24 Hours of Le Mons - Penalties

Penalties

LeMons officials have an inventive penalty and punishment system where penalties for some infractions are meted out by a device called The Wheel of Misfortune. Various devices may be put onto the car in order to affect car performance; one device used is metal silhouettes of various farm animals welded to the roof by the "Arc Angel" to reduce aerodynamic efficiency. Also, any car that flips in the process of the race is slapped with the "Why Am I Upside-Down?" penalty: not only is that team disqualified for the current race, but the driver who flipped the car is barred from all other races for the rest of the season. Likewise, Drivers and Teams might also be forced to undertake physical acts in order to satisfy punishment conditions, such as the Marcel Marceau Memorial "Mime Your Crime" penalty, where a driver must put on white face paint and a beret and mime what they did wrong. In addition, penalties are often tailored to address current events or figures where the race is run. Examples of this include the "Max Mosley S&M Penalty", the "Sheriff Joe Arpaio Penalty" in Arizona (where drivers must don pink underwear, sit in a hot tent and eat stale bologna sandwiches, all punishments the Maricopa County Sheriff has given at his prisons), and the "Mark Sanford 'Cry For Me, Argentina' Memorial Penalty" at a race in South Carolina, in which a driver must write a lengthy love letter to his Argentine mistress on his car, à la the former governor of that state. All penalties are designed to waste the time of a lousy driver, while less aggressive and better drivers continue to race.