Bernal Dads Fight Foul Weather During Absurdist Car Race

For the Bernal Dads Racing Team, all those years of experience gained while making harried grocery runs on Cortland finally came in handy. The Bernal Dads had a big endurance race in Sonoma last weekend, but it rained and rained and rained on Saturday, so the Dads donned their snorkels and took to the track despite the difficult driving conditions.

The star performer turned out to be “The Whale,” No. 245, the Dads’s battle-scarred 1984 Volvo station wagon. Like its marine mammal namesake, The Whale was extremely comfortable in the water. It was impressively stable, the brakes worked brilliantly, and the car was even kind of, sort of fast:

Meanwhile, the Dad’s other car, The Molvochero, No. 243, revealed the results of its radical weight loss program. With the rear part of the roof hastily sawed off last week, the former “Molvo” — a Mazda Miata with a Volvo station wagon shell awkwardly welded to its exterior — now resembles one of those old Ford Ranchero cars with a pick-up truck grafted on to the rear end. Hence the new name that’s almost as cumbersome and inelegant as the vehicle itself: “The Molvochero.”

Day Two was more promising, as the rain stopped and the sun attempted to make an appearance.

This video shows the Bernal Dads Molvo vs. a crappy Ford Rustang. Molvo wins!

By the end of the weekend, the Bernal Dads had put in a valiant showing: The Molvochero had fallen out of contention, but The Whale took the checkered flag in fourth place in class, and 19th overall — a pretty solid performance for a race that began with 171 cars competing. Pumped up with adrenaline and too many huffed hydrocarbons, the Bernal Dads posed for this calendar-ready team portrait at the end of the race.

The Bernal Dads brought the sexxxy, but another Bernal dad turned in an even more glamorous performance last weekend. Neighbor Alex von Wolff lives in Bernal Heights and captains The Hasselhoffs, a separate race team that divides its loyalties between Bernal and the Mission District. Driving a 1992 Toyota Paseo that’s covered from bumper-to-bumper with rave-surplus prismatic sparkly tape, the Hasselhoffs earned a victory trophy after coming in first in their competition class.