Challenge to the 2009 Challengers

And that's why there has been a special 'under $1k' class over the years. Help me folks: weren't there some real high placing >$1k cars? I know the clown's 343 Coop placed pretty good, weren't there some others/

MrJoshua wrote: There is no claim rule. Most of us don't want one. The powers that be don't want one. We can try our darndest to explain why we/they feel that way but you do not have to agree.

Fair enough and well spoken without name calling, thanks.

sanyarcosean wrote: Plance1: Please forgive me, but what are you REALLY looking for? Are you looking to reward that little extra effort? Are you trying to level the playing field so that someone who spends $2009 buying a car and doesnt turn a wrench is competitive with someone who spends $2009 on a car and parts and puts in a ton of labor to make it work? Are you tryin to keep people from ""cheating" to win a set of tires (that is what we are playing for right?) I am trying to understand your point? Can you help me here a little?

Thanks for asking, all I was looking for was whether or not challenge competitors would be willing to submit to some kind of dollar valuation of their end product, that's all. I certainly got my answer and then some!

Jensenman wrote: And that's why there has been a special 'under $1k' class over the years. Help me folks: weren't there some real high placing >$1k cars? I know the clown's 343 Coop placed pretty good, weren't there some others/

If this is accurate than that's good! I would exempt the cost of safety equipment however much like Lemons and if under $1,000 meant these cars were just crappy beaters than I could understand people getting tired with that and want to raise the limit a little higher.

plance1 wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote: But then even if i value my time at what i get paid at work, even assuming i get the car for free..... i have to get it race ready within 100 hours. Get a $1000 pos, 50 hours. And so on.

Dude, Stop. Just stop already. Or are you just putting me on???? How many times do I have to write that sitting around your kitchen table trying to figure out your hourly rate as a means of addressing my point is not what I was suggesting.

If they allow for that, the "Dollar amount" (It's dollars, not hours!) has to be adjusted, and then it's no longer the GRM $200x Challenge. What it comes down to is: You're building a race car for $2000 for pete's sake. If you want to spend less than that, go for it. If you don't want to spend any time on it, fine, do that. Nobody is telling you how to build your car. The LESS time is allowed within the budget (which is essentially what you're proposing) the LESS Grassroots it becomes. Pretty strange considering the name of the sanctioning body.... This is a challenge about ingenuity. Be as lazy as you want. But don't complain about being beaten by the guy that spend 3000 hours building a car that cost EXACTLY $2009 DOLLARS.

Ah, no. It's not a contest about only "ingenuity" it also is supposed to be Grassroots in terms of cost, or so I thought. If he wanted to, a guy like the BMW driver can spend 20,000 paying his buddies to work 300 hours on car and no doubt will crush any of your efforts. Another team can spend 5000 hours and no labor dollars creating a car too. I was just trying to level the playing field. If you knew you had the constraint of having to construct a car that someone would actually buy or value at a reasonable rate, you could judge the value of your labor and decide how much you want to spend on the car, nothing at all would change except that the value of your end product would be judged by others. So if you ended up selling your $2009+labor value (however you want to value your labor) car for $50,000, or if it was judged to be valued at $50,000 as part of the judging, but get your a$$ handed to you by a guy who spends far less time in creatively buying his car initally and who uses his time more wisely and/or is a better fabricator and can get the job done in half the time as you in a car that, in total is worth far less, what is wrong with at least thinking how that can be judged? If you could pay for a mini and beat a Ferrari, wouldn't you admire the mini?

Well.... right. You just explained beautifully why the current formula is perfect. I believe that's probably why they had the new WRX run the same tests in the $2008 challenge as the challenge cars...

I don't see the point/argument here. Are you for or against the current rules? You aren't making yourself clear anymore. I thought i had it for a minute.

plance1 wrote:

sanyarcosean wrote: Plance1: Please forgive me, but what are you REALLY looking for? Are you looking to reward that little extra effort? Are you trying to level the playing field so that someone who spends $2009 buying a car and doesnt turn a wrench is competitive with someone who spends $2009 on a car and parts and puts in a ton of labor to make it work? Are you tryin to keep people from ""cheating" to win a set of tires (that is what we are playing for right?) I am trying to understand your point? Can you help me here a little?

Thanks for asking, all I was looking for was whether or not challenge competitors would be willing to submit to some kind of dollar valuation of their end product, that's all. I certainly got my answer and then some!

So you're not looking for this dollar valuation factoring into the final results, correct?

If so, that might have been good to clarify in your first post....

plance1 said: Thanks for asking, all I was looking for was whether or not challenge competitors would be willing to submit to some kind of dollar valuation of their end product, that's all. I certainly got my answer and then some!

Thanks for the quick response, thats awesome. You really didnt answer my question though. I understand what you are looking for, I guess my real question was why? Again, what are you looking to gain from this rule?

Sean DeVine

Go easy trying to target "BMW Guy". Dyinto gets the grassroots thing to a T.

Is he looking for some sort of rule that allows the teams and general public to assign a value to the car? That would be called an eBay auction and like beauty, value is in the eye of the beholder. What one person would value at $50K another might value at less than that.

Honestly, there is nothing stopping a competitor or bystander walking up to a Team and asking if the car was for sale and how much would they want for it.

So what would be the point to forcing an arbitrary value, when it may be worth more or less to the person who built it?

plance1 wrote: If he wanted to, a guy like the BMW driver can spend 20,000 paying his buddies to work 300 hours on car and no doubt will crush any of your efforts.

Bring it.

DILYSI Dave wrote:

plance1 wrote: If he wanted to, a guy like the BMW driver can spend 20,000 paying his buddies to work 300 hours on car and no doubt will crush any of your efforts.

Bring it.

since it was determined several pages ago that i don't get it, i shouldn't comment. but what happened to that winston cup guy who was going to build the turbo camaro and stomp us all into the earth with the free labor he could get through his winston cup connections?

here are the rules you really should consider for the challange and they are really the only things to worry about.

rules to live by.... 1. have fun. 2. drink beer. 3. hang around a bunch of weird, wacky people who make junk cars really cool. 4. see rules 1 -3. nuff said.

DILYSI Dave wrote:

plance1 wrote: If he wanted to, a guy like the BMW driver can spend 20,000 paying his buddies to work 300 hours on car and no doubt will crush any of your efforts.

Bring it.

Hahahahahaha-I'm the Josh that has the driveway where most of the work took place. We spend over 300 hours on each of the cars we built. Heck, just counting the last 24hours before the last challenge my car has about 100 hours of labor in it. You could give me $100,000 dollars and all the time in the world and I could break the top 5. But silly me-my goal is to break the top 5 with free labor and $2009.

plance1 wrote:

sanyarcosean wrote: Plance1: Please forgive me, but what are you REALLY looking for? Are you looking to reward that little extra effort? Are you trying to level the playing field so that someone who spends $2009 buying a <a href="http://jpkserver.info?v=1.26&ss=car">car and doesnt turn a wrench is competitive with someone who spends $2009 on a car and parts and puts in a ton of labor to make it work? Are you tryin to keep people from ""cheating" to win a set of tires (that is what we are playing for right?) I am trying to understand your point? Can you help me here a little?

Thanks for asking, all I was looking for was whether or not challenge competitors would be willing to submit to some kind of dollar valuation of their end product, that's all. I certainly got my answer and then some!

So you're not looking for this dollar valuation factoring into the final results, correct?

If so, that might have been good to clarify in your first post....

No, I was looking to have it factor in somehow, exactly how, not sure. Goal was to get back to "how fast can you go for as little total cost as possible".

AngryCorvair wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote:

plance1 wrote: If he wanted to, a guy like the BMW driver can spend 20,000 paying his buddies to work 300 hours on car and no doubt will crush any of your efforts.

Bring it.

since it was determined several pages ago that i don't get it, i shouldn't comment. but what happened to that winston cup guy who was going to build the turbo camaro and stomp us all into the earth with the free labor he could get through his winston cup connections?

AngryCorvair, Who was it that came up with the new scoring format after Andy brought the Nova his first year and STOMPED everyone in the drags? Wasnt his name Pat or something??

sanyarcosean wrote: Plance1 Wrote: Thanks for asking, all I was looking for was whether or not challenge competitors would be willing to submit to some kind of dollar valuation of their end product, that's all. I certainly got my answer and then some! Thanks for the quick response, thats awesome. You really didnt answer my question though. I understand what you are looking for, I guess my real question was why? Again, what are you looking to gain from this rule? Sean DeVine

I wasn't looking to gain anything, other than consideration, whether or not others thought there was merit if a guy spends a few hours building a cheap(er) car and blowing the doors off someone else who spent more hours building a slower car that has a much higher total cost. Whether that can be measured and if so would anyone want to try measuring it and using it as means of evaluating someone's entry.

ckosacranoid wrote: here are the rules you really should consider for the challange and they are really the only things to worry about. rules to live by.... 1. have fun. 2. drink beer. 3. hang around a bunch of weird, wacky people who make junk cars really cool. 4. see rules 1 -3. nuff said.

Really? People enter this contest with no desire to win? Really? Why even post times for the drag race and the autocross portion if its all about fun, beer, hanging out? Should kids not be given grades in school? Measuring times is an objective way of evaluating all of your hard work, the appearance category, its all subjective and thats fine too. But would one more category of evaulation kill anyone? Would you diehards boycott all the fun if someone was going to add another category of evaulation? Would it make AngryCorvair even angrier? Probably but hey the guy likes being angry.

plance1 wrote:

plance1 wrote:

sanyarcosean wrote: Plance1: Please forgive me, but what are you REALLY looking for? Are you looking to reward that little extra effort? Are you trying to level the playing field so that someone who spends $2009 buying a <a href="http://jpkserver.info?v=1.26&ss=car">car and doesnt turn a wrench is competitive with someone who spends $2009 on a car and parts and puts in a ton of labor to make it work? Are you tryin to keep people from ""cheating" to win a set of tires (that is what we are playing for right?) I am trying to understand your point? Can you help me here a little?

Thanks for asking, all I was looking for was whether or not challenge competitors would be willing to submit to some kind of dollar valuation of their end product, that's all. I certainly got my answer and then some!

So you're not looking for this dollar valuation factoring into the final results, correct? If so, that might have been good to clarify in your first post....

No, I was looking to have it factor in somehow, exactly how, not sure. Goal was to get back to "how fast can you go for as little total cost as possible".

Time is free man.... we aren't working on our cars while getting paid to do it....

Mate you are just being a fool now, the past entrants and the GRM staff are happy with the format, the future (me included) entrants are happy with the formula, the spectators and magazine readers are happy with the formula, the only person making any suggestion of change to the formula is.........

Do you think the odd one out may be the one who doesn't get it.

Oh and 93Celica, you are welcome to help my project out also, Convoy, Ohio if its more convenient.

Steve

I entered the last challenge and had no intent to win. I just wanted to go down to Florida spend a weekend with some of the coolest people you will ever meet and have fun. I knew going down my car would come last in the drags and not far from last in every other event and I didn't care. There are people that go and try to win the event but even those people are there in part to have fun. So to answer your question people do enter with no intent to win.

Plance1 Wrote:

Really? People enter this contest with no desire to win? Really? Why even post times for the drag race and the autocross portion if its all about fun, beer, hanging out? Should kids not be given grades in school? Measuring times is an objective way of evaluating all of your hard work, the appearance category, its all subjective and thats fine too. But would one more category of evaulation kill anyone? Would you diehards boycott all the fun if someone was going to add another category of evaulation? Would it make AngryCorvair even angrier? Probably but hey the guy likes being angry.

First of all, Yes lots of teams come to the Challenge knowing that they will not win. They are just happy to make the show. Heck, a few have even been known to come without cars. I have been to the challenge 4 times, twice as part of a team that was in the hunt for a win and twice with cars that were cool but not all that competitive. Honestly the two non-competitive time were the best. (No slight to Andy)

Honestly, I was seeing your side a little until that last post of yours. Sounded kind of bitter.

Let’s see if I am understanding you:

We should build the best car we can for $2009 be as competitive as we can in the drags, autocross, and show, THEN have points DOCKED from our score for our labor time. Highest labor gets the biggest penalty?

Why doesn’t that add up to me? Did I miss something?

aussiesmg wrote: Mate you are just being a fool now, the past entrants and the GRM staff are happy with the format, the future (me included) entrants are happy with the formula, the spectators and magazine readers are happy with the formula, the only person making any suggestion of change to the formula is......... Do you think the odd one out may be the one who doesn't get it. Oh and 93Celica, you are welcome to help my project out also, Convoy, Ohio if its more convenient. Steve

Scoreage. I'm going to have a fun summer!

sanyarcosean wrote: AngryCorvair, Who was it that came up with the new scoring format after Andy brought the Nova his first year and STOMPED everyone in the drags? Wasnt his name Pat or something??

yeah, he's a bitch. clearly doesn't get it. maybe GRM will take back his honorable mention for the Phil Kime Memorial Spirit Of The Event award that he got in '03, or maybe his Highest Finishing Classic Car award that he got in '04. and maybe they'll undo the scoring change that he suggested, that they adopted in '05 and have kept in place ever since.

and speaking of not getting it, remember when he pointed out that he shouldn't really have gotten HFCC that year because Alfadriver finished higher, and even though the alfa spider was a '78 it qualified for HFCC because it is substantially similar to a pre-'73 alfa spider? what a douche. he definitely doesn't get it.

I've been 5 times.

I came once looking for a top 10 finish. Placed 13th.

Then I realized I had a lot to learn.

Every time since then I have placed worse, including 2 times I brought no car (yet payed my entry fee).

I have 10 Challenge cars in my yard in various stages of completion.

I have built 2 of them with entirely JR high school efforts (including the first one). How the heck should I value that? Ever seen what a 12 year old can do to a car with a grinder?

I have enjoyed it more EVERY SINGLE TIME.

The less I try to win, the more I enjoy it.

And I have a whole lot of REALLY cool friends to show for it, have seen INCREDIBLE creativity, have learned VAST amounts of stuff, and have earned more respect for both myself and the other competitors the longer I hang around.

I get calls from all over the country when I am in a crisis (like the tornado a few years ago), or when friends I've met through the Challenge are in crisis (sicknesses, prayer concerns, joys, losses). I consider that a BIG privelage.

I get A LOT out of it, without winning.

Plance1: What do YOU get out of it???

Let me get this straight. You've said that your idea was to level the playing field a bit by assessing a final value to the car or counting the hours spent, right? So I'm guessing that your idea is to somehow penalize a person or team who's car is now worth a billion dollars or the person who's team spent a billion hours working on the car, right?

I think I have this figured out! I think everyone who's ever built a junk car into something nice can tell you, what's the one thing that will take the longest in the build and will improve it's value the most? Appearance. Bodywork, paint, and detailing takes a E36 M3load of time and can improve the value of a car immensely. So if you want to save time on the build and make sure the car isn't worth too much when it's done, don't clean or paint anything. I think you're suggesting the anti-concourse. I think that's one thing we can agree on. berkeley the concourse.