It’s happened before: Spec Miata racers build a super-cheaty Miata for 24 Hours of LeMons race, using “free” parts that were “just lying around the shop.” Said racers, usually well-known by the locals, get a bunch of BS laps from the LeMons Supreme Court. At that point, rather than relaxing and enjoying a long weekend of seat time at their home track, they turn up the volume and drive even more aggressively than their normal red-misty level, and their fellow racers get payback by voting for the team on the People’s Curse ballots. Then, rather than face their punishment, the team skips town.
According to the latest version of the 24 Hours of LeMons Official Rules:
After the ballots are counted, all cars appearing on >10% of returned ballots get a Black Flag penalty; all cars appearing on >20% of returned ballots get a nasty but (probably) nonfatal Curse penalty; and all cars appearing on >33% of returned ballots get a totally nasty, mega-fatal, possibly frame-flattening Curse penalty.
The Flying Chickens team got 12 Curse votes at the Loudon Annoying race, which was enough to trigger the medium-severe People’s Curse: not total destruction of the car, but nasty. No other team got more than a single vote. We suspect that many racers were angered by the threat to their children and dogs posed by this team’s murderously high pit speeds; at one point, the track manager came close to kicking them off the premises for good.
So, we ordered up a few cubic yards of steer manure!
The plan was that we’d remove the Miata’s hardtop and fill the car with cow poop. The car wouldn’t be destroyed, the crowd would love it, and the team could get back onto the track after an hour or so of cleanup.
The Flying Chickens delivered their car to the vicinity of the bovine dung, but then they decided they’d had enough of this shabby treatment at the hands of these LeMons people. Rather than remove the hardtop and submit to the will of the poop-dumping-crazed mob, the Flying Chickens fled, driving the car through the jeering mob and trailering it over the horizon. Booooo! We’re not cops, so we won’t chase down a fleeing team or hold its members against their will; if they’re so humor-challenged that they can’t take their medicine, so be it.
So, instead of realizing the deeply-cherished Spec Miata racer’s dream of beating up on the entire field at a LeMons race (we assume that most SM racers spent their childhoods shaking down weaker kids for their lunch money), the Flying Chickens earned scorn and “bawk bawk bawk!” chicken calls. They also earned a lifetime ban from the 24 Hours of LeMons. Don’t bother to apply for the Stafford race, Chris Outzen, Brian Kleeman, Kevin Foote, David Woodle, and Nicholas Fontana, because you’re not our kind of racer.
May 10th, 2011 - 4:06 pm
That punishment definitely fit the crime.
May 10th, 2011 - 4:10 pm
Lily livered cowards!
May 10th, 2011 - 4:19 pm
What? You weren’t even going to harm the insanely expensive hardtop?
May 10th, 2011 - 6:00 pm
What a bunch of wusses!
May 10th, 2011 - 6:35 pm
I’ll just drop this link here:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2175824
May 10th, 2011 - 9:11 pm
WOW This is very similar to the team that bailed out of the peoples curse in New Orleans in 2009. I think they were a spec Miata team too.
May 12th, 2011 - 11:56 am
You’re telling me a team called “Flying Chickens” balked at danger and then fled.
I, for one, am shocked that they would fly the coop.
May 14th, 2011 - 12:34 am
I see what you did there. Too bad the Faster Farms guys aren’t here. They have plenty of chicken jokes, and they’re just cocky enough to tell them.
May 17th, 2011 - 1:19 pm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Don’t show up to a LeMons race with a hardtop Miata. Just don’t. You’re going to get BS Laps and/or people will hate you. Don’t. Just… don’t.
Yeah, I know that the back window is busted and the fiberglass is worn out. Just don’t.
May 24th, 2011 - 1:38 pm
Nice article, Phil! FCC (Flying Chicken Cheaters) beware!
May 28th, 2011 - 1:30 am
flasco, thanks for the link. “We got the curse, and chose banned for life when they decided to not let us remove the radio from the car prior to the manure being dropped on it.”
Who the **ck cares about the radio in their Lemons car? Doing. It. Wrong.