The guys at Jalopnik had their first entry in the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont, CA, last weekend. They installed a Ford V8 into a Volvo, calling it the V8olvo, and were hoping to be the highest place bit of Swedish metal in the field.

That lofty goal will have to wit for next time, you Jalops!! Well done for finishing around 15th place, but there were at least 2 Saab teams blowing exhaust in your faces!

Back in January I met a guy named Michael L at a dinner in Los Angeles that 1985 Gripen was kind enough to organise. Michael took part in the race as part of Team-60, also featuring Walter Wong (who’s been mentioned before in these pages). Following is an email from Michael to Gripen from earlier today.

We did great! 10th place! The car ran great, Walter and Hugo were fantastic as always. Boxwrench Racing, one of the other Saab teams, finished 5th. They were two pits down from us and great guys, so we were all very excited to see them do so well.

Our car survived, and will require minimal work to get it ready for Thunderhill in December. On that note, anyone have a good spare C900 transmission? Haha.

Saturday’s incident was indeed tragic. What they are pretty sure happened was that the driver had a heart attack and was dead before he even hit the wall. There were no safety issues with either the car or the track. The real spirit of the event showed through today as people paid their respects, got back in their cars, and had a great day finishing the race. There’s a fund started for the family by Altamont and the Lemons guys, and the winning team donated their $1500 prize to it.

The death that Michael’s referring to there was a tragedy involving the driver of a Volvo who hit a wall at high speed, though as Michael’s mentioned, there’s a belief that he may have died in the car whilst driving, or at least undergone some significant medical duress, causing the crash.

The Jalopnik report on that incident is here.

Some additional info from Michael:

the people who made this car and team possible…..

The drivers were Alex Levy (team captain and deserves much of the credit to the success of the team), myself, John Yohanna, and Robert Shanaberger. The people who didn’t drive but still donated time, parts, expertise, and money to the cause were Bill Sobel, Guilbert, Reg Levy (Alex’s wife), George Yohanna (John’s brother and our photo/video guy) and Nick Braley.

The Nick Braley mentioned there is the same Saab nut who tragically passed away last week. Nick’s father, Merle, recently left a note in comments to thank everyone for their remembrance and to let everyone know he’d set up a website in Nick’s memory.

Congratulations to all the teams at the 24H at Altamont and especially to the two top-10 finishing Saab teams!!!