Dirty Duck Racing at Laguna Seca: Class B Win, 4th Overall, and an Axle That Quit on the Last Lap
Some races you win clean. This one we won on the back of a flatbed.
On Monday, October 12, Dirty Duck Racing took the Magic Rabbit, our battle-scarred 1983 VW Rabbit, to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for 24 Hours of Lemons: Twenty Ridiculous Years. It was a one-day, seven-hour special to celebrate two decades of $500 crap cans, and it was the weirdest, best-looking field we have ever raced against.
How we got in
Laguna Seca only allows 45 race cars on track at once, so Lemons ran a selection process. 360 teams applied. 100 got short-listed. Those 100 team names went onto individual 10mm sockets, got dumped in an oil pan full of oil, and Chief Perp Jay Lamm pulled 45 of them out.
We were not one of the 45. We were depressed. Then a few days later an email landed: another team had to back out, and we were in. Laguna Seca is a track our crew has spent years at as spectators. Racing there was a bucket-list thing.
The field was the real show
Forty-five cars and not two alike. A Ford Aerostar sharing the Corkscrew with a 1941 Ford Tudor. A 1959 Edsel. A 1961 Nash Rambler. A half-Corvette, half-Lotus called the Chotus. A Triumph Mayflower body on a Miata chassis, pilgrim costumes and all. A working replica of Homer Simpson's car. A 1965 Beetle that, true to Beetle tradition, did not last long. Next to all that, our Rabbit looked mundane.
The Italian Job Racing Mini Cooper team came all the way from New Jersey, two guys towing it straight through in about 50 hours, and then hosted a pot luck for the whole paddock. They walked away with the Halloween Meet Gasoline award and $1,000. Deserved.
The race
Tech inspection happened Sunday afternoon on the dry lakebed. The BS inspection was a breeze, and since this was a one-day, non-points event, every team started with zero penalty laps. We were slotted into Class B.
Green flag dropped at 9:05 Monday morning. Paul started and ran clean, moving from 20th to 12th overall. Ted took over, kept it clean, and put us 6th overall and 2nd in Class B. Rye held 6th. Then Ted in the fourth stint moved us to 4th overall and first in Class B. Ross extended it and was the first of our drivers to hit a 2:00 lap. Nash, our hot shoe, broke 2:00, built our Class B lead to nine laps over the quick #41 Ford Tudor, and moved the Rabbit up to 3rd overall. Our best lap of the day was Nash's 1:57.2, and our driver changes and fuel stops ran just over two minutes each.
A podium was in the bag. Then the white flag came out.
Last lap, Turn 2
Nash came over the crest toward Turn 2, hit the brakes, and a loud grinding noise followed. The passenger-side axle had broken. The Rabbit rolled to a stop on the outside of Turn 2 and the race finished under a full-course yellow with our car sitting on the track.
A flatbed loaded the Rabbit and carried Nash and the car around the rest of the lap, through the Corkscrew, to applause from the Lemons staff. With a nine-lap Class B lead, we still took the class win. The axle cost us a podium and dropped us to 4th overall.
The spoils
Class B paid $500 and a Relax watch, a Rolex look-alike made in Berkeley, California, handed out as the winners' prize in a nod to the Le Mans original. Other awards that day included a Heroic Fix for a team that swapped an entire wiring harness and ECU in the paddock the night before, and a Judges' Choice for the Mayflower.
Dirty Duck has now raced 16 of Lemons' Twenty Ridiculous Years. Same crew, same Rabbit, a lot more battle damage than the 2010 photo.
Gear up like the Ducks
Want the Dirty Duck look? Check the 20 Years of 24 Hours of Lemons tee.
Go fast. Take chances.
