Pack BMW E30, which is a new car with a classic livery. Lung darts?

[00:01:41]You know, lung darts.

[00:01:43]Oh, I got it. Lung darts. Heaters, squares, schmags, the things that used to make athletes athletes.

[00:01:52]>> [music] >> This previously unthemed Infiniti G35 returned [music] as the not-so-Super Mario Kart. And we also had the Repo Man. This is, of course, a Mercedes that was repoed twice and unsellable, [music] so ended up in Lemons with kind of a half-baked Repo Man theme in the past.

[00:02:15]This time they [music] wore shrimp outfits because of the plate of shrimp line from Repo Man. Suppose you're thinking about a plate of shrimp.

[00:02:23]The more you drive, the less intelligent you are. The Skinny Coyote Mazda Miata had a GoDaddy Slow Daddy theme with hand-painted NASCAR fake lights on the nose and matching pit cart. Bright this with some recent acquisitions.

[00:02:46]Expedient delivery. They also sicked their legal representation on the judges for not lining up with the entire field in complete sequential order Sunday afternoon. You know what?

[00:02:55]>> [music] >> I was 11. I was 11. Pretty sure that guy isn't a real lawyer. And we had the Blue Steel Ford Mustang with a pretty great [music] radioactive/Chernobyl theme. And on the subject of Mustang, we had eight fourth-gen Mustangs. That's 1994 to 2004 for the layperson or the SN95 and New Edge to weird Mustang aficionados. I'm pretty sure at some point in the year this generation of Mustang just like shows up on an end cap at the local [music] Piggly Wiggly and it's got a great screaming deal, so you pick one up and you make it a Lemons [music] car.

[00:03:34]Either way, however they come to be, this race was chock-full of these Mustangs with V6s, V8s, and convertibles, kind [music] of the whole set. So, they want everything, right?

[00:03:43]>> YEAH, WELL.

[00:03:45]YEAH, so every single fourth-gen Mustang got beat by the other [music] high performance Ford.

[00:03:55]Actually, it was a Ford Escort. Team Blind Squirrel's base model '91 wagon with 88 horsepower beat [music] every single fourth-gen Mustang by more than 50 laps. Hell, the team Achy Breaky Ford Escort GT beat all the Mustangs despite some trouble with 2 hours to go.

[00:04:16]Hey kids, our second lesson is about thermodynamics. [music] The second law of thermodynamics says entropy of a system always increases.

[00:04:42]I don't know what that was, but it was spectacular. I don't like entropy. Can we go back to inertia?

[00:04:51]There may be a lesson in there somewhere, [music] but when you get a Mustang thrown in with a couple pounds of boiled peanuts, I guess the decision becomes easier. This race had a ton of great [music] rookie teams. We'll start with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, great team name by the way, which was an amazingly stock beige Thunderbird and all the body panels had faded to slightly different colors. Look like it drove right out of Mama's carport. The Moonatics brought a Mitsubishi Eclipse.

[00:05:17]The team regretted buying this car almost immediately because it was in way worse shape than anticipated. They missed the parade shockingly not because of the car, but because their trailer broke and they couldn't unload in time.

[00:05:28]They had a myriad of Mitsubishi type problems all weekend long, but they finished the weekend kind of.

[00:05:38]>> [music] >> The D-Rangers raced a [music] Crown Vic last year and were building a V8 Ranger at the time. Unfortunately, on a test drive, the Ranger caught on [music] fire rather a lot, so it took them a little longer to get it to the track. The alternator kept slipping through the weekend, throwing belts, so they decided to shim it using the most available building material in the South, [music] an empty Mountain Dew can. Among the Mustangs were some rookies from team Procomp Saugnathids.

[00:06:10]Team what? Hey kids, lesson three is paleontology.

[00:06:15]The Procompsognathus was a chicken-sized scavenger dinosaur, and thanks to 3D [music] printing, scientists have been able to model Procompsognathid [music] throats. It allowed them to produce a single sound.

[00:06:30]I don't like Procompsor things.

[00:06:33]Can we go back to a Nerf gun?

[00:06:38]Anyway, the team had Jurassic Park costumes, and the Mustang was painted like the Jurassic Park Explorer, which works because the Mustang and the Explorer have the same engine. Mustang and the Explorer have the same engine.

[00:06:52]Same engine.

[00:06:59]>> [music] >> Fast Orange were rookies with a Lexus LS 400. Unfortunately, on the test day, the radiator failed and the engine was totally cooked. They figured they'd fix it, but in the interim, they wanted to pass tech inspection. I [music] can't say I'm familiar with this technique, nor do we recommend it, but it flows water well enough to run for 10 seconds [music] and pass the kill switch test.

[00:07:31]Swiffer were [music] rookies with a Fast and Furious Nissan R34 GT-R.

[00:07:38]Uh well, actually a B15 Sentra with an automatic transmission, but the paint looked good inside and out and they had the most important thing.

[00:07:49]One of the notable rookies was Celica's [music] don't die and their literal barn find Long Beach Celebrity Pro Am Challenge [music] Celica. Now, I didn't know this before we saw the car's history but Toyota reused [music] these cars for several years at these races and it's safe to say all of these cars had a really hard life before they became barn finds let alone lemons cars.

[00:08:17]It all went wrong on the start finish straight as he got a nudge from behind and went into a dramatic spin. Now Lemons regulars will know we've had a couple of the Daytonas from Dodge's, you know, bootleg version of this. One of them driven by Ricky Schroeder and the other by Don Docken. This car was the one driven by Don Docken. A [ __ ] Docken [music] fan, man.

[00:08:39]So obviously you're wondering which celebrities drove this Celica. Well, long time Indy 500 pit reporter Jack Arute. The report from the crew is that he hit another car's tire. Southern California Toyota dealer Bud Gordon.

[00:08:55]It's the grand opening of Bud Gordon's [music] all new state of the art quality Toyota. Larry Drake who was famously not developmentally disabled but played a developmentally disabled character on L.A. Law. Damn. And Dennis Franz who is on cop shows and has a fantastic legacy in television history.

[00:09:15]Oh. The team was fighting some lingering issues from four years [music] of hard running and then, you know, 30 years of sitting but the team were great and they are great stewards of one of the race cars ever built. Myota is a team that raced an E92 BMW for a few races and couldn't make it run. They They what anyone would do. They bought a Toyota GT86.

[00:09:40]Wait, what? Yep, just a bit of overkill.

[00:09:43]And they got some penalty laps because, come on. But, at least it's an easy car to drive. Nathan [music] Krass to the inside in the 18. Willy Gaul trying to carry big speed in. He's just too much speed. The car [music] won't turn.

[00:09:55]Straight into the tire barrier. And then a little contact further back.

[00:09:59]>> And then Brown gets in and Brown gets in it. And they definitely didn't rack up enough black flags to get a penalty. I really hope this is going to go on your website, boys, because I want to be proud of this one.

[00:10:11]Terminally Confused are long-time LeMons people who spend most of their weekend cooking for the paddock, and that's hella sweet. They also have this crappy Del Sol, and team captain Craig has put his son Noah in the car. This time he put his daughter in the car for her first race.

[00:10:28]Uh, we love seeing a new generation of LeMons people. We had judges Jason Torchinsky, David Ekel, Jim Bowman, and me.

[00:10:37]That's an awesome crew. David drove his recently refreshed vintage Mustang from New Jersey, which [music] was like 10 hours. Jason drove his absolutely not refreshed vintage Citroën 2CV from Raleigh, which was also like 10 hours.

[00:10:51]Jason is of course the editor of The Autopian and a long-time LeMons racer and judge. Uh, this excellent judging crew dolled out some great penalties.

[00:10:58]Judge Jason brought his manual typewriter down and made a penalized team write an apology to the LeMons organizers for their bad driving. It's always fun to see someone using a typewriter for the first time. We were also bribed with a local delicacy, the Peeps pickled eggs, and then separately with Peeps. So, naturally, the judges decided to combine them, and then the Futurama themed Civic guys were willing to taste test. The real bad part was the little sprinkles inside the Peeps. When you would hit one, it would just give you a blast of sugar inside of the pickled brine and I mean take it to your knees. There was all kinds of mechanical carnage at this race. Frequent Lemons judge Shelly McKee and her crew from the Senior Citizens Club of [music] America brought on a new teammate with a Jeep Cherokee. They just had a few problems, namely a gas tank full of whatever [music] this is. Oh, wow.

[00:11:57]The MK Poor Volkswagen Jetta tossed a wheel. Luckily, they had the bolt bucket handy and ready for replacement. And Foco Racing had other Volkswagen problems.

[00:12:09]>> [music] >> Team Bunch of Idiots have this awesome Dodge Coronet. It was hauling ass in the top 10 where they definitely stayed because small block Chrysler V8s are well known for being stout and even indestructible.

[00:12:28]>> [music] >> Yeah, the failure sent some pieces at high speed through the cylinder walls.

[00:12:32]RIP [music] the 318. Kind of winners at this race were Lemons Arcade who debuted last year with their LS swapped RX-7 which has seven drivers, a tiny fuel tank, and logged seven laps in 2025.

[00:12:46]This year the engine kept throwing alternator belts which meant they had to be pushed to the block party, pushed from the block party, >> [music] >> and also pushed back to the track when it died during a test drive Saturday night in the rain. They eventually solved that and quadrupled that lap total, >> [music] >> got laps for all their drivers, finished the race, and even drove onto the trailer. That's [music] all well and good, but more importantly, they themed hard. Their name refers to their plan to theme from a different classic arcade game at every race.

[00:13:17]>> [music] >> This time it was Burger Time and they had a fully functional version of the game set up at the block party and wouldn't you know [music] it, judge Jim Bowman spent his quarters in his youth mastering [music] this game. Here are your class winners. Your class C winners were great globs of oil who borrowed this Honda Prelude and the engine is like 15% JB Weld. None of them had ever driven it before this weekend. Kind of just ran, barely won class C. Well done.

[00:13:42]All right, let's talk about the winners we actually care about. I got screwed.

[00:13:46]Red Rocket Racing in their Dodge Neon SRT4. They wrecked their first-gen base model badly at Road Atlanta and they totally needed a new chassis. So, why not upgrade? They found a SRT4 and caged it. Unfortunately, they blew up a transmission on lap two. Turns out the SRT4 parts world is a lot smaller than the plain Jane Neon. [music] Still, they were able to drive 10 and 1/2 hours during the race through three tropical storms [music] and two custody hearings to Jacksonville, Florida and back, which was where the nearest gear set was. They rebuilt the transmission in their trailer. They had some problems with shift forks and then shifters. They managed to make it find enough gears to run and ran a good chunk of Sunday, but the unfortunately timed upgrading meant everything was far more difficult than usual. Screwed. The Heroic Fix was also an arduous weekend for the number 26 Methodical Motorsports BMW E30. These guys had huge plans for a Saturday night bash in the garages. However, the E30 decided they needed to participate in the BMW Wheel of Misfortune. Hold on to your butt.

[00:14:54]>> [music] >> Um Wednesday as they were loading the car up, they found the engine block [music] was cracked. Luckily, they had a spare head and a block, which were not assembled. So, they loaded up what they could and spent from about 10:00 p.m.

[00:15:13]Thursday [music] until Friday night putting the engine together and fitting it into the car. They finally took a rest because [music] the engine wouldn't run quite right and they eventually found the timing cover had wriggled itself [music] loose. The distributor wasn't firing quite right, either. So, they put it all back together and found, quite obviously, only two cylinders were running now. Uh we're up till like Saturday morning at this point, [music] and then they spent another 24 hours chasing issues, which included [music] taking the entire engine and transmission out at one point. Finally, they discovered that like four of the fuel injector pins on the body harness for the wiring had been smashed somewhere in the engine swap. [music] They re-pinned it manually, finally had a running engine on Sunday after like 96 [music] straight hours of work. That's heroic. That's heroic fix. And a shout-out to the Adrenaline [music] Junkies Mazda Miata guys. Those guys lent their garage for the entire weekend to the E30 guys. That's how you lemons.

[00:16:11]Our special award for this race went to the Gnome Depot Racing Chevy Cruze, and the award is the Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, because this car has seen some The team had an acquaintance who was living in this 2011 Chevy Cruze, going through his third divorce, and living on MREs. The long-term plan was for this acquaintance to shoot the car until it explodes for reasons. That's a tough start for a LeMons car origin story. The Gnome Depot guys convinced their acquaintance just to hand over the keys instead. It wasn't at all the car they were looking for, but they could deal with that because the price was right. It otherwise looked like the 2011 version of Chevy Cruze or similar at Hertz. Hertz for the >> [music] >> superstar.

[00:16:54]They had an eventful weekend. Their fire suppression system went off during the race, but they managed to score another one so they could keep running. It ran like 12 hours until it cooked the head gasket. They took it out to run the last two laps, and it finished, then died on the cool-down lap. The tow truck went out to pick it up, and they tried to restart it, at which point it drove in under its own power, possibly for the last time ever. Judges' choice went to Blockbuster LeMons team, whose weekend served as a periodic reminder that making decisions about lemons does not need [music] to be difficult. These guys wanted to do lemons, and in their neighborhood was this 2007 Honda CRV that had not moved in a long time. The team captain stopped and inquired, and the owner said, "Well, it won't start, the brakes are absolutely shot, and it had taken a rock to the windshield, so it wouldn't pass North Carolina state inspections." Wait, North Carolina has state inspections? What's that like?

[00:17:49]So, they scooped it up for a couple hundred bucks. They fixed the brakes, they replaced the alternator, which was causing it not to start, and they caged it. And then they drove it to the racetrack because it could now pass state inspection. They brought zero tools or spare parts. Their paddock space was literally just the race car and one other street car. And while maybe it drove the entire weekend in limp home mode, it ran the entire time, beat a whole bunch of teams, and it looked great doing it. Stop overthinking your car choice. Just come and have a good time like these guys. And on that note, this isn't especially tough to understand. Lemons loves and rewards crappy brands like Mopars, Studebakers, and AMCs, which are now all things that have been raced by Lemons Legends NSF [music] Racing. They were our organizer's choice winner. Longtime Lemons racers may say something like, "This isn't Lemons first fur covered Gremlin." But they'd be wrong, because actually it is the first fur covered Gremlin. It's the same one that raced many years with a variety of engines in it with previous owner, Lemons Legend Dave Morrow. Dave put it up for sale, and NSF's Bob Mitchell, possibly with a little influence, bought the Gremlin sight unseen and had it shipped to his niece Chelsea in South Carolina with instructions to paint it bright orange like a GTO Judge, since one of their drivers was a rookie who also happened to be a retired judge.

[00:19:12]What Chelsea did instead was peel off the absolutely rancid brown fur that had been on the car for a decade, acquire bright orange fur, >> Did you do something different to your hair? and affix it to the Gremlin using spray adhesive to turn it into the Lorax. The team, including their dog, got in on the Lorax action, and Chelsea's daughter drove her first Lemons race in the Gremlin. After years of running a supercharged GM V6 and a series of Pontiac engines, it's now a very crusty truck LS swap with an automatic. It was not fast, but look at the majesty of the fresh orange fur.

[00:19:45]Easy organizer's choice. The Halloween meets gasoline winners who go home with a $1,000 check for the best theme went to Silver Arrows and their Chrysler Crossfire. [music] We have frequently said silver isn't a theme, and this team took it as a challenge. They had the outfits, [music] they came up with their own songs that were a mashup of their own recordings with some AI. They blasted [music] the Chrysler Crossfire dance song in their best club gear at the block party. They brought the same vibe to the pot [music] luck even if the weather didn't cooperate, and also they came up with a paddock speeding song that got stuck in everybody's head all weekend. Don't speed in the paddock.

[00:20:26]It's 10 mph, [ __ ] >> [music] >> Pretty good weekend. And the top prize in Lemons Index of Affluency went to the Turtle Racing Team and their Toyota Tercel. You know, the temptation of many prospective Lemons teams is to run a kind of sporty Toyota.

[00:20:43]But the real aficionados know that poverty spec Toyotas are awesome in Lemons, and Turtle Racing Team's Tercel is in the conversation. It still has the stock 93 horsepower 1.5 L engine, Toyota 5EFE engine, no [ __ ] >> and four-speed [music] manual transmission. Judge Phil says, "You know, the Tercel was the last car sold in America with a four-speed manual.

[00:21:08]More importantly, the team who are mostly a family that race together show up with the turtle costumes every single race. And this year, they raided a sign junkyard in Florida to make their rear wing. With a top speed of about 70 mph, the wing probably mostly gives them 17 mpg on the racetrack instead 19.

[00:21:24]Nevertheless, in a field of 96 cars, the Crap Eater Celica ran the 88th quickest lap, finished 19th overall, again ahead of every single fourth-gen Ford Mustang, and that makes for an easy Index of Affluency win. And this is Lemons in a nutshell.

[00:21:51]Every second you don't subscribe [music] or watch one of these videos, another Vega is sent to the crusher.

[00:21:59]>> [music] >> Won't you help us save classic?