WE WON HALLOWEEN MEETS GASOLINE, again! Never hide the headline, as they say. We'll cover a lot of ground in this race recap, but the big news is a second theme win for Savage Orchid. That's great, because the actual racing part of this race was pretty tough. I'm going to cover theme shenanigans in this post, and race shenanigans in Part 2.

Along with the extensive mechanical prep we put in for this race, we had made significant effort to secure a good theme, and all the necessary accoutrements. Our theme was inspired, as most good themes are, by the internet. ICYMI, McDonald's ran a promotional Grimace Milkshake this summer. This horror of modern gastronomy inspired the horror of the Grimace Shake trend on tiktok.

Into the Grimaceverse

You'd be amazed how much Grimace related art, merchandise and content you'll find on the internet. Maybe you aren't amazed, but I was. As corporate mascots go, Grimace's blobby purple morphology has never seemed particularly interesting to me. Nonetheless we compiled a tremendous variety of Grimace and McDonald's paraphernalia: if you're going to theme, you theme hard. Being the studious team that we are, a full inventory was maintained:

• Grimace (pronounced like Versace) flag
• Purple vinyl wrapped car, fuel barrels, and drift trike
• Purple LED rope number lighting
• Custom Grimace vanity license plate
• Grimace Thicc stickers
• McDatsun's 24 hour Drive Thru pit sign
• McDonald's uniforms with Grimace caps
• Personalized team name badges
• Grimace Guzzle Puzzle (less asked about this naming the better)
• Happy Meal Bribes for the judges
• Savage Orchid Racing Grimace Special Edition stickers
• Savage Orchid Racing Grimace Temporary Tattoos
• Grimace Shake Plastic Drinkware for the team
• Homemade purple slime
• Purple hair and beard dye
• Helium filled party balloons for every team while they went through tech
• Homemade Grimace Shakes for every team while they went through tech
• 100 Sausage McMuffins and 50 Hash browns for Saturday morning driver's meeting
• A huge inflatable Grimace costume
• OC Hand painted Grimace portrait on our hood
• Hand crafted 4 song birthday playlist
• custom hand spackled wheels

And the piece de resistance: Custom modeled 3d-printed Grimace driving a Datsun 280zx racecar.

Whatever this team lacks in racing success, we more than compensate for in full-blown theme mania. Fun fact: if you're ever looking for really official looking McDonald's apparel, smilemakersonline.com is your best friend. Browsing this site you might think that you have to provide some credentials as an employee, or franchise owner... but that's where you'd be wrong, buck-o. Thank you, poorly enforced corporate merchandise supply chain!

Grimace: 24 hours in His Shoes

A bunch of theme stuff is a great start, but winning Halloween meets Gasoline requires living your theme. Costumes on, in character, the entire weekend. In a 24 hour race this creates all kinds of opportunity to be silly. If you want to win, you have to grip every one of those opportunities and wring the ever loving Grimace out of it.

We've found that having a shtick of some sort helps seal the deal. This race anytime we could get someone to say "I'm lovin it", all of us would sing the famous "Da da da da daaahhh" McDonald's stinger. That, coupled with drift triking, skateboarding, hugging, pinballing, skipping, waddling, and flagging the race in a huge purple Grimace costume kept everyone engaged whether they wanted to be or not.

Grimace is just so enticing, so welcoming. How can you say no to more Grimace?

In these trying times, surely you can see how Grimace brings us together. Grimace is Love!

An important lesson for aspiring Halloween meets Gasoline competitors is that whatever your shtick is, you have to keep doing it throughout the weekend. Stay in costume. Use your accents constantly. Do it all in front of the judges. There's some joke here about overexposure to your brand, but that's entirely the point. Fully embracing the theme, living the theme at all times... this is the way.

As the race wore on, and we approached the final hour we were feeling pretty solid about our performance. Several other teams had put up some solid themes, but our confidence grew significantly when the judges approached us and asked if we could have Grimace wave the Checkered Flag.

Everyone has special things in their lives, and moments of honor and distinction they will remember always. Waving the checkered is an honor, and bringing the field home after 24 long hours doubly so. Seeing our purple friend waving the cars home brought tears to my eyes. Even now looking back, I have a strong upswell of emotion at the memory.

The Joy of Being Grimace

Lemons racing is a lot of things to a lot of people, all with their own unique tastes. After several years, I think we have all learned that theming, getting into character, and being generally ridiculous are all big parts of what we love about this series. As the kids say, it brings us joy. 24 hour events are fucking brutal to endure, and this particular joy helps us survive. We also love bringing smiles, mirth, and distraction from suffering to our fellow competitors.

As I have said in many other posts, The Spirit of Lemons is helping. Most of the time that help comes in the form of a spare bolt, some wisdom about a repair, or pushing somebody's broke down heap into a paddock spot. But help can come in the form of an unexpected mcmuffin in the drivers meeting, a laugh, a joke, a strange purple glove stroking your neck... We loved helping everyone survive the full 24 with our shenanigans, and we cannot wait to do it again!