In 2006, we slapped a roll bar into a $455 Oldsmobile Aurora, buckled on open-faced helmets, formed a team out of office nitwits, and went racing. Well, it wasn't strictly racing—more like half racing, half demolition derby, half Ben-Hur chariot scene. When that first 24 Hours of LeMons was over, we left what little remained of the Aurora at the track for a junk collector. At the time, nobody, not even race organizer Jay Lamm, realized that there was a big future in races for $500 cars.
For an activity that began, in Lamm's words, as a "parody of racing," it has undergone a profound evolution. From that first event on the 0.3-mile bullring at Altamont, California, the series has advanced to prestigious tracks such as Sonoma Raceway (the former…