Sunday - Awards & Retrospect

Drivers, crew & spectators met in the impound area for the awards presentation about 20 minutes after the finish of the race. We laughed and applauded as teams were awarded with their trophies and cash prizes (in nickels) for their overall wins and class awards, but were actually shocked and astonished that we were chosen as winners of the "No Prayer of Finishing" class. So... the organizers didn't think our truck had a prayer of finishing the race and, if we did, we wouldn't make it into the top 40. Haaaah! We sure fooled them with our 9th place finish!

Chris accepted the award for the team. This was way beyond any of our expectations. We initially prayed that the truck would run long enough for everyone to get a turn. The fact that it made it to Sunday was an absolute bonus!

The truck ended up being a huge surprise for everyone. It was the ONLY truck entry in the field of 75 cars accepted to run this race. It had not been run except to the corner and back a couple of times. It handled and turned like no one expected. It never overheated or had any brake failure. In 403 laps, not one of our team drivers spun out. Only 1 driver put 2 wheels off and it was an evasive move, not an out-of-control one. After starting 14 laps down, we actually got a top 10 finish!

The team had a celebratory dinner in Baytown, TX on the way home. The trophy was the table centerprice as we bench-raced and congratulated each other on an absolutely fun and wild weekend of racing.

The link to the results on the 24 Hours of LeMons website is: http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/results/

There are complete resuts up on MyLaps: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=996969

Jalopnik's coverage can be found at: http://jalopnik.com/tag/24-hours-of-lemons/

There is also some great coverage on http://www.autofiends.com/ under "Great Moments in Texas LeMons Judging." Look for all 4 parts to the series of articles and a couple of other miscellaneous articles.

And last, but not least, there is a Yahoo Group for the 24 Hours of LeMons: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/24hoursofLeMons/

~Patty

P.S. We want to race the truck! I get to race the truck next on Nov. 1-2, 2008 in the Grand Bayou Race Series at No Problem Raceway. Check back to the Mike Poupart Motorsports blog for that report!