Written by: David Kang
Perhaps odd things are bound to happen when the largest student population in the country gather in a tiny town middle of nowhere Texas.
Following our semester-long coverage of the Aggie Bonfire for the fourth episode of my documentary series College Station Collage, I wanted to shed light on another student organization that showcased the sheer scale of juvenile grit and endurance rarely found in those other than college students, who some might simply label as mad. After all, it may seem a bit foolish to spend weeks camping in a muddy field through rain or shine stacking a couple thousand logs by hand all in the name of school spirit. However, as I found out from my time following these different clubs of Texas A&M, there seems to be an inexplicable force that compels college students to seek adventure, for stories they will carry for a lifetime.
I first met the Aggie Lemons in January 2024 during a beginning-of-semester open house meeting for A&M student clubs. Despite being unfamiliar with the Lemons race, after a brief talk with the club president Ethan Eve, I quickly learned that they were an organization that rivaled, or perhaps even surpassed the madness of the Bonfire crew- a group of unsanctioned students who were building behemoths of wicker to create a literal inferno every year which has already claimed twelve Aggie souls.
The 24 Hours of Lemons is an endurance motorsport race where teams compete for the most laps in 24 hours, much like its more official counterpart: the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However unlike the French race where car companies of great prestige spend millions to squeeze as much performance and reliability into their prototype cars, the spirit of the Lemons race is to race “lemons”, and has a $500 price limit on their cars (though instances of bribery and cheating were often witnessed and sometimes encouraged). It is a race meant to democratize car racing from just the uber-wealthy to everyone with a love for the sport.
Immediately intrigued by the premise, me and my crew of journalists immersed ourselves within the Aggie Lemons, joining their club meetings, workdays, and driving events throughout the year. We saw firsthand the hardships of restoring a barnyard 1997 Mustang to operating condition, let alone racing. It took many months of workdays sometimes ending as late as 4 am just to get the car started and running on all six cylinders. After years of neglect, the wirings were disintegrating and the fuel lines were clogged with old petrol that needed to be repaired and rerouted all by the students. They then cracked the engine block which resulted in a laborious engine swap with a salvaged motor from a junkyard. We learned that there has not been a single successful Lemons race in the club’s history, with the most recent race ending tragically after only a couple of laps and a failed transmission. Although the Aggie Mustang was always a problematic mess of exposed wires and rusted metal plates, it was hard not to develop some feelings of fondness for a scrapped vehicle I personally witnessed being revived into a race car over the course of the year. So when I learned that the club was looking for drivers to participate in the 2024 Lemons race in Houston, I knew I had to apply for a chance at commandeering the maroon steed.
When I introduced my project on the Aggie Lemons to the Creative Media Lab, Professor Lopez provided a complete racing simulator setup equipped with a VR headset. Using the simulator rig I trained daily, learning proper driving techniques such as finding the racing line, optimal braking points, and timings for downshifts. I also followed Ethan on many track days where I sat with him through multiple professional level driving and drifting courses. The driver tryouts were two different events, an aptitude test for driving manual cars, and a race held at a karting track. Although I was a newcomer in the club with less than a semester of experience, I was able to prove my competence and was selected as a reserve driver outside of the four drivers chosen.
The events of the actual Lemons race held in November 2024 is one that deserves its own essay, but I will leave it omitted for the reader to watch the story themselves from the fifth and final episode of my show College Station Collage. As for the results, the Aggie Lemons successfully finished the entire race for the first time in the history of the club with more than 170 laps completed, of which I was able to contribute about 20 laps. In my experience, most Aggies- whether they notice it or not- feel a sense of urgency that they are gathered in College Station for a reason and that their time here is limited. This leads to many desperately seeking a sense of community, which was also my reason behind creating this show. I wanted to witness and record the stories made by the thousands of students who will briefly call College Station home. I hope this show can explain just a little bit what kind of things happen in the middle of Texas.
