GHiT 0742: Lemons Racing 2025 Review and 2026 Preview with Eric Rood
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That's right.
And hot off an explosive race at some point,
we thought we'd take an opportunity to turn over
into the next year and perhaps look back on last year.
So who else to talk to about this
that would be better than Eric Rue.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Yeah, you know, always exciting and glad to be here.
Yeah, I had to make reference to the explosions
and the rolling over.
But anyway, so Eric.
Thank you.
We're going to hit you with the hard question first.
The rumor that's going all around the internet's
did the 24 hour of lemons team buy pit race?
Yeah, actually we're turning it into a data center.
I think is that what the go rumor is?
Well, your social media presence is huge.
So I understand your need for a data center.
So yeah, I mean, we're going all AI.
We're actually going to do all AI, everything, racing,
cars, people, all that.
Okay, so you're confirming.
So we're breaking news, breaking news.
Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot.
Yeah, you got the exclusive on that one.
All right, excellent, excellent.
All right, so, so Wally Stefanovic,
whoever you might be on the internet,
garagehearsandtrainingatgmail.com.
If you have any comments to the contrary.
Anyway, I wonder how he did on election.
I think he ran on election post to save pit race.
But anyway, we'll talk to him.
I don't know if you know who Wally is, you know.
Wally will be a great guest if you can get him.
We've gotten him before.
He just doesn't want to show his face.
He keeps that, you know, quiet, subdued persona.
He's a quiet subdued kind of guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, very conservative.
Very, I wish he'd come out of his shell
just a little bit more.
I, yeah, you know, been working on that with him, so.
Yeah, that's okay.
So, Eric, 2025 in a nutshell.
Yeah, what do you want to talk about?
Like, in general, I mean, it's...
How'd it go?
How did it view from the perspective of the organizers did?
From Lemmon's perspective, it went great so far.
Obviously, we have three races to go.
Still, we're recording this right for our MSR.
Which is a sold-out race.
That's great.
Yeah, and people have brought a lot of really crappy cars.
That's great.
Lots of really good stories from the year.
You know, it'd be really hard to recap.
I mean, we'll do a recap video.
Yeah, but it's tens of minutes.
Yeah, and it'll be tens of minutes.
So, recapping the year would be extensive.
But I can tell you some of my favorite things
that have happened this year.
We would love that.
Sure.
One of the things that I've been...
I've found really awesome is that, you know,
generally speaking, Lemmon's doesn't care too much
who wins these races.
But this year, more than any other year,
I can remember there have been a whole lot of people
who have worked for over a decade trying to win a race,
finally getting one.
The table for one guys out in California,
they won this spring with their E30.
The Rusty's guys with the Maider Miata,
they're out of Texas, they won in NOLA.
The Leho Fook guys out of the South, North Carolina,
that's, oh my God, I'm blanking on his name, Steve.
It's the pressure of a podcast.
Yeah, it is.
But guys, they actually won,
they were the first BMW E30 to win in like 2008.
They have not won since then.
The Focus Club guys, Jerry Ringles guys out of Texas,
and of course, Tom Lomino.
And there was one more.
So, Adam Garall's team,
the Bavarian cream motor sports guys, one of the tops.
So like seven or eight teams that have been trying
to do this forever, finally doing it all in one year.
It was really awesome to see.
Yeah, I think Lomino has figured out
that in order to win the race, he has to finish the race.
Yeah, well, you know, the common sense approach to it
is great, the reality of it, frequently a little more difficult.
I'm sure you guys don't know anything about that at all.
No, no, no, we gave that up for length a couple of years ago.
Yeah, that's right.
It runs flawlessly and then some really bad cars
winning IOE this year.
The Spank brought the Daff back for Button Willow,
which is the Dutch CVT car from the 60s.
It's easily the scariest looking car I've ever seen.
The worst thing in the world be a CVT rotary engine.
No, no, it actually wouldn't.
Noise wise, yes, they say about the rotary
that it works most efficiently at a steady RPM.
So it actually would be ideal with the CVT,
but it would be terrible for everybody involved.
Well, I was strictly thinking my ears.
Yeah, that is the worst part.
I don't know, there's just there's been so many great
lemons cars I've got my cheat sheet up.
So obviously I'm cheating here.
But, you know, we had our first Pontiac G3, you know,
for an example of something that's weird
that I liked seeing this year.
So but I think in general, lemons rolls on
with a bunch of really awesome people.
And that's that continues to be the best part of it.
Was there anything that was surprising?
Surprising, because, you know, yeah,
lemons, lemons does what lemons does.
And sometimes when that that little golden nugget shows up,
anything like that?
Sometimes it's not.
I would say among the things that I found
delightfully surprising were the Italian job guys
at New Jersey with the the confessional was just
one of the best things.
Yeah, it was just they nailed it.
That was a weekend.
They showed up with the cake like horse head.
Yeah, they did the living room, too.
Right. Whole with plastic covered.
Yeah, we had Nana's living room in the penalty box.
You know, they had the confessional.
They were shouting.
They had the the big Italian family.
It was great.
That was one of my favorite themes of this year.
Maybe my favorite theme of this year.
Although the airplane theme at at some point
in the top three, I think you guys you guys crushed that one.
So well done.
We we tried to give you what you always want, which is.
Layers, layers.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you guys should really if you haven't done a podcast
on how to do a good HMG's level theme.
You know, there's some good content you guys can put out.
But, you know, for me as the one of the people making up
the trophy sheet at the end, you know, it's a good idea
that you carry through for the whole weekend.
And in a perfect world, you involve everybody in the panic.
And those are the three things that I love seeing the most.
We have developed a formula.
Yeah, for theming.
There is a formula for it. Excellent.
And the formula goes, if Jennifer can say,
you have to have something that is
recognizable, that something to taste,
something to hear, something to see.
And it's something that involves everybody.
Yeah, I agree with that. Right.
Yeah, like Dodger goes it.
Yeah, the dodgeball theme was great, too.
What? I mean, New Jersey is really where
I have to say that's where the theming all comes together.
That is the most thematic race that we have every year.
And it's spectacular.
So if you have listeners who haven't
been to New Jersey for lemons, I cannot recommend it enough.
Racing is terrible.
The racing is terrible there.
Terrible, but the but the party Saturday night
and the theming is just tip top.
I think with Jersey.
I think that it's the I know that we race
leading up to that.
We have one race, but I think that is the first warm weather one.
Yeah, so everybody's excited to kind of catch up
with all their friends again, and then it gets a little crazy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's it is.
Yeah, that is very well stated and summarized. Yeah.
Yeah, pit races, obviously not on the calendar next year.
And that's kind of a shame.
It's a nice warm ups, not the right word for it.
But I saw ice up.
Yeah, you know, keep everybody put everybody
on their toes to begin the season.
I think is the right tamper for it.
And it's such a great track.
Wind, you know, rocking the trailer so much
that I thought I was going to roll over in the middle of the night.
Yeah, or waking up with a half inch of snow on the ground.
You know, it gets all the weather.
Yeah, yeah.
In one day experience.
That race in twenty two or whatever it was,
where we had all of the weather in the space of about two hours.
That was it was a unique lemons experience as well.
Luckily, we took our windshield wipers off of the race car.
So Vicki had no trouble in the one lap.
She finished in the snow with a half an inch of snow on her window.
It was Brian. Yeah, that's fine.
Yeah, well, we'll miss pit race.
I can I can say that unequivocally.
Really great facility and do you really need it to be a data center?
I mean, seriously, you know.
Yes, the answer is yes.
All right, well, all right.
No discussions at all.
Every placing that time slot somewhere and anywhere as an excellent question.
Yes, we are actively working on a replacement, not a replacement.
We're working on another date at another track.
We're having a couple of conversations simultaneously.
And so it's it's one or the other, but I can't tell you which ones they are.
It's hard because it was so late, right?
Yeah, I mean, we were.
Ten days out from releasing a schedule.
There was something like that. Yeah, it was close.
And then pit race had confirmed that particular date with us.
So we were all set.
That was that was signed, sealed and delivered on the calendar.
And then got yanked.
So and that that also is the case for everybody else who had dates there.
So, you know, there's 30 dates floating around out there
that people are looking to find alternatives for.
So I know some of the scrambles like that.
Is this the first time that you got hit with something like so close?
You know, honestly, every year,
there's some stuff that's kind of like that, but never quite on this scale.
You know, usually it's can we get extract
to actually say definitively that these are our dates for next year?
And, you know, there's some who will just say we don't.
We don't confirm anything for sure until December 1 or whatever,
you know, and then everything's tentative.
You know, so if there's a tentative date on our schedule,
it's usually something like that.
I don't think we actually have any of those this year.
Kim was way ahead of things.
Do you think it's harder for lemons to get in with the tracks and with other race series?
It's an interesting question.
Also, I think most places have a pretty good idea who we are
if we're not going there.
We have a reputation.
Well, I mean, honestly,
I'm not trying to two lemons particular horn here too loudly,
but, you know, amateur race series tend not to last 20 years,
which we are coming up on next year is our 20th year.
So, you know, just by by sheer presence,
I think most racetrack operators know who we are,
whether they're going to give us a date or not.
I don't that that that's always the hard part.
And it's usually not cut and dry, right?
You know, there's just a lot of demand for dates at race tracks
because there's not very many of them.
And of the tracks that exist,
there are several that just are not equipped for us either.
So, you know, any track where the
paddock is inside the perimeter of the track
and there's no tunnel or bridge going into the paddock,
that's a no go for lemons.
We just can't go there.
You know, you get somebody who needs to be transported
from the paddock because of an injury or something.
You know, it's it's when time is of the essence,
that kind of thing is very difficult to manage logistically.
So we just don't go to places like that, for example.
But, you know, there's a couple of places
we tried a few times to get into and just won't return phone calls.
It's just kind of the way it is, you know,
whether that's their schedules full and they're just not taking phone calls
or those guys absolutely not, you know, I don't know which the case is.
So people already.
Say it again.
Oh, nothing, Vicki, you were saying?
No, I was I was thinking that I'm sure that the
the type of tracks that they are are a consideration.
Also of a absolute no go.
And I keep thinking that the level of racing
that we introduce new people to versus a track with lots of walls
is probably not the best or not great enough.
Yeah, those are those are definitely factors.
It's it's probably not.
Trying to think how to phrase this.
I think Jay's approach to those kinds of problems
used to be a lot more conservative just because we didn't know.
We didn't know our people or know how far we could trust them.
And I think in general, we know we can trust our people,
our drivers to be a lot more conservative than other places,
other series or sanctioning bodies.
Just because novices of which lemons has a lot, you know,
there's a certain risk aversion kind of baked into that.
So, you know, are we going to go race at Daytona?
Probably not.
You know, there's some big stuff to hit there, you know, but
some stuff that was probably off the table 15 years ago
is stuff that we're at least considering
or at least going to send somebody to go look at a little more closely.
Well, you do have quite a bit of seasoned racers also.
Yeah. And and, you know, not going not going too rudimentary
or off the off the beaten path here.
But I think what lemons has going for it is this incredible variation
of absolute novice who has never been on a racetrack.
And, you know, well, Tom Wilmino is a good example.
A guy who's been doing this for 17 years at this point, you know,
and has hundreds of hours, you know, because this car does work
a lot of the time, you know, so Tom's got a lot of hours in the car.
So you have this kind of variety.
And I think for the Tom Luminos of the world
that having the novices is a selling point almost because you have this.
It adds an extra challenge.
And I think that holds true.
So yeah, but we, you know, 15 years ago,
we didn't have the Tom Luminos with 300 hours in a race car.
And somehow it all works.
It really, really does.
And somehow it all works.
Yeah, you know, for the most part, you know,
sometimes four cars catch on fire in one day.
And that's just how that goes.
You know, that wasn't.
That was crazy.
They weren't all on track.
Wouldn't mean to spread it around.
Yeah. Well, I mean, only two of them were real fires.
Two of them were engine failures that, you know, if you've seen
the Rob thrown out of the block, you know, there's this puff of fire.
It burns the oil real fast.
And then it goes out.
So that was the last two in the day.
They're both engine failures.
Excuse me.
The other two were, I don't remember what.
I shouldn't be drinking beer, apparently.
Um, I'll let that out for you, Eric.
So it'll be fine.
You fix that in post for me.
Yeah, I got you.
So, um, yeah, go ahead.
What if what if we we had an episode earlier this week
where we speculated race tracks and and you just nod.
You don't say anything.
And it's an audio podcast, no deal.
No.
V. I. R.
V. I. R.
We would like to go to V. I. R.
That's about all I can say about that.
Nelson's sledges.
Nelson's ledges.
You said it wrong, but we'll let you slip.
No, it's Nelson's ledges.
Oh, I thought it was Nelson's ledges.
Oh, man, I had this wrong the whole time.
It was it was sister sledge all along.
Oh, you know, we are family, right?
Yep, I Nelson's ledges.
I've never been.
I just know the name.
I've also never been.
So I can't say definitively.
OK, what else do we say?
Oh, we we nominated Monticello for another return trip.
We didn't get a reply yet.
But I mean, I'm going to say it probably a hard no on that one.
All right, fine.
And we said no to Watkins Glen before you even asked.
Um, that would be one we would have to go look at pretty closely.
My understanding is they also don't allow outside tow companies
and they don't do hot tows and those are.
Oh, you might as well not start the race then for that.
Yeah, I mean, that's that's ultimately what it would be.
Because we've we've had that happen before at tracks
that weren't quite ready for limits.
We did come up with a proposal for you during that episode.
Oh, do tell.
You've done.
We were totally the guy making all the money decisions, by the way.
Well, I mean, I'm the right guy to be asking about with the data center.
I figure you your second form of income.
Yes, a double header at NJMP.
Now, you want to do like one day on lightning and one day on Thunderbolt?
No, two different weekends.
Ah, do people like lightning?
No, but we're trying to get another race.
So, you know, we're grasping, man.
You want to race two hours from you is what you want.
No, that's still four hours from us.
So is it four hours?
Yeah, we're ridiculously north and Pennsylvania and Philly's in the way.
So that's always an hour just for itself.
Yeah, yeah, Poconos.
Poconos like close, but we don't want you to go there.
No, don't go there.
You know, I don't I don't we don't know very much about Pocono,
frankly, my understanding is it's a NASCAR.
NASCAR runs there, at least, you know, theoretically, that is awesome.
Our it's got an internal infield, but it wouldn't have a place for robotic.
Right, it's it's problematic in several ways from the very little I know about it.
Now, if you wanted a flashback to Altima, the outside
parking lot periphery has a great layout for for fundraising.
That would be tremendous, but I don't know it's possible.
You know, I tried to sell Jay on going back to Toledo Speedway
you know, as a replacement for pit race.
He wasn't very receptive to that.
That was that was 2008.
I think we had one more one more option for you that we know.
We'll say no.
Yeah.
Mid Ohio.
Mid Ohio.
Rumor has it they're not the easiest to work with.
But I think they're in.
They're in an interesting category is is a track we know we could operate at.
There are some.
Hang ups with that place, yes, operationally.
That's a nice way to put it.
Nicely done. Yeah.
What about a beginning of the season event at NHMS?
See, you know, you know, if you're going to freeze and have the beginning
of the season for New Hampshire's like June.
That is that is to hang up there.
Yeah, we'd have to go on like May if we were going to do that.
And I don't I don't hate that idea.
I don't know that we have enough just New England teams to make it work.
That's the only downside.
Maybe is a possibility, but not for 26.
Yeah.
Indeed.
That's OK. Yeah.
I like I personally like
Palmer has problems as well.
We'd have to go look pretty closely at that place.
And Club is the one that's way up in New Hampshire.
And that's far from everything, but also has a really weird
paddock or something.
It's it's a strange place, from what I understand.
Yeah, it's not very big either.
Is it? Yeah.
And that's the other thing is there are many tracks.
Being built and my experience in paying attention to these things
for the last 15 years is that for every track that's being built
for every three tracks being built, one of them actually gets done.
I think that's the normal ratio of it.
Maybe it's two to one, whatever.
And with all that spare room just sitting around looking for places
to come up with something in the Northeast, it's not easy.
So yeah, the Northeast actually for the amount of people
there, obviously, you know, from DC to Boston and West of Pittsburgh
and Buffalo for the amount of people there, there are not very many
race tracks. It's pretty it's pretty threadbare considering,
which is kind of crappy.
You would love to have a ton of races in the Northeast
because there's a ton of people there.
Yeah, this year was the first time in or maybe it was last year or two.
Let's say the last two seasons.
You had a few sellouts.
Is that surprising to you?
Because the economy, yeah, plus or minus.
It's an interesting thing, right?
New Hampshire sold out last year.
And so we had already kind of planned to put some
at point on the calendar because we had seen that coming.
In New Hampshire was a problem of race track space.
Like there's just not enough space for 125 cars there.
Yeah, so agreed.
We alleviated that by adding a date that would kind of split the crowd.
You know, possibly unpopular if you're trying to win the points
championship or whatever, which, you know, gives you and we care about that.
How much?
I, you know, again, I've had two people in the last couple of weeks
like send me proposals on fixing the point system.
I'm like, this is not a thing that we care about at all.
So anyway, yeah.
So we we relieved New Hampshire by adding some at point,
which is something we had intended to do anyway.
So it worked out really well, actually, had 190 something entries
across the two races, which is fantastic.
And then MSR sold out a couple.
Yeah. Yeah.
Tauley, I think, did both and someone else did.
That's hard to back them.
Yeah, it's I mean, that's you are banking on everything
going right the first weekend or at least not going really, really wrong.
And then, yeah, MSR is sold out in Houston.
That's like a 2.3 mile track, which is, you know,
it's roughly the same size as New Jersey.
And we're sold out at 120 something.
And that's because there's just no paddock room there.
Like it's a really weird paddock.
And there's just there's no space for more than that.
So Kim Harmon has been working really hard to find some extra space
in the paddock, asking the track to move some stuff around.
So we have a little extra space.
So, yeah, we're at 120 seven nine, something like that.
Yeah, which is great.
And you're you're to answer actually answer your question.
I don't think it's something that we expected, honestly.
I think I think if you're a cognizant
and attention keeping person on the news,
you're aware that the economy is not amazing right now.
But our numbers have been almost identical the last year,
which is kind of surprising, you know.
So, yeah, to have a sold out race this year was not expected, I suppose.
Yeah, I have a pet theory that lemons is probably not as affected
as much by any tariffs because nobody buys new parts.
So, you know, the junk car doesn't charge the tariff.
That's true. It's all old crap.
Yeah, or it's been in a warehouse already for 30 years.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Ladies, did we miss anything for last year before we move on?
All good? OK. Well done, Miss Vicki.
You're muted, by the way.
So, Eric, rumor has it you're going to try this again
for a celebratory two zero next year.
Yeah, 20 years or 20th anniversary in October.
Um,
tentatively planning something that will be announced later
to commemorate that.
But yeah, our 2026 calendar is out.
You can sign up for all the races now and save your number
at all the races if you want. That's already done.
Yeah, I figured, you know, but, you know, if you have people who are new to this,
you know, you go in, sign up for 22 races and put your number in there.
And I might recommend that you pick a number that is, you know, uncommon
that most other people wouldn't pick, you know, something like 43, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, just pick 43 for all the races.
That's what you guys should do. Yeah, three, you know.
Yeah. No, something like seven.
Seven. Yeah, that's a good one.
Seven, one, two.
And that's an easy number to make on your car.
Also, you may with all straight lines is great.
Anyway, that way, no one will ever take take your number.
But numbers are first come first serve, which is why I mentioned this.
But yeah, 26 calendar looks pretty similar to last year.
It's not really any major changes.
Obviously, pit race is not on it.
And we swapped Gingerman and Road America, which were September.
Gingerman had been in May, Road America had been in September.
So we swapped those.
So Road America is now May 9th and 10th, which is Mother's Day weekend.
And then Gingerman's September, first weekend in September.
Yeah, five, six, which Gingerman in the fall has always been
perfect, the weather's always been really great.
So now that I've said that, it's going to be miserable.
But any any possibility of running one of my favorites?
Gingerman counterclockwise?
No, we are not ever going to run Gingerman counterclockwise.
Yeah, sorry. It's so much fun.
We've looked at it and it's not it's not great.
It's not great.
And in pit out are the problems, right?
Yes, that is correct.
As usually the problem with reversing a circuit
is the way the pit in and out works.
And how about usually somewhere?
How about 10B one day, 10A the other day?
You know, what's funny is we ran, we used to run 10A,
which is a shortcut, right? The shortcut, yeah.
Yeah, we ran that for years.
And that was like our that was our our version of Gingerman was 10A.
And we showed up one year and like it was just like overrun with weeds.
It's like they had not maintained it.
And there was giant like swales potholes and stuff.
And we're like, hey, what's going on here?
And they're like, oh, yeah, nobody uses that.
And we're like, but we use that.
And they're like, well, it's not in use anymore.
So that has been basically discontinued.
That was like 2017 or something.
So is I would love.
We would love to use it
because it makes the terminal speed on the back street much lower.
But at last, is that a rare experience?
And do you have issues where you show up
and they're not actually prepared for the number of people that you bring in?
Um, it's pretty rare.
I think I think in that case,
they had been trying to phase out that particular section of track
for whatever reason.
And, you know, it was it was fine.
You know, we looked at it as kind of a nonissue when it was.
But I would say for the most part, tracks.
Well, most of the tracks we run at,
we have been running at for a long time.
So there's not a lot of surprises in those going to a new track
is always a little bit of.
It's a learning process on both ends.
You know, you kind of gauging the management,
which is always a giant wildcard.
But for the most part, some it was some, it was pretty strict.
But they were not ready for a theme.
Yeah, they they messed up our theme.
I didn't I didn't hear that part.
What happened? Oh, no, we just had a bunch of stuff all taped up around.
And they're just like, oh, no, can't do that.
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.
The the janitorial staff was not
enthused about things being hung in the bathrooms.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Yes, they were really not enthused when we hung them up the second time
because they took them down the first time.
Right, exactly. Yeah.
But then the the lie.
Oh, she froze or I froze.
I froze.
Come back.
Come back.
And.
Sorry, I froze for a minute.
I lost all the victims. Yeah, you're you're good.
Yeah, you look at you look at the size of the inside of that race track.
And then you realize that the paddock is very small
for how much space there is inside the racetrack.
Yeah, you feel like they probably could have.
Made a little more paddock space.
So it's it was a lot tighter in the paddock than I was expecting.
It's on it, but it's a very well run facility.
It is pleasant, pleasantly surprised by that.
They have otherness of the bathrooms meet pit race standards.
Nothing. No, nothing.
No, no.
But, you know, it was it was in the middle tier, I would say.
You know, it's not Gingerman.
It's not Sebring. It's not Thompson.
Oh, Thompson's rough.
Yeah.
Anything with a low ceiling and a bathroom is just a bad combination.
Well, you know, it's also is.
There's no ladies.
There's no there's no ladies.
So it's it's communal shower.
Yeah, I surprised some crusty old white guy
who's particularly thrilled to see me in the line.
Tell him feel free to use the ladies.
He said, oh, this is so progressive.
It's a where.
How did he say it like multi gender?
And I was like, no, this is misogynistic.
They didn't make one for the women.
And that sounds correct.
Yeah, good stuff.
Yeah, this was also my first year 2025.
Excuse me.
It was my first year going to high planes in Colorado, by the way,
which is a pretty primitive racetrack, but a fun.
It's a fun place to be.
I recommend that as well.
With a recent migration, it may be even more fun coming up.
There you go.
You got that going for you, which is nice.
Yeah, I didn't think about it until now.
Some it's got two or three tracks.
Would one of those work?
So we used to run Shenandoah, which was the other track.
And it's actually longer.
But there was a couple of things in it
that are not great for lemons.
You know, besides a.
Yeah, besides that.
No, there's just there were a couple problems
with that particular layout and also the paddock is even smaller.
Oh, that that was a it's a limiting factor.
Yeah, I just saw the three colored lines on the asphalt,
which didn't mean anything to me until like Sunday afternoon.
So right, right.
Jefferson's the other one.
And that's not really set up for wheel to wheel racing.
It's kind of a track day, HPD, driving training situation.
It's a bummer.
Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer.
For yourself.
What else is going on?
You know, one of the things I think is happening next year
is that lemons is the only.
Amateur series with a 24 hour race at all.
And we have two of them.
So that's right.
It's unfortunate.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah, Thunder Hill.
We are doing the 25 hours in one minute, the longest race.
And then we're back at High Plains in the fall for the 24 hour,
which, again, is a great place to do a 24 hour race.
It's it's kind of crazy.
It's that track is so in the middle of nowhere that.
We worked in shifts.
I went back to the hotel.
I took a nap and I drove back and it was still dark.
And you just kind of driving in the middle of nowhere.
It's completely dark.
You come up over this brow of the hill.
You just see these little lighted ants going around the racetrack
from like two or three miles away.
And it's just really fun.
They don't see where they're going.
They keep going the same spot, too.
That is right, hopefully.
Yeah, they end up right back where they start.
Yeah, racing is pointless as it turns out.
You know, you got to get nowhere fast.
It is. Yes.
Racing is all about getting nowhere fast.
And then also next year, we have six Lemons rallies.
Is that more awesome?
It's the same as this year.
Same. We have our 10th anniversary rally,
because the first rally was in 2016.
That's in California.
And we're also doing the Oregon Trail in May.
That's going to be awesome.
So if you want to if you want to do the Oregon Trail
come out to Kansas City in May and.
Run that one. It's going to be really fun.
I want you to know that I'm not a history buff,
but I believe Oregon is not near Kansas City.
So it starts in Kansas City and it ends in Oregon.
It's one way. Oh, it's a one way.
I thought it was a loop. I was like, that is a big one.
OK, now that would be a big stupid loop.
But it's also it starts on Memorial Day.
It ends the Friday of Memorial Day week.
Oh, through the weekends on each end to get to
to and from the rally start finish.
Most of the cars can't make it to never mind from.
I mean, yes, you have.
Several days to acquire a rental car to get your
broke ass home while the car goes to a junkyard.
OK, I just wanted to set expectations
right where they needed. I mean, yeah, you're you're correct.
Thank you. I appreciate that kind of bringing it down to the the basic, you know.
Your broke beater is not going to make it, dudes.
It's just. Yeah.
But that's kind of the point. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's that's kind of the gist of it.
I think ladies, do I see a rally in your future?
You haven't done. I was just going to think about rallies.
We couldn't do the rally this year,
because I had a daughter who went off to college
and that was parent weekend.
You still do, but I'm just saying.
Yeah. Well, for this year, it lined up with with that.
And I'm just like, ah, but I got to tell you, me and Audra, we really.
That was a zero notice. That was so fun.
Me and Audra bond over the rallies.
Yeah, we have.
I remember with Audra, with Audra.
Um, I went to go help to go help.
Who is it? Stops.
I went to go help Stops. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and I needed to go and I called up Audra
because I knew she was up there in Massachusetts.
So I'm like, hey, Audra, what are you doing this weekend?
Nice. And and and I barely knew her.
I barely knew her and and and and she said, why?
I said, because there's a rally.
Before I could finish, she said, yes, awesome.
Hey, you should say, too, I was out of work at the time.
So anything sounded good to me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, it was awesome.
But I had a blast.
I love the rallies.
There's such a.
There's such a low pressure way to kind of carry on the lemons attitude,
I guess it's they're just they're great.
I haven't done one in like a year.
So I probably need to do one of the ones this year.
There's one leaving out of Chicago.
So I should probably do that one.
I suppose if you want to, we can put you in touch with Jeff Stops.
He's kind of in charge of the rallies.
Just let us know.
Never met him.
OK, yeah.
He's OK.
Prepare to be unimpressed.
But yeah.
We're very fortunate to have one that that that starts like in our town.
Almost, yeah.
Yeah, almost in our town.
So that that's really nice to kind of go.
It's the winter one.
Yeah, we we made up for it though.
We had Bish for a week because his car didn't start.
Yeah, there was that that whole thing.
Yeah, he's coming up a lot this week.
Vicky, do you remember the young kid and his grandfather
with the cry of the British team?
They were next to us at New Hampshire.
No way driving.
Yeah, he was old enough now to actually race in such a great family.
Amazing.
That car of their racing is insane also.
So it's an Audi A6 with the V6 in the front.
And then they have a snowmobile engine
like where the back seat would be.
And it's chain drive to the drive shaft.
I don't really understand exactly how it works,
but it basically acts as like a supercharger kind of.
But mostly it makes a whole bunch of noise and is stupid.
And it's great.
I was one of my favorite cars.
And so when I eventually Max was crewing for them, I think last year.
So when I put those two together,
like I put that figured out who he was in relation to that.
I was like, oh, this kid's like amazing,
like top 10 lemons kids that have ever been around.
This is super cool.
I just remember when we were doing the rally with them and it was
the grandson's birthday
and everybody, whatever crap they could find on the side of the road,
or anything that was left free for anybody to take,
they just picked it up and he just kept giving it to him.
So they had this stuff all taped and tied and wrapped onto his car.
It looked like something out of, I don't know, the Grinchestall Christmas.
Yeah, the best part of that is that it's an MG midget.
So it's this big.
And so there's like 10 feet of stuff stacked up on the deck lid.
It's just absolutely perfect.
It was perfect.
That was so much fun.
That was our that was our first ever rally.
And we're just like, oh, my God, this is hilarious.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff is really.
Tune, fine tune the rally to be
a just a complete absurd three days of your life that
you should be laughing the entire time.
So yeah, especially if you like trains.
Yeah, I mean, there's always going to be trains on the rally.
One of one of our in jokes, I guess, is that, you know, we're always trying
to shove as many forms of transportation into the rally as we can.
So, you know, airplanes, trains, obviously cars,
fairies, cable cars, fairies, any any way we can get that stuff on there.
We will absolutely put it on there.
Mm hmm. Yes.
So.
Unless we have more about 2026, we have we have something
that is local that we we wanted to introduce you to.
And perhaps no lemons as a whole.
So we live relatively near what is lovingly called a ski mountain,
more like a hill, you know, Pennsylvania mountain, mountain in quotes.
And in the.
Late.
Winter.
Pre-spring, they have a festival.
And during this festival, they fabricate.
Amazing and huge.
Cardboard.
Vehicles that are then propelled down the hill.
And I believe it is only.
An opportunity for you to groom future lemons racers, because they're already dumb.
Is they know how to seem?
Yeah, I think it's a I think it's a bonding opportunity.
You know.
That is interesting.
It's mostly like kids.
Is it like a no, it's it's full-fledged adults.
I'll send you some videos.
So this is like this is like the porta potty races in one town.
Only bigger.
It's like the soapbox derby, but for grownups.
And then in Ohio, it was actually on the rally.
It's one of the checkpoints is where they have a.
Cardboard box boat race.
You have build your own boat out of a cardboard box
and trying to sink in the Ohio River, which is not a thing
I would personally do, but I appreciate that it exists.
Yeah, that kind of stuff's awesome.
I love all of those kinds of things.
So maybe maybe I need to go check that out.
I'm just thinking it's a it's a grooming.
You know, you kind of bring them in.
They're already halfway there.
Just just sink the hook just a little deeper.
What is it called?
Dare I ask Miss Vicky?
Are you frozen or do you remember it?
No, no, it is the cardboard box races at Montage.
And it's it's it's the Winterfest is what it is.
And I got to tell you, it is it is the craziest.
It reminds me of an elements downhill.
Yeah, it's it's like the Barbie Jeep racing coming right.
Kind of. But these things are like 20 feet, 30 feet.
Oh, there was a there was literally a 30 foot Barbie bus
and everybody was dressed in it like Barbie characters.
Awesome.
I think last year they had like they had
Jack Sparrow's pirate ship and this thing had to have been
about 30 feet long going down the hill.
And of course, you have Santas that are all at the top,
you know, at the hill that are assisting and there's nothing funnier
than as you're going up the ski mountain and you're kind of going
going around and the Santas are up there against the trees
going to the bathroom. Oh, yeah, of course.
It's it's hilarious.
It's crazy.
Santa drank a little too much
mulled wine, if you know what I'm talking about.
Yeah. And I know last year they had the 20.
I think it had to have been a 20 foot E.T. going down the hill.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And to sweeten it just a little bit,
if you do manage to go where someone from Lemon Staff goes,
we have the ability to bribe with large pieces of cow.
Drink and everything.
So yeah, and like the winter fest is crazy
because they bring in really great bands that used to play in the 90s.
Oh, yeah, you get the better than Ezra's and what better than Ezra
was actually the band I went to go see.
And they were phenomenal.
They were amazing.
They play at the zoo, a block from my house.
Oh, do they? Yeah.
Them in live and elsewhere else from the 90s.
Yeah, they had spin doctors came out one year.
The dream of the 90s is alive at midsize festivals.
It turns out. Yeah. Yeah. Indeed.
But we weren't sure it had made it out to Lemon's HQ,
but we wanted to make sure that since you are the everything bagel,
you were you were aware of such festivity.
It's I haven't written down how to look up.
There you go. When I should be working.
So I'll be doing that instead of.
So when we do our season wrap,
we usually ask you what what are you looking for?
What what do you need?
What what what scratch has not been itched or what?
It's scratched. I don't know. That's a great question.
We still have never had the two car lemons team.
Let me pull on my wish list here.
The two car lemons team with the
Mazda RX 7 and the Nissan Nissan
Mercury Cougar XR 7.
So the RX 7 XR 17.
That's that's at the near the top of the list.
And then
the Buick.
Verano and the Suzuki Verona
two car team, you know, Verona, Verona.
Those are on my list of things that I really want to see.
But, you know, I think they should do a knack theme for that.
And they could be exactly at my Verona.
It's right. It's right there.
So right there.
Speakers play my Serena the entire weekend.
White t-shirt, white white beer t-shirt, you know, it's done.
Yeah. Tip top.
But I mean, there's always I've got my wish list pulled up of cars.
I want to see we finally saw Ford Aero Star this year.
That was one of the highlights of 2025.
So, you know, that one's off the board,
although I'm never going to be like disappointed
if more Ford Aero Stars show up.
That's kind of like a perfect case for lemons.
An entire race full of Chrysler C-brings and Ford Aero Stars
is really what we're going for.
And maybe a broken crossfire.
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're going to bring crossfire,
it's going to be broken.
I mean, you know, it's standard equipment, not even an option.
You need to do. Yeah, exactly. This comes. Yeah.
Man, you know, there's I have a whole list.
Whole wish list of cars I want to see.
But I mean, even if you go through that and you find the cars
that have actually showed up like Cadillac, Katerra,
we had one of those a long time ago, like bring a Cadillac, Katerra.
Like that's perfect.
That is exactly what lemons should be.
You know, Chevy Corsica.
You know, when was the last time you saw Chevy Corsica?
I thought they'd all return to the earth.
Maybe.
We've never had a diesel Ford Tempo.
I mean, that's that's right up my alley.
Big Ford Tempo guy.
So yeah, I mean, there's there's there's a running list of things.
If you're ever really curious about it
and you want to bring something off the list,
I will share the list with people.
But I did hear we have a rally coming up in Texas in a month.
Somebody's bringing a Nissan Murano cross cabriolet,
which I am very excited about as the terrible Nissan Murano
convertible that weighs 5,000 pounds.
So on the rally, no weight limit, perfect.
Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
What else do I want to see?
I want to see good themes from everybody.
That's the best bribe you can do for the judges
is to bring a good ass theme when you bring a car.
And if you have questions, if you have no idea about themes,
email me, I will give you like 10 good theme ideas.
We have we have lists them forever.
And that's I mean, this is this is the reality is that the teams
who seem well, the the garage heroes,
the leagues of legitimate Nigerian businessmen,
they have Google Docs full of good themes,
which have just spun out of conversations, right?
Like you say a dumb idea and somebody's like on the list on the list.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. That's how it works.
We have a surplus.
Yeah. Exactly.
You guys could probably lend a few out.
We could consulting company.
We could theme consulting garage heroes and training.
I mean, there's your theme right there for your first race next year.
Exactly. Garage heroes theme consultants.
That's right.
Clipboards, you know, issue out some consulting,
you know, demand payment, whatever.
When when we were doing the airline,
did you see the video of us when you when we were doing the airline
stortices to your speech?
Because every time you kept turning around to look at us,
we had stopped already.
I know it was it was going great.
And I was in for all of it.
But then, like, when it got to the rookie meeting,
I was like, they are in my head at the moment.
And I have to stop.
I can't focus right now.
Yeah. We put our head downs in bolted.
Yeah.
It was it was a fantastic bit.
It just was just a little too distracting for my, you know,
we took it as a victory. Don't worry.
No, absolutely.
That is the correct interpretation of that situation.
That's fine. It's fine.
We can do that. Yeah. Perfect.
Oh, the theming thing is so much fun.
It really is. It really is.
My car ran like crap, but it was fine.
The guys who did the hippo theme last year in 2024
might have been three had never done.
They had never done any themes at all.
And like, oh, half way through the weekend, they were like,
this is the most fun we've ever had.
Like ever, like this is this is so stupid.
We've thought of every little detail.
It's dumb.
We're enjoying all of this.
This this is the best weekend we've had.
And so, you know, you have to take my word for it.
Those guys were right on top of it.
Ask Phil, Phil from that team.
So he'll be right on top of it.
So we were having a discussion throughout Summit Point.
Mm hmm.
And we were saying how hard it was to race well
and team well.
Has anybody pulled off the double?
Well, Boston Winers won HMG and the overall
at New Hampshire.
They did a hot dog theme.
They were trying to change their theme for us.
Yeah. Yeah.
So which those are that's another team where.
You know, they've been around forever.
Ten years at this point, I think.
And, you know, they're a competitive team
and their cars are boring.
And, you know, I basically said, hey, look,
make it more difficult on yourself.
Bring a theme or I'm going to give you laps.
You know, like you guys are going to kick
everybody's asses if you don't get laps, you know, whatever.
And, you know, they're like, haha,
and then they showed up and we gave them laps.
And they're like, oh, you were serious.
And then they came back with a theme
and they like pretty much for the last two years,
they've been they've been trying, at least.
And then like this year, they finally
they finally got it.
And I think that, you know, they realize they can do both, you know.
Which those guys run, they run four lemons races a year
and they run elsewhere three or four times a year.
So they're in a car all the time, basically,
which means they're always preparing a car,
which means that they're very good at preparing a car,
which means they have time left over to theme.
They have been taking advantage of that.
So that's the first double with the HMG.
If you go all the way back to ISOR racing
like 2010 with their Miata,
they used to do crazy, big, crazy themes every time they showed up
and they won.
I think they have 10 race wins or something like that.
So, yeah, I mean, that goes back.
That goes back to the pretty early days of lemons.
Good themes and competitive cars are not mutually exclusive.
Yeah, it's it's hard to do both because if you're doing the theme
well, you're kind of you're focused on that, right?
Yeah, full job.
You know, if you're doing it right, you know, 12, 14 hours a day, three days.
And if you're if you're trying to actually do pit stops
and everything between that it's a hard weekend.
It makes Monday actually Tuesday, usually Monday, usually you just feel junky.
And in Tuesday, you feel, oh, my God, it hit me.
And then, yeah, sometimes you record a podcast
with two zombie females on my team.
And yeah, it was I asked this, like, 15 or 20 second question
trying to lead into stuff.
And the answer was, yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
OK, this would be a long podcast.
Yeah.
There are days after a race.
It wasn't it wasn't like the early beginning,
like the early races that we had because that wiped us out to like Thursday.
But now we can kind of get, you know, Tuesdays to day, we can function around.
You get one crash day.
Yeah, I distinctly remember.
The Monday after my first race, I I went back into the office.
Like I was working a crappy office job.
And like, I just remember sitting at my desk and feeling like the volume on
everything in the world had been turned down to like half, you know, I was just like.
I don't know what to do with this.
I've been around like this noise, nonstop noise for three days.
I've been running around.
We did an engine swap because we blew up a motor.
Like it's just like this frenetic 48 hour period.
And then like it all stops and you're just like.
It's it's a constant.
Yeah, it's a constant adrenaline rush and a dopamine hit at the same time.
And all of a sudden it's gone.
Yeah. And then you just tired.
Yeah. So it was like after lunchtime on that first work day.
I was like, oh, I'm powering down like I don't know what to do with this.
I probably slept in my cubicle if I was to bet.
But yeah. Yeah, that that.
And I think for me doing what I do now.
Yeah, it's like Wednesday before I'm a human being again.
Usually. So the post racing over applies to judging as well.
Yeah.
Probably not a little known fact.
I'm a bit of an introvert.
But, you know, when I go and work a race weekend, you know, I'm around people I'm
familiar with at least, you know, if not, if not personally, you know,
personality wise, you know, if you're showing up to a lemon's race.
I already agree with you on some principles and there's some common ground.
So it's easy for me to communicate and.
Glad hand and talk and do the judging thing.
But yeah, once the race weekend's done, usually like, all right.
Everybody just I'm going to be over here.
Don't talk to me. Just don't talk to me.
So there's this like all the shades on the windows.
Yeah, that's pretty much it.
There's like two days of yeah.
So if you're ever trying to email me like the Monday after a race,
looking for something not going to happen, you're going to have to wait for that.
So I might see you Wednesday, right?
Yeah, maybe Wednesday.
We'll see how it goes. Yeah.
Well, we wanted to thank you and everybody from lemons for another great season.
We had a ton of fun.
You know, it's it's an opportunity
that I think more people should take a chance on just do it once.
And then, you know, you'll probably get sucked in.
But, you know, if you don't do it once, you don't really get it.
Or at least maybe come visit.
Come say hi. We're here.
Yeah, I hear my advice is always the first time you see lemons,
you have no idea what the hell you're looking at.
So, you know, just give yourself a weekend
to be shocked by the weirdness and then, you know,
come and try a second weekend
once you have a better idea of what you're looking for.
You should try it twice is what I'm saying.
Yeah, like sushi, you know, the first time you don't know what you're getting.
That is completely that is a great analogy.
You know, lemon, sushi, whatever.
Yeah, I will also add two quick things about 2025.
I had two of the most fun races of my entire lemon's career this year
at at Hyde Plains, first time there, and at Summit Point, first time there.
Just two of the absolute best times I've had on skiing races.
So I thank you to the lemons racers for making those enjoyable events.
And, you know, the other 10 races I worked were also great.
But, you know, those two were just tip top new experiences that were a lot of fun.
So I really love that.
So thank you to anybody who's been to a lemon's race or is coming to a lemon's race
next year and come see me if I'm there and chat me up. Absolutely.
Well, make sure to pass along our thank yous to everybody.
And please remember, we're all counting on you.
That's all. I got nothing for that.
Thank you, Eric. Thank you.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
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About this episode
Eric Rood joins the Garage Heroes In Training podcast to review the 2025 24 Hours of Lemons racing season and preview 2026. They discuss memorable race wins by long-time teams, the importance of creative theming at events, challenges with securing race dates and tracks, and the unique culture of Lemons racing. Eric shares insights on new tracks, sold-out events despite economic concerns, and upcoming rallies including the Oregon Trail. The conversation also touches on the physical and mental toll of racing weekends, the community spirit, and the excitement around Lemons' 20th anniversary in 2026.
Original notes
GHiT 0742: Lemons Racing 2025 Review and 2026 Preview with Eric Rood
2025 was quite a season for the 24 Hours of Lemons racing series and we discuss the almost complete 2025 season and preview the 2026 schedule with our favorite Everything Bagel, Eric Rood.
Did we miss something? Please let us know at [email protected]
A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/Lemons2026
We hope you enjoy this episode!
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Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers
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Garage Heroes In Training
Garage Heroes In Training
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