Aaron Soto (@[email protected])

Attached: 4 images @[email protected] just made me realize there's a #24hoursoflemons hashtag! What is 24 Hours of Lemons, you ask? Have you heard of the 24 Hours of LeMans? It's a solid 24-hour non-stop race around a track (not an oval, a real track!) and whoever gets the most laps wins. The record is 3,360 miles (5410 km)! The race is unique in that slow and careful drivers are legitimately competitive with super-fast drivers and cars that go through fuel, tires, and brakes. Well, if you're trapped in America and don't have a few million dollars to burn in a weekend, then there's 24 hours of Lemons 🍋 Buy a $500 car, make it (vaguely) trackworthy, and go race with your friends for a weekend. Never driven on a track before? No problem, neither have other teams. Never welded in a roll cage? Spend a few hours on YouTube and give it a shot! 24 Hours of Lemons is surprisingly non-competitive. Sure, there's a first place (the award is $600 IN NICKELS), but the real trophies are things like the Heroic Fix, the Index of Efficacy, and the "I Got Screwed" award, which goes to the team that repeatedly had miserable luck and frustrating failures all weekend long. Teams help each other out. We cook dinner for each other, borrow each other's tools, and lend a hand when someone else's car pulls into the paddock. If you wreck into someone (we try not to, but it happens), you go find their team, apologize, and share a beer. If all that sounds overwhelming, then you should know that it's fun to watch as a spectator too! They've got dozens of annual events on the schedule: https://24hoursoflemons.com The cars are themed to be ridiculous. I've seen a Volvo with a toilet bolted to the roof, a Waffle House car, a car with the body of a helicopter. My favorite was an old Chevy Astro van (the big boxy ones!) painted black and white to look like the Space Shuttle. There were three trash cans glued to the back, to look like booster engines, and when it braked, LEDs would make them glow red. It was painfully slow, but awesome! Anyway, if there's anyone you know who participated in Lemons, invite them to the #24HoursOfLemons hashtag and talk about it, so we can have more awesome teams! If you're interested, check out their website and YouTube channel, then head over to the forums where teams support each other and are eager to recruit new folks without a car of their own... yet.