Beads, Zombies, And Southern Explanations: The Penalties Of The 24 Hours Of LeMons New Orleans

We try to create new, region-specific penalties for each 24 Hours Of LeMons venue, and the Laissez Les Crapheaps Roulez race, held at No Problem Raceway in Belle Rose, Louisiana, was no exception.

Before the race, we'd put out the call that Get Out Of Penalty Box Free cards would be given to the team who brought us the most Mardis Gras beads. The winner turned out to be our own Strolling Player, who wasn't even racing but definitely had the spirit-of-LeMons thing down. He brought us several huge bales-o-beads, weighing a total of approximately 200 pounds, and others contributed endless krewe medallions, light-up Bacchus pendants, the works.

That led to what LeMons Justice Lieberman dubbed the Bataan Rouge Death March penalty: the miscreant's entire team must hang as many beads as they can fit around their necks- typically about 40 pounds apiece- and then march around the paddock with hands joined and chanting "We're bad drivers!" on command. They were allowed to toss beads to spectators, but only one string per toss (no ditching your whole burden in one go). After a few rounds of this, the beads were everywhere.

A close relative of the Bataan Rouge Death March was the Zombie Drivers Penalty. In this one, the miscreant's entire team must stagger around the paddock in true zombie fashion, groaning out the nature of their crime ("Fooouuur wheeeeeelssss offfffff... Fooouuur wheeeeeelssss offfffff...") and alternating it with cries of "Noooo braaiiinssss! Nooooo braaaiiins!" The kids really enjoyed watching this one, so we'd make the zombies turn around and repeat their performance for any 7-year-old who seemed especially entertained.

We'd found some 99-cent novelty teeth at a local store, and that led directly to the totally offensive Southern Explanation penalty. In this penalty (a variation on the Mime Your Crime), the miscreant must apply the teeth and then explain his or her bad driving in the most backwoods, incomprehensible Southern accent he or she can manage. Of course, we'll be bringing this idea to the New England race as the Wicked Terrible Cah Driving Explanation penalty... and we're counting the days until we can make California drivers explain their misdeeds in the Jeff Spicoli Memorial, Like, Here's Totally What Happened penalty.

We decided that the Burning Man penalty was just too much fun to limit to Nevada races, so we made some fairly bewildered racers put up the tent and suffer through The Worst Techno Music Ever Recorded. The high humidity made it quite un-playa-esque, but at least the dust was authentic!

We continued to dish out the Bart Simpson penalty, in which miscreants must write such statements as "I will not spin out" or "I will refrain from smashing into other cars" 100 (or more) times on the car, but we developed a new variation on that theme. One bad driver, when asked what had happened out there to make him spin the car 19 times at top speed and kick up a plume of dust visible for 15 miles, replied "I was doing real good and then I went ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTT and then I went four wheels off." So we had him write those exact words in huge letters, all over the car, that others might learn from his lesson.

It makes a pretty good Demotivator, too (go here to see more LeMons Demotivators).