Challenge control car?

The Camry thread got me thinking.

It would be an interesting editorial excercise to run at next years challenge a C5 corvette in stock trim on R-comps through the events. That other magazing with the supertuner challenge used to do this and it was always interesting to see how something basically stock did compared to the modified cars.

I know with my MG despite only having ~$4500 invested in it at this point if I had to pay someone to do the fabrication/work it would easily exceed the cost of a SS preped C5 Z06 and probably have some $$ left over. I would think that the top 5 or so challengers to PAY someone replicate would run an easy $10-15K+.
Early C5's are knocking on the door of 12K in my area and I've seen Z06's for a bit less than $20K.

I understand the point of the challenge is to show what can be done for cheap but It would be neat at least to me to see a yardstick of what is being done for cheap. Maybe run the Legrand around too. There are a lot of people who read the magazine that aren't capable of building cars like the Challengers. It would be neat to know how much car is being built.

Good Idea or Bad Idea? What price tag do you think the "control" car would have (Meaning what do you think it would take to PAY someone to replicate the top challengers)?

I believe they've done this in the past... i remember a WRX being used a time or two.

I like this idea, especially with a vette...

A Boss Mustang was present in 2011

I didn't notice it in the magazine coverage. I'm not surprised this isn't a new idea I very very rarely have those.

But what car should be there? Really any car that has trophies at SCCA nationals would be great as that would establish a baseline that the PAX could be used to estimate other classes Autox times. The Drag strip is a bit easier to estimate from known performance data.

Well, it strikes me as being proper for the control car to be the best car you can BUY for $2000. In the challenge it would be the control vs the best cars you can BUILD for $2000. But, it would probably finish towards the bottom of the list.

Yeah but those are already there. Every year a couple of people show up with a basically stock car on sticky tires with about $2000 invested. The idea would to take the $$$ it would take to pay a shop to build a car like the previous overall winners and find out how fast of a car that $$ would get you.

Think I'm random readerman with 20k to spend. Should I pay a shop to build me the car I saw that won the GRM challenge or should I buy a C5 z06 and Khumos?

Even if it wasn't something you'd actually consider doing, I'd just love to have the yardstick for how well all the hammering and tweaking worked...

Is it demon fast, or does it just feel rough and make a lot of snarly sounds?

It would be a good reference point if each of the pros could bring their own car as a reference. Even if they had old tires from the national, it would be good information, if you don't have something like that available locally.

I say the $2012 WRX that Tim picked up makes an appearance with some take-off rubber (free to the budget).