$2003 GRM Challenge pics

[KendallF]

I went down today to Gainesville and watched the drag race portion of the Grass Roots Motorsports $2003 Challenge. What a hoot! The cars ranged from ingenious examples of low buck creativity to the truly deranged..

Jacob Morse and his father, along with Erik Fisher (sp?) were running Jacob's 84 T-type. The T was fighting some slow spool issues and street tires but managed a 13.4@105 before I left. Good luck tomorrow in the autocross, guys!

The fastest car while I was there was a yellow SBC powered 280Z that ran an 11.48@117. Most impressive was a silver GLH Omni that turned an 11.62! It's turbo'ed and running nitrous; they melted all of the plugs on that pass. Guess that was "the tune".

I took some miscellaneous pics and thumbnailed them here:

http://home.attbi.com/~kendall32212/grmchallenge/

 

[GS70350]

Hey Kendall, Glad you could make it to the event, it was great seeing you. We are back and had a great time, and ended up placing 14th overall. final drag race time was a 13.3 @ 107.2 to get us in 7th place in the drags. I also got 18th in the concours, and the car did very well in the road race with a 56.2 second lap thanks to Eric Fisher's driving skills to get us in 26th place. The winning road course lap was around a 51 second lap, and there were many many cars in the 60s and 70s. The car certainly did very well considering its state of tune, street tire traction, and making no changes between events. I ran it on the street tires in the drags, and in the autocross i used them as well. Overall there was a bit under 100 cars competing. Also keep in mind that out of the 13 that beat me overall, only 2 or so were licensed, street legal, cars, and even at that, they were gutted inside, all utilized race rubber, and they were very purpose built. Everyone was quite amazed at the autocross/road course times since the car was so heavy and only had bilsteins and stock size street tires. I have to say that Eric's driving was certainly the #1 winning factor in the road course and without him we would certainly be well behind.

I plan on attending again next year and have a year to sort things out. I plan on getting an alignment with more camber instead of negative camber, finding some used race tires, spend some time tuning the car at the strip to get the boost problems fixed, the mixture leaned out, and the off the line traction fixed. Also might try and find some 16x8 inch GTA wheels to use, and whatever else in can find. Id like to get a 54 or so in the road course, a high 11 in the drags, and do a good detail and touch up job on the car to bring the concourse points up from the 349 to about a 355 to 360 which shouldnt be too hard. If i can do that i think ill place in the top 5-8 overall which will be even more satisfying.

Its a great event, if your in the area you should try and attend next year or even participate.

 

[UNGN]

umm...yeah. Someone can build a Shogun replica for $2000 . Don't tell Jay Leno, his was $50K 15 years ago.

Congrats on the accomplishment, the pictures looked just like I thought they would. $6K to 10K ringers masquerading as Junk.

 

[GS70350]

well, no replica cars or kit cars are allowed. Has to be production based. Yea many of those cars look like 10K dollar cars, and many of them are actually worth 6 to 10 thousand dollars, but it wasnt money that they spent to get them there, it was hard work and lots of time. That is what is so cool about it.

 

[UNGN]

Originally posted by GS70350
well, no replica cars or kit cars are allowed. Has to be production based.

Shogun Replica

The turbo mopars and other S-boxs fit the spirit of the rules.

Unless the guy owned a junkyard (and everything in it sells for $1) AND a machine shop with a huge scrap metal pile, it would pretty hard to make a Shogun Replica for $2K.

Do they have a $2000 Claimer Rule? That would make for REAL grassroots motorsports.

 

[KendallF]

Originally posted by UNGN
Shogun Replica

The turbo mopars and other S-boxs fit the spirit of the rules.

Unless the guy owned a junkyard (and everything in it sells for $1) AND a machine shop with a huge scrap metal pile, it would pretty hard to make a Shogun Replica for $2K.

Do they have a $2000 Claimer Rule? That would make for REAL grassroots motorsports.

I am sure that some finagling occurred on most of the entries, but there were a bunch that showed amazing levels of low buck craftsmanship. It was kind of funny to see the number of cars that I thought might do OK that were slow, and vice versa. The Shogun car was pretty decently done; it had clutch problems but managed a 14.3 that I saw. A Mustang with a 429 swap that I thought might do well was in the mid 14s, I think.

I'm not sure what this guy was smoking...or these guys.

It's kind of hard to make out in the pictures, but this is a Buick 215 V8 mounted where the passenger seat used to be in this Datsun 210. Pretty cool swap; it wasn't doing too well performance wise though.

 

[turbofish38]

Thanks for the pix Kendall. I had a blast. Yeah like Jacob said street tires and a license plate. We will have no excuses for next year. If you got a few minutes to waste go to www.grassrootsmotorsports.com and check out the challenge message board. The clown(his name, not my insult) with the red 300ZX and MAF poking through the hood is still claiming he built his for under $1000. Man that liar has 1G in paint and materials. The Miata with the 302 took first and I think the SBC Nissan got second. I think a lot of the cars fit the spirit of the rules and I thought some where there was a claimer rule. Next time I should read the rule book. Make sure you keep an eye out for us on SPEED CHANNEL because they had a camera and reporter out there on Saturday for the autocross. I didn't see them Friday so hopefully they got some drag footage. A big thanks for Jacob for pulling us through. Without him none of this would of happened. You guys should have been there for the Concours judging. Everybody thought it was a GN and no way you could find one for under $2000. Jacob set them straight on the differences of a T-Type and they were really impressed with the home built front mount. Thanks Jacob for letting me be a part of it. Eric Fisher

 

[UNGN]

Originally posted by KendallF
I'm not sure what this guy was smoking...or these guys.

It's kind of hard to make out in the pictures, but this is a Buick 215 V8 mounted where the passenger seat used to be in this Datsun 210. Pretty cool swap; it wasn't doing too well performance wise though.

Thanks Kendall, I was trying to figure out where the motor went on that Datsun. Now it makes more sense

Is that a loop of pink garden hose turning that supercharger?