First, a few links:

Jason's photo/video gallery of the race & all Erwin development

Safety inspection & check-in (this is the most clothing Manolis wore all weekend...):

Drunk guys trying (unsuccessfully!) to pop a wheelie in Todd's Reva electric car:

Playng Atari Indy 500 projected on Rius' RV. Jason was the champ. Maybe he should've driven the race car too...?

Our pits as seen from "Mission Control"/"Eye in the Sky" (the tower where Jason & Yanni spent most of their time, watching over our drivers & guiding them like little slot cars:

All chalked up & geeked out. Big equations prove that we're all very smart:

Garrett getting ready for the beginning the race--cool as a cucumber, as demonstrated by the Fonzie Thumbs-Up:

Lined up very first for the start of racing Sat morn (too bad that lining up first didn't mean that we actually got to start in first place...). Can you tell that the official pace car is leaking fuel in this picture?

Blowing by a Miata (poor Miata...):

Blowing by a Rabbit & an RX-7. Competitive Super Mario Kart coming up fast behind us:

Yes, it was *very* hot out there on the track--look how squiggly the car is if you zoom in...or maybe Todd is just messing with physics again...

Dave suits up in Team Garcia Racing fireproof suit (no relation to his best friend Nick Garcia). Mikey promises to bring a real flux capacitor next year, instead of just a flux capacitor t-shirt:

One of our lightning-quick pitstops, complete with tight-pants refueling procedure. Our pitstops were down to about 70-85 seconds (time spent w/ the car at a stop). Not bad!

ESPN sportscaster? NASA mission controller? No, just Jason with fancy radio gear, watching over the car:

Rius tears off his shirt & Hulks out on the bent fender after Hagman gets sideswiped. Hulk smash! Body damage wasn't too bad--the tire wasn't cut up by the fender, but we later found that we had some signficant toe-in on the rear wheels, likely from the subframe being bent. Hagman later decided to sideswipe a Miata (Poor Miata...) to squish the door in a little more to match the fender:

Action of Rius pounding over from the inside & Garret pounding out from the inside. Very arousing!

After a good stint behind the wheel, King Rius cools off while his minions bring him beer & food. It's good to be the king:

On Saturday night, before watching LeMans with Steve McQueen projected on the RV, Garrett & Manolis tighten up the loose half-shafts. Everyobdy else watches & nods approval. After 14 hours of racing, this was the only maintenance that Erwin needed-what a solid car!:

Hey, didn't we already pass this Miata??? (Poor Miata...):

Listen to that baby hum! Erwin being piloted by Todd during the last few laps of the race, yawning his way through a turn that vexed dozens of drivers all weekend:

So, what causes a team to be penalized with a Team Dunk Tank? Just ask the driver who spun out twice in the same corner about 13 minutes apart...actually, it was refreshing & fun, but I didn't dare tell the judges that, lest they raise the stakes!

Final official rankings & stats taped to LeMons HQ wall (high tech!):

Let's pack up our stuff & go home. Jacques floods the great plains with our sweaty water:

8/9/09, Pimp My Erwin Today's Extreme Makeover turned Erwin the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. Vanilla Erwin gets ready to say "goodbye" to his silver outfit, which is *so* 1991...: Dave & Mikey participate in a wet t-shirt contest...oh, and they wash Erwin in the process, too...actually, they're much better at washing then getting their t-shirts wet...thank God... Meanwhile, Todd ignores all child labor laws & ethics by having his kids wash his race track for $1.25/hr: While wives & girlfriends shake up the paint cans (and beer)... ...manly men mask the windows (well, the 1 window & the many big holes where there used to be windows), the tires (with granny sheets no less...), the tailpipe, the wipers, the Mad Max grill, the lights, etc. etc. Black chalkboard paint for the middle of the car. Rius gets loopy off of spray paint fumes, while Garrett double-fists his paint cans... After a BBQ lunch & ice cream & swimming in Todd's new pool, we start masking our sloppy black paint job: We busted out 14 cans of green chalkboard paint & assaulted Erwin like a nerdy street gang...wait, we are a nerdy street gang, aren't we? Manolis even sprays the underbody, so Erwin will look good when we roll him. And then he shows off his breakdancing/spray painting skills--right after I took this picture, he spun around on his head. Remove all the masking & we have a decent-looking Erwin! Team members argue over who gets to pull their car up next for a a rattle can paint job. It took a dozen engineers a mere 3 tries to figure out how to paint white ovals on the doors & roof to accommodate the car numbers: FINISHED!!!!!!! Jacques is so happy that he jumps for joy (Todd's trampoline will never be the same...):

The last few weeks have been busy. Cage, diff, brakes, exhaust, and various other tasks are done! Now we just need to finish off our safety gear and get our "decorating" worked out.

Here we have the cage painted in Rust O Leum Silver ... Who knew it would look like cheesy chrome ...

Rius hard at work on the brakes!

Dave gets some help with the Diff from our most "energetic" team member.

Shiny new brakes

Half the boys worked on top of the car tonight.

Michael fits up the driver's side roll cage bars:

Michael shows his commitment to safety by wearing safety glasses that are 13 years older than he is:

To make room for the roll cage bars, Michael cuts up the doors. He loves cutting doors so much that he dances an Irish jig while wielding the Sawzall:

Garrett shows off his TIG welding skills (and his booty) by tacking more of the cage together:

Michael fits! Garrett fits! (wouldn't we go faster with small, compact, lightweight drivers!??!?)

Half the boys worked underneath the car tonight. No, this was not "an Erwin sandwich!"

Jacques starts pulling apart the half shafts so we can get their loosy-goosy ends rebuilt:

After Jason & Jacques get the half shafts unhooked & the differential mostly detached & the exhaust removed & the heat shields removed, Jason gives up & brings in "Muscle Mike" to finish the job of detaching the drive shaft from the transmission so we can finish the differential removal so that "Detail-Oriented Dave" can mix & match the best parts of 2 differentials into a sort of super duper differential:

Step 2: No manual? OK, let's just toss all the cage parts in the car & see if they all kinda fit:

Step 3: Do lots of noisy grinding/sanding/brushing to clean paint & gunk off of car & roll cage parts. Rius wields the air grinder like a pro. He even wears safety glasses--he's the responsible adult of the team. Todd wears tiny glasses. He's not the responsible adult of the team:

Step 4: Todd tack welds the bars in place. Where's your welding helmet, Todd? Oh, I see--you don't need a helmet when welding things on the right side of a car, but you do for the left side of the car. Unless you're welding on a British car:

Step 5: Special guest Schnitzel grinds some accurate fish mouths on the tube ends to fit the cage. Dave could learn a pants belt lesson from Schnitzel:

Step 6: Jason revives his welding skills from his welding class 17 years ago. Todd buries his head in his arm in shame & pain:

Step 7: Todd fixes Jason's 17-year-old welding skills. Jason covers his face in shame & pain:

Step 8: Rius spends a while with the hole saw to clear the back members of the cage. Rius opts for a less-than-full torque setting so he doesn't break his delicate wrists:

Step 9: Admire partial roll cage, sip beer, jump on trampoline, & go home for the night:

Dave shoots the camera with his eye lasers while surveying the pile of removed hardware, and Mike...well, Mike's doing what he does best:

Jacques is getting happy off of the fumes emanating from fried tarry gooey sound insulation crud:

But the same fumes have a less pleasanat effect on Jason's demeanor:

Jason & Jacques' goo pile. They removed enough crud to give Garrett a blacktop driveway--transmission tunnel goo, floorpan goo, back seat goo, rear fenders goo, door goo, so very much goo...and this wasn't even all of it--some of it was removed on an earlier date:

How much black goo can Jason & Jacques produce in an eve? About 15 pounds says the scale:

Dave spent all eve attaching & tweaking the seat rails & the seat. Garrett approves:

Rius plugged up various hoses that used to go to the heater core that Dave roundhouse kicked out of the dashboard:

The rest of the guys attacked a wicked oil leak by replacing lots of gaskets. First step--remove the accessory pulley from the crankshaft. How? Put a big old bar on it & crank the engine. About 20 times. And then resort to muscle power after 20 failures:

Engine covers finally removed, with slightly dinged-up flywheel, and no spilled beer (phew):

So, how many gaskets to we need to replace? Oh? We don't have that many. Manolis, be a dear & make us a gasket:

Manolis is more excited about stripping than Mike & Dave:

Manolis begins to strip...in the back seat...:

Hopefully the last back-seat stripping that Erwin will see...at least the car purchase price just dropped by $0.29!:

Dave dives in to the trunk. Don't fal into the deep dark trunk, Dave:

Consider the trunk stripped...too bad we can't take out that heavy black plastic brick with the red & black posts on its corners:

Interior, b'bye:

Garrett, can we sell the headliner on craigsl--nevermind...:

Any dreams of taking a hot date for a ride in Erwin are gone...unless you bolt a lawn chair in there:

The sunroof looks easy to remove (foreshadowing, a literary technique used in the finer books out there):

Post deleted--Jason doesn't know how to blog...