Auto enthusiasts find wacky world of racing

Dave Morrow long dreamed of the white-knuckled experience of being pinned to the seat inside a race car cockpit while zipping around a track punctuated with curves and competition.

He just never envisioned it coming true while gripping the steering wheel of a twin-turbo GMC van with a machine-gunning Snoopy onboard, or while dressed as Penelope Pitstop, complete with color-coordinated wardrobe and platinum-blonde wig, sitting inside a hot-pink Bradley GT.

But Morrow and other local racers have found a home in the truly wacky world of the 24 Hours of LeMons (as in lemons) -- a nationwide endurance race circuit featuring an array of mostly pieced-together jalopies.

"It's like you go to a carnival and a race breaks out," said Morrow, 49, who lives in Monroeville and owns Morrow's Auto Service Center in East Pittsburgh. "My personality fits it."

Morrow's team, called Snoopy's Revenge for the time being, competes this weekend in the Capitol Offense 2012 in Summit Point, W.Va. At least two other local teams plan to enter: Jim Naughton of Fox Chapel and his Pi-Nuts team and Rob Rabenstein of New Alexandria as part of Ghetto Motorsports.

"This isn't racing for bloodlust," said Naughton, 56, a broadcast engineer who races a 1994 Infiniti J30 under the number 3.14 -- the truncated value of pi, which is his team name. "It's racing for fun."

The 24 Hours of LeMons started in 2006 as a lark between Jay Lamm of California and several buddies who had grown disillusioned with watching races featuring $500,000 cars, millionaire owners and fully staffed crews like those found in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. It has grown to include about 7,000 drivers today competing in the country's largest amateur racing series.

"We wanted to see if we could fix problems with our toolboxes instead of our checkbooks," said Lamm, 47, a former automotive journalist who now runs the Emeryville, Calif.-based circuit full time. "I say in the United States of America, all you need is a bad idea. And this one, on its face alone, is a terrible idea."

The rules are pretty simple.

No more than $500 can be invested in a car and its parts, aside from safety features such as tires, racing seats and roll bars. Cars are given a once-over for safety, with those passing muster receiving a "Good Enough" sticker on the windshield.

They must undergo a "BS Inspection," during which discerning judges in black robes and wigs make sure each vehicle complies with the paltry spending limit. Those that don't are slapped with a one-lap penalty for every $10 they are over.

A recent race in Sonoma, Calif., saw judges assess a 2004 Pontiac GTO with a 2 billion-lap penalty and a 2006 Mazda RX-8 an extra half-billion laps for blatantly disregarding the spending rules. Lamm said the drivers didn't care; they just wanted to race.

Racing penalties for bad driving include being ordered to dance in the pits while donning Village People costumes and being tarred in corn syrup and covered in feathers.

"Our whole point is this stuff should be fun and if it's not, why bother?" Lamm said.

In addition to the GMC van and Bradley GT, Morrow's team has raced the "Toylet," a 1986 Toyota Supra with a Chevrolet motor, and a Buick Reatta rigged with a plywood cut-out of Charlie Brown with a kite stuck in a tree.

"Dave is the apex of bad-idea lemon racing, which is great," Lamm said. "He'll do any stupid thing he can think of, and that's the beauty of it."

More than 100 drivers typically compete in races, which range from 14 to 24 hours on road courses in more than a dozen states nationwide. No races are currently held in Pennsylvania.

Teams are assigned to Class A, Class B or Class C -- or " 'Prayer of winning,' 'No prayer of winning,' and 'No prayer of finishing,' " Lamm said.

Morrow's team races in Class C.

In March, it nabbed the "Index of Effluency" prize at the Southern Discomfort 2012 race in Kershaw, S.C. The grand prize is given to a car that bucks the odds and completes a respectable number of laps despite being considered unlikely to finish.

"I'd been chasing that trophy for three years," Morrow said.

Rabenstein's Ghetto Motorsports team of engineers -- mechanical (him), metallurgical (his wife, Julie) and aeronautical (his college buddy, Jeff Field of the Philadelphia area) -- often finishes in the lead pack, sometimes even winning outright in either its Mazda RX-7 stored in Colorado for West Coast and Midwest races or its 1978 Chevy Malibu garaged at Rabenstein's Western Pennsylvania home.

But it isn't all about winning, he said. Just being at the race has its own rewards.

"There are lots of weird people and lots of interesting people, but everyone is very, very nice," said Rabenstein, 32. "It's like a big party."

Morrow said he enjoys the 24 Hours of LeMons as much for spending time with loved ones as he does for the races. His team includes his children and a nephew along with friends from high school and his church. His wife, Susie, 45, even raced once.

"I always wanted to be a race-car driver, so I'm living my dream," Morrow said. "And what more could you ask for? I'm racing with my family."

Eric Schmadel | Tribune-Review

Julie Rabenstein helps her husband, Rob, bleed the brakes on a Chevy Malibu in their garage in New Alexandria. He plans to run the car in the 24 Hours of LeMons race in their garage on June 9, 2012 in New Alexandria.

Justin Merriman | Tribune-Review

Danny Morrow, 18, works on a race car with his father, Dave, in their East Pittsburgh garage.