In this fascinating video, we learn how clever engineers with zero budget can design race cars that win. The 24 hours of LeMons (no, it’s not a typo) is nothing new, but it's interesting to see that you can have 99% of the fun of racing, without the pretense or the billion-dollar budgets.
It speaks to human ingenuity and how constraints force us to solve problems with literal shoestrings. Of course, this is not a sexy race car and it won't win against the purpose-built monsters of today's motorsport, but it does the job and it does it well.
I was reminded of this recently while reading the book Profit First, which details a cash-flow management method that prioritizes profit. One of the results of doing so is to always look for more cost-effective ways to accomplish the same result, to be explored further in a future post.
In the last few seconds of the video, you'll see the phrase "safety third" printed on the chassis of the car, it reminded me of Mike Rowe and his own use of the term. It speaks volumes about the ethos of this scrappy little race team.