An endurance road race like no others

If shoddy costumes and low-budget endurance racing is what you’re looking for, you won’t want to miss the 24 Hours of Lemons Arse-Freeze-Apalooza at Sonoma Raceway this weekend.

The 24 Hours of Lemons, an endurance road racing series for cars that cost $500 or less, will conclude its 2019 race season with a two-day event featuring craptastic entries including Pacemaker Racing, To Saturn and Beyond, Cow Fart Racing, McLemons, SchtuffNZPants Racing, Killer ZomBees, the Humboldt Hooligans, San Frandisco, MARTI NOT Racing and the Red Hot Silly Peppers.

Prepare for plenty of eye candy, noise, wacky penalties and questionably civilized fun before, during and after the on-track action on Saturday and Sunday. Following the checkered flag, there’s the gala awards ceremony, wherein trophies and plaques are presented and the winner’s purses are paid out in nickels.

More than 130 teams are entered for the 24 Hours of Lemons’ final event of the year, hailing mostly from Northern California as well as Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington. Local teams will travel from nearby Petaluma, Sonoma and Mill Valley, with more than 10 teams signed on from San Francisco, six teams making their way from Sacramento and three teams each from Napa, Novato, San Rafael and Santa Rosa.

While all this foolishness is primarily done in the name of fun, it’s also done in the name of charity, as a portion of proceeds benefit Sonoma County youth-serving nonprofit organizations through Speedway Children’s Charities, the charitable arm of Sonoma Raceway.