Our First Encounter
When we first started looking for a LeMons car after convincing everyone to do it, we started with all the usual suspects. Honda, Mitsu, Ford, etc. Looked at mid '90s cars cause we thought they'd probably work at the time of purchase, something that was important to a group that had no automotive experience except for my 2 years of auto shop in high school. But with each one, something was missing. There was no "Holy hell, we have to race that!" feeling that I was looking for. That was, until I stumbled on a Craigslist ad. A 1973 AMC Gremlin, running! $600. It was near perfect and when I got photos of it, I felt chills. "We have to race that." There was a noticeable absence of AMCs in LeMons, something I found unacceptable. I went to look at it and it was more perfect. The guy had a dream garage with an El Camino, Camaro, VW Bus, another Gremlin, dirt track racers, etc. His 16 year old son had bought it to restore as his first car, but realized it was too far gone. True dat. A test drive clinched it for me and I went home to convince the rest of the team that THIS was the car.
On a whim, I googled the Craigslist ad number (I still don't know why) and got a hit back on the Street Safari website, the guys who run the BABE Rally. This car had already been through a BABE Rally and the previous owner had posted about it being for sale. I got in touch with him to learn a little more about it. Greg Thibeaux had bought the car in Utah at a storage auction and had driven it from there to New York, in the rally to New Orleans, and then to Houston, where he gave it to his cousin to turn into a drag racer. That evidently fell through and he sold it to this kid. After some pleading and whining spirited debate with the team, I returned and purchased the car for $550. I drove it 20 miles home, no plates, no registration, no insurance, with my fiance following behind, and looking like the picture below.
It's got rust holes big enough to stick your hand through. The engine bay is 258 cubic inches of 6 cylinder fury. The brakes are 4 wheel drums. The steering takes 3.5 turns lock to lock and not power. assisted. It's awesome. The Index of Effluency was sure to be ours if we just kept it running....
The next chapter:
Yee Haw It's LeMons Texas 2009: The First Race
