With the winter thawing, and spring nearing, another redonkulous season of the 24 Hours of Lemons is nigh upon us. For the uninitiated, the 24 Hours of Lemons is an endurance race styled after the famous French competition, but on a budget. Like, an extreme budget. The car can cost no more than $500, bribery is encouraged, as is cheating…so long as you don’t get caught.
The 24 Hours of Lemons is also governed by mob rule, and the mob can decide which cars live, and which cars die. As this video from the 2009, sometimes the unfortunate victim is a Mustang whose drivers got just a little too aggressive.
The Lemons races force drivers to sign over their cars to the race itself, in order to discourage cheating and disorderly conduct. Mid-way through the race, all the racers are polled for the car meant to suffer “The People’s Curse.” This is awarded to the team with the “jerkiest” drivers, which is often a sign of trying too hard to win a tongue-in-cheek racing series.
The penalty for the People’s Curse is death…for the car, at least. At the 2009 Lemons South race, the victim was the SuperKak Racing SN-95 Mustang. If you want to skip ahead to the action, the crushing starts right at the 1:30 mark. And there is no mercy for this Mustang, which is flipped, crunched, and dropped to its doom.
While we’re sorry to watch another Mustang wind up a pile of scrap, at least it was an interesting demise.