The Lonesharks Published Dec. 17, 2019 By Airman 1st Class Ethan Sherwood 17th Training Wing Public Affairs GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Sitting in an old car that barely runs, has no heat, no air conditioning, and is liable to break down at any given moment may not sound like a good time to some but, The Lonesharks found out it is one heck of a time. The World Tour of Texas Rally is one of many such “races” in which you find an old lemon and drive it till it dies. Painted to resemble a WWII fighter the 316th Training Squadron’s “Shark Car” fit in with the other strange cars. The Lonesharks began as a bar napkin idea, literally. On Fridays, instructors from many different career fields and courses meet to learn more about each other. The topic of this night was vehicles. The four instructors are petrol-heads and own cars that they modify. One thing led to another, and they talked about 24 Hours of LeMons, a play on words of 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s oldest active sports car endurance race. “The goal is to use a $500 or less vehicle,” said Master Sgt. Parker Bryant 316th chief of staff evaluation. “So outside of safety features you just take a beater and do it.” After a few minutes of searching the internet, the four companions discovered the World Tour of Texas Rally was happening in just a few short weeks. The first stop? San Angelo, Texas. The call was too strong to resist. “It ends up being four days of driving all over Texas,” said Staff Sgt. Christopher Barnes, 316th TRS instructor. “For us, it’s about six days and instead of 2,000 miles we’re doing 3,000 miles in what’s supposed to be a cheap, preferably unreliable car.” “The more shady it is, the better!” said Staff Sgt. Jonathan Preiser, 316th TRS instructor with a laugh. After a short period of planning, the instructors brought their idea to their commander and asked him if he wanted to challenge the rivals of their squadron, the 315th Training Squadron. The commander was far more on board than they had expected. The only thing they needed now was a car. “I think the first idea was to do a limo,” said Preiser with a sly smile. “We thought we’d do it in luxury, as luxurious as you can get on a lemons rally.” The Mercedes limo, located in Austin, had been sitting in a field for years and turned out to be too much work to get running in time. “I had a backup plan,” said Preiser. “I found this really decent Volvo station wagon and I’ve always loved Volvos. The car already had one heck of a story to it! It had aftermarket wheels on one half of the car and the stock wheels on the other half!” “But not back and front,” said Bryant shaking his head. “It was different on drivers and passengers side,” said Preiser in agreement. “Different sized tires, wheels, the whole deal! Nothing matched.” One of the car’s previous owners had installed aftermarket wheels on all four, but had curbed one side so bad the rims broke. Instead of rotating the wheels to be aftermarket in front and stock in back, or vice versa, they had opted to replace only one side with the original wheels. Tech Sgt. Philip Roney, 316th TRS instructor, wasn’t thrilled about the idea of driving across Texas on old tires so he bought four brand new ones. “It was perfect for lemons,” said Preiser. “It started up, it ran, and it drove. There’s no A/C, but we weren’t worried about that cause the race was in November, we figured it would be cold enough, which it was!” The original plan for the design of the Lone Shark was to paint the car like a shark and put a shark fin on top. Preiser modified the idea to resemble the Flying Tigers, a group of fighters that had shark teeth on them. With the new idea in mind, Parker broke out the pen and markers and drew the new design on a bar napkin. Preiser took a slightly fancier route and designed the car on a racing simulator. Once the car had been painted to their liking there was still something missing. The car had lots of empty space and they had an idea to fill it. “We had our sports day recently,” explained Barnes. “We had the entire squadron grab some sharpies and sign the car so it’s on there permanently.” Roughly 700 students signed the car as well as base leadership. They expected to cover only a quarter of the space they had, but at the end of the day the car had no room left for another signature. Parker had an idea about why so many people wished to sign the car. “You can do the military and maybe get some education benefits but that’s just about it right?” Parker began. “You don’t get to have fun in the military. That’s just not true! You can have personal hobbies! You can have fun!” With the car finished they were ready to race. Or so they thought. Everyone had taken the chance to drive the car on their own. However, they had never put four full grown men and all their gear inside. That’s when they realized the shocks didn’t work. In true redneck fashion, Barnes jacked up the car, took the wheel off, and with a delicate hand took a giant hammer and beat the fender out of the way. When they arrived to the start of the race there were 36 other teams. Only 34 even managed to start the race. “Everybody gets scored points in the very beginning for things like how terrible your car is, how neat your theme is and what costume you are wearing,” said Parker. “We scored about middle of the pack 800 points behind 1st place.” Additional points were given for how many cities and historical markers they visited as well as other events that happened along the way. “These historical markers are anything from historical buildings to the site where the local judge challenged an individual to a duel,” explained Parker. “The judge ended up killing the guy and then got reelected the next year. Texas Ranger shootouts, bank robberies, you name it.” Of course, keeping a lemon running can be extremely hard. A BMW they passed had its roof strapped to the top of the car, it served a dual purpose. He had no roof and his engine was overheating. The instructors were met with many challenges as well. On their first day they had to stop every 20 minutes to scrape ice off of the windshield because they had no heat. Their battery terminal melted off and they had to stop in the small town of Wellington, Texas where a reporter was sent out to find the strange car. “She did a roadside interview right beside a NAPA Autoparts store with us!” said Barnes. Due to the lack of heat in their car, Parker was struck with strep throat and was forced to abandon the adventure. Ironically they gained heat the following day! “After day one we stopped at a gas station and saw some steam coming out of the hood,” said Barnes. “Popped the hood and had a pinhole in the radiator and we were just leaking radiator fluid. So we put some stop leak in it, cause you know we’re only gonna do the best kind of fixes that are available! Filled it back up and low and behold we found we had heat in the car which might’ve kept Parker from getting sick on day one!” The instructors quickly moved from the middle of the pack to near the front. They visited 50 towns did 20 stops every day. At the end they had seen more than 400 historical markers. The team managed to get 3rd place on their very first try. The Jeep that started in first ended up finishing in first due to a roadside repair which scored them huge points. “It was strangely relaxing for a road trip in a ticking time bomb,” said Roney. At the end, Preiser was sent to get the trophy and reportedly looking like a school boy from excitement. The instructors are already hunting for their next race and have an eye on the Route 66 Marathon as their next target. This time they want to throw down the gauntlet to every other squadron. “It would be amazing if it became a part of the culture of this base,” said Roney. “This base is filled with people who have lives and passions.”