March Crapness: Second Round (March 30)

The holiday weekend begins now, but feel free to use March Crapness voting as an excuse to steal away from the annual Family History Revisionist History rant at Easter. Your family does that, too, right? Anyway...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We'll be using Google for the polls from now on. You may notice that you can vote multiple times. DON'T DO THIS. We get a log of all vote and WILL NOT COUNT ANY VOTES WHERE YOU'VE STUFFED THE BALLOT BOXES (even though we live near Chicago).]

Go to the March Crapness tab for the full rundown, up-to-date bracket and schedule.

Read the introduction to March Crapness here.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. Tweet about March Crapness using the hashtag #crapness.

[Extra-special thanks to Murilee Martin for assisting with many of the photos. All photos as credited.]



TRASHED TRANNY REGION:
Three Pedal Mafia (10) vs. Bucksnort Racing (15)

Three-Pedal Mafia - Honda Civic Wagovan, Sea Sprite (Chevy S10), Rolls Royce

After some races behind the wheel of a Honda Civic Wagovan, Three-Pedal Mafia upped the ante by dropping a boat hull over a Chevy S10 frame. It's not a fast combination, but the S10 has proved itself unexpectedly reliable several times over in crapcan racing. (Murilee Martin photo)

Chevy S10s have done well in the Index of Effluency hunt and Three-Pedal Mafia's S10 is no exception...except it is because the team pitched its silly truck bodywork and the S10 frame is instead clad with a 1971 Sea Sprite. The boat and its nautically themed crew sailed it to an IOE at New Jersey Motorsports Park and allegedly forayed into the experimental sport of paddockskiing (No longer allowed, according to the LeMons fun police). Next up on Three Pedal's plate: A Rolls Royce for 2013.

Resume: LeMons - 1 Index of Effluency  
First Round: def. Time Travelers of Doom 47-10

Bucksnort Racing - BMW E30

Bucksnort Racing maintains a taxidermy theme to portray themselves--men of jurisprudence and medicine, if we recall correctly--as some sort of backwoods types who fell into motorsports. It's mostly a ruse, although they reportdely live within Stranglehold-distance of Ted Nugent. (The Rusty Hub photo)

Michigan's Bucksnort Racing was best known as a black-flag magnet at its early LeMons races, but after a few races of sorting the car and the team out, their E30 is a force to be reckoned with in the Midwest, particularly if the track stays dry (adverse weather does strange things to this car). They consistently set the fastest lap at Midwest races and came up just a hair short of an overall win several times before finally snagged their first win at Gingerman in April 2012 by dominating the rest of the region's top contenders.

Resume: ChumpCar - 4 Top Tens; LeMons - 1 Overall Win, 5 Top Tens
First Round: def. Simon Says 25-11

WRECKED ROD REGION: 
Bust-A-Nut Racing (10) vs. Cerveza Racing (15)

Bust-A-Nut Racing - Mazda MX-6

Nothing to see here. Just a typical day at the office for Bust-A-Nut Racing. (Murilee Martin)

It's unlikely that Bust-A-Nut will ever nab an overall win, but it's equally unlikely this will ever bother the team much. They seem to take as much enjoyment out of turning their MX-6 into increasingly grotesque and well-executed caricatures of a car. For their first trick, the mounted a heavy-metal-tinged Santa's sleigh--complete with reindeer--to their whip.They then turned it into an extremely convincing scale replica of the Goodyear blimp before making their car into Mr. T. Did we mention this car is registered and driven on the street, too?

Resume: A legacy of what must be the largest "aerodynamic" elements on any race car ever.

First Round: def. Ghetto Motorsports 20-7


Cerveza Racing - BMW E28, Porsche 944, Volkswagen Beetle

Many people overlook the BMW 5-Series as a road racer, but the Cerveza crew have maximized the platform's potential with a slew of consecutive victories and a resounding Western Regional Championship in 2012. (Murilee Martin photo)

In 2012, Cerveza Racing accomplished something that only Hong Norrth had done previously in LeMons: Won three consecutive races they entered. Unlike Hong Norrth, Cerveza campaigns their BMW E28 in the much-more-top-heavy West Region. In the only California race they didn't win in 2012, they finished runner-up to Eyesore Racing. In just seven races, Cerveza has cemented themselves among the elite crapcan teams while running the "most interesting car in the world."

Resume: LeMons - 4 Overall Wins, 8 Top Tens

First Round: def. Race Hard Race Ugly 27-4





SHEARED SHAFT REGION:
Rally Baby (7) vs. Eggboy Racing (2)

Rally Baby - Car Type

Rally Baby's 1975 Mercedes 450SL is one of the best-looking crapcans of all time, a product of rampant depreciation in Malaise Era German luxury coupes. Who knew? (Murilee Martin photo)

In the space of about a year, Rally Baby Racing evolved from a team campaigning a surprisingly good Audi 4000 to the LeMons version of an autonomous collective with a driving roster of approximately 274 people driving a bevy of German machines in 2012 while simultaneously heading toward a collection of automotive oddities for 2013. Look for strange and terrifying things from Rally Baby in the near future.

Resume: LeMons - 1 Top Ten

First Round: def. The Eh! Team 61-26


Eggboy Racing - Ford Taurus SHO

Eggboy Racing's livery somehow manages to make the Ford Taurus bodywork at least 60 percent less ugly. The most important part of racing, of course, is that a car looks fast. Also, this car actually is fast. (Alex Bellus photo)

Eggboy and their Ford Taurus SHO remain a staple of the ChumpCar community, particularly in the Midwest, where they've enjoyed success among the cavalcade of rear-drive Bavarians. The SHO has a much-deserved reputation for fickleness in the face of endurance racing's torture, but the St. Louis Eggboy crew have piloted theirs to two victories, including one over a very fast field at Iowa Speedway in April 2011.

Resume: ChumpCar - 2 Overall Wins, 4 Top Tens
First Round: def. British American Racing 69-12

CRACKED CRANK REGION:
Hong Norrth (7) vs. Crushed Red Pepper (2)

Hong Norrth - Mazda MX-3

Hong North's matching MX-3's (Trons Am in the front, Sumbich in the back) have enjoyed a long run of domination in LeMons' South region, winning every race they entered in 2011 and scoring four podiums in two races in 2012. (Murilee Martin phtto)

With 6 wins in their last 7 LeMons races, it's hard to think of a more dominant team in any form of motorsports. If gambling on LeMons races was a thing, Hong Norrth would be a smart play in just about any race they enter. The team's Mazda MX-3s look great at night, too. In a great act of community, the Hongs lent their car to the community at the 2013 LeMons season opener, allowing teams who've helped them succeed take a turn in the MX-3's hot seat.

Resume: ChumpCar - 1 Top Ten; LeMons - 5 Overall Wins, 9 Top Tens

First Round: def. MealTime Racing 20-12


Crushed Red Pepper -Toyota MR2

This is one of our favorite photos from LeMons, but we've seen it so much that we hardly think twice of the fact that this MR2 is powered by an antique airplane engine. (The Rusty Hub photo)

Marc Labranche stuffed a World War II-era airplane engine into a second-generation Toyota MR2. The build thread for this project literally takes about four hours to read and makes us scratch our collective heads several times throughout. There is no way any other crapcan has anywhere approaching this amount of custom fabrication. Next up for Marc: A turbine-powered Chevy Nova, naturally.

Resume: Exploitation of the budget-exempt radial engine clause
First Round: def. Rust in the Wind 21-17