Lemons Prize Money: Rubles, Nickels, or Toilet-Seat Checks!

Class winners in the 24 Hours of Lemons take home prize money, as do the winners of the storied Index of Effluency trophy. Because this is Lemons, though, we don’t just peel off some $100 bills and deal them out to the winners. No, we prefer prize money that’s as difficult as doing a starter-motor swap in a Toyota 1UZ engine!

The Index of Effluency winners get an easy-to-deal-with $601 check (plus free entry to their next race), because we consider the IOE to be the most important prize. The teams that win Class A, Class B, and Class C get $400, $500, and $600, respectively. Traditionally, those class winners get paid in boxes of nickels, each of which weighs 25 pounds. Win Class C, your prize money weighs about as much as a GM Turbo-Hydramatic TH350 automatic transmission.

Sometimes, though, we give the class winner a check… written on something other than paper. At the New England 2008 race, the Class A-winning team received this check written on a bedsheet. Yes, your bank will cash such a check, although you’ll need to have a lengthy negotiation with the branch manager to make it happen.

We have made checks out of rocks and chunks of concrete at a few races.

Best of all are our infamous Toilet Seat Checks. Don’t worry, we always use a brand-new toilet seat!

At one race, the class winners were paid in Bitcoin. At the 2011 Sears Pointless event, the Class A winners were awarded several trash bags containing a total of 500 bucks’ worth of crumpled-up Russian rubles.

The lesson of all of this? Go for the IOE!