LeMons Good/Bad Idea of the Week: LeMons Weddings!

The 24 Hours of LeMons can end up being an all-consuming lifestyle for some of its participants. First you’re spending a lot of time searching Craigslist for Rootes Group products and pre-1970 Toyotas, then you spend more time under the race car than you do in the house, and then, sometimes, you have to fit a wedding into your busy LeMons schedule. For a few racers (and race officials), it makes perfect sense to bring the thrown-rods-and-pit-cuisine ambience of a LeMons race to the nuptials.
The LeMons wedding madness started at the infamous Lamest Day 24 Hours of LeMons at Nelson Ledges in 2009. This was the 24-hours-straight race that featured paddock conditions bearing remarkable similarity to the mud of both Woodstock and the Battle of the Somme, and a Camaro-racing couple decided to tie the knot in the tower, just prior to the green flag on Saturday morning.
The happy couple took a victory lap around the track . . .
. . . and then the groom suited up, climbed in the race car, and nuked the engine within minutes of the race start. That’s a story the grandchildren will be telling circa 2041.
LeMons Chief Perpetrator Jay Lamm did such a fine job officiating at the Nelson Ledges wedding that I asked him to do the honors at my wedding the following summer. Sure, my bride’s family includes several ordained ministers, but I felt it would be better to have Chief Perp Jay apply the Nuptial Duct Tape binding our wrists—a LeMons-influenced tradition that I hope catches on with mainstream wedding planners. Remember, duct tape can stick any two objects together— just like a wedding!
After that, Jay was considering a second career performing marriage ceremonies. At the Painfully Bland Bowl of Thin Lukewarm Oatmeal That Can’t Possibly Offend Anyone, No Matter How Much They Enjoy Being Offended, 24-Hour Season Ender race in Florida (so named because Glenn Beck got several angry protesters to hound the track management about the original Cuba Del Norte–themed moniker), he donned his job-interview suit and joined timing-and-scoring gurus Roland and Stephanie in holy matrimony.
That race, at Palm Beach International Raceway, ran a straight 24 hours, ending at midnight on New Year’s Eve 2010. The wedding set the tone for the delirium to follow.
We’re pretty sure that Martha Stewart will be jumping on the LeMons-style wedding bandwagon soon. Look how happy the guests are!
A few months later, at the 2011 Sears Pointless race, one of the members of Team Hit & Run (which entered a Ford 302–powered Mazda RX-7) arranged to pop the question to his unsuspecting girlfriend during the prerace BS Inspection on Friday.
It was another story for future grandchildren: The team hid the engagement ring inside the car’s air cleaner and arranged with the Justices of the LeMons Supreme Court to find the ring while “looking for cheaty parts.” Total surprise!
Of course the bride-to-be said “yes.” Imagine the pall that would have hung over Team Hit & Run if she’d refused! The RX-7 even ran for most of the weekend, finishing 31st out of 173 entries.
Then Scott Chamberlain, captain of the legendary Porcubimmer team and the man who masterminded the conversion of a BMW 325e into a credible homage to the ’58 Plymouth Fury from “Christine,” got engaged. His racing plans threatened the wedding plans to such an extent that his fiancé commissioned a custom, LeMons-themed dragging-the-grease-smeared-groom-away-from-the-engine-swap wedding-cake topper from Awesome Toppers . Yeah, she’s a keeper!