:: Greaseball - The Teams ::

The Frying Burrito Brothers
Ben Shaw (UK), Andy “Jacko” Jackson (UK), Dan Clemens (US), Teresa Robinson (US). Ben, Dan and Jacko, the eccentric gadget guys are driving a 1984 Mercedes 300D acquired on Ebay for the princely sum of $750. It drives like a lump of lard. Is the turbo working yet? Hope so for their sakes or we’ll be leaving the Burrito Brothers behind on the first hill. Lardy is a greasemobile converted by our friends at Greasecar (www.greasecar.com). Teresa, Ben’s long suffering cousin is joining the boys in Austin. Someone is going to have to go on the roofrack.

Quest for the Golden Grease
Emily Horgan (UK) and Nicky Matsukis (UK)
Emily and Nicky are driving The Golden Greese, a 4-wheeled chariot
of mythical proportions designed to totally fleece the Burrito Brothers.
The Greese, a 1976 Mercedes Benz which Emily found covered in
leaves and mould in a DC garage last Fall, is currently not running
(bust transmission) but minor details like that don’t dampen the girls’
optimism. They can’t wait to hit the greasepower switch and hit the road in a car that hasn’t been driven more than 20 miles since the year 2000. Holy Frijoles!

Team ZERO
Bjornar Kruse (Norway), Ane Evenstad (Norway), Lars Loege (Norway), Anders Nybø (Norway), Vivi Mellegard (Sweden/UK)
Bjornar makes hydrogen cars in Norway, but he and his fellow Norwegians are sticking to good old fashioned wheels for Greaseball. That said, Team ZERO currently have ZERO transportation. Finger biting stuff. The film crew also trying to find a ride large enough to accommodate their camera equipment so it looks like they may all squeeze in a diesel minibus if we can convince the owner to sell it for a few bucks

Grease Lightening
Suzanne Hunt (US) and Jean-Philippe Denruyter (Belgium)
When word of a VW rabbit pick-up filtered through the grapevine, our resident biofuel gurus, Suzanne and JP jumped to get their own greasemotruck with 40,000 greasemiles on the clock. There will be no stopping this incredible duo now in this veggie powered pace vehicle.

Quantum Heap
Michael Bowman (US), Bryan Rose (US), Paul Drey (US), Bing (US), Sally Ranney (US), Adam Hall (US)
The biobus, a lovely yellow number from Colorado, will be running on biodiesel with a merry band of enviro bandits on board. They will be switching off for legs of the trip, like a relay race, except last week they realized they didn’t have enough bus drivers to pick up the baton after Mexico City. Oops. Welcome to Greaseball Challenge where you never know what’s going to happen next.