Tell your best Yugo story, win a signed copy of the Yugo book

Everyone loves free stuff, right? Everyone also loves (and loves to hate) the Yugo. Well then, have we got a contest for you. Yesterday we posted our review of The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History and many of you commented that you'd like to read the book. Friends, comrades, fellow travelers-now is your chance! Publishers Hill and Wang are sponsoring a contest where you submit your best Yugo-related story and (maybe) win a signed copy of The Yugo. Here are the details:

Jason Vuic, author of The Yugo, wants to hear from everyone who has a Yugo story to tell. Whether you owned one, drove one, sat in one, passed one, or crossed paths with one, if a Yugo made a lasting impression on you, tell us about it. Love it? Tell us why. Hate the Yugo? Give us the cause. Jason Vuic will select his ten favorite stories, and Hill and Wang will include them in an updated ebook edition. The winners will also receive a signed hardcover copy of The Yugo. To submit, go to www.yugostory.com. Entries must be under 1,000 words and submitted by March 31.

In the interest of helping to stir the pot, take our own medicine and practice some preaching, here's our best Yugo story.

As some of you may know, I'm heavily involved in the 24 Hours of LeMons. At the 2008 Arse-Freeze-Apalooza race held at the mighty Thunderhill, the word goes out that someone's bringing a Yugo. Which, at a $500 car race, makes a lot of sense. Not only does it make sense, but it makes us hard-hearted LeMons types oh-so very happy.

Sadly, the Yugo didn't fair so well on the track. After about three laps (two to be totally honest) the extra weight from the roll cage was too much for the Zastrava-grade suspension, and after spinning and slamming into another car, the Yugo flipped over onto its roof. However, the Zastrava-grade roof quality (and aforementioned roll cage) held, and within moments emergency workers had pushed the little Yugo back onto its wheels and were towing it to the paddock. After much hammering, ritual spraying of WD40 into the Weber-derived carburetor, there was much rejoicing as the Yugo started back up.

Sadly for team Tito (or whatever they were called), the 24 Hours of LeMons has a rule called, "Why am I Upside Down?" If you do find yourself upside down in your race car, the car is done for the weekend and the driver is done for the season (don't worry, it was December, the last race of the season). Shockingly, the Yugo team took the news very well. So well in fact, that they offered the Yugo to LeMons Chief Perp Jay Lamm. The conversation went something like this, "Take our Yugo, please." Jay Lamm, a former Trabant owner, looked at the Yugoslavian race car, and after thinking things through for less than one second proclaimed, "Hell no!" That's ours. Now it's your turn.

Source: Indiacar.com Source : http://www.autoblog.com (3/24/2010)