What Would Make You Register for the $2018 Challenge

Here are my reasons for not attending. 

A) Distance. I live in New York, Florida is quite a haul. I don't have a truck or trailer, nor do I know anyone with a truck and trailer that I could borrow. So that means that whatever I buy/build, I'm driving ~18 hours one way.

B) The used car market in my area is terrible. $2000 buys you a truck with a swiss-cheese frame and blown brake lines that won't pass inspection. Or a Subaru Outback with no shock towers left and an engine that jumped time. The "cheap" Miatas are $4000 and have no rocker panels or quarter panels left.

C) Neither of my current cars qualify but I have no real room or use for another car. Any money I spend on a Challenge car (and $2000 is not inconsequential money for me, then add in travel and lodging money) is money that I could be putting into my supercharged Miata to make it even better. And I doubt that whatever I build is going to be faster or more enjoyable to drive than that thing currently is. 

For the past few years we have brought simple builds just so we could come hang out.  We somehow stumbled into a couple of trophies doing that.  Who'd a thunk it .  I guess my point is you don't have to be a contender for the win to come and enjoy the event.  I'll add that sometimes you see a few teams making their first appearance thinking they have a shot at winning.  They are so cute.  :)

And, since it was brought up, I would like to see a little more information on the Great Moments page, and maybe more than one photo of the car.  Maybe add an under hood shot?

For 2018? Probably nothing, unless you can convince my fiancé to move our wedding date. I’m really wanting to make it to 2019 or 2020 though! 

Turbine said:

For 2018? Probably nothing, unless you can convince my fiancé to move our wedding date. I’m really wanting to make it to 2019 or 2020 though! 

Same here lol

Just get married in Gainesville duh

Ok, ok, I registered!  Do I get my Klondike bar at check in?

Howabout dropping safety related stuff from the budget?  Lights, gauges, roll bars, etc.?

Stuff that can't really be any sort of competitive edge, and must be on the car at all times (not just for concours, or night-time, etc.). That makes sure anything that adds weight or lowers aero-efficiency (is there such a thing on a Challenge car?) is there for the penalty as well as the benefit for all 3 areas of the Challenge. 

I think we have an old hatchback that may be able to make an appearance ;)

Oh boy.  

In reply to Robbie :

I wish! We’re honeymooning in Key West, but that’s still an 8ish hour drive to Gainesville. 

I haven't looked through the rules in a really long time.  I just went through them and saw the crapcan clause.  In regards to the Lemons/Champ cars do the roll cages count towards the budget? I could make a some changes to our Champcar car and get it under budget, but not if I count the cage since I hired it out.  

Circuit_Motorsports said:

Howabout dropping safety related stuff from the budget?  Lights, gauges, roll bars, etc.?

This is the crux of the problem for me next year. Had the Spousal Unit's vacation not interfered I would be preparing The Barbed Wire Special for this year's festivities instead of sitting here in front of the computer. As a several others have intimated, a Challenge car unless you bring it back year after year is pretty much a one-trick pony. Yes, I understand the car can be returned to street duty but that's not what I got the car for and missing The Challenge this year means moving everything a year to the right. I did not want to build a non-competitive car, drive it 2700 miles for a coupla days of autocross and concours, and drive it back 2700 miles without having a chance of placing well.

I love cars, I love hanging out with others who share my mania and I love good competition. I figured the build for this along with the trip to and from Florida from California was going to run about 5 grand. I don't spend that kind of money to not know I'm going to have a chance at the box. This how I've been in all of my competitive activities: Kart racing, motorcycle racing, bicycle racing, long distance motorcycle rallying, etc. First and foremost, I wanna have fun. Having a chance to win is part of that fun.

I know that Lemons cars get an automatic pass into The Challenge and I could build The Barbed Wire Special into one but the cage becomes a budget item unless I run the Lemons drive train. The Lemons build will be about 150hp below The Challenge build. A non-competitive build. If I lived in Florida, or southern Georgia, this wouldn't be a big deal and I'd show up for E36 M3s and giggles. Driving to and from California is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Here was the plan:

1. Do a good build for The Challenge that will do well. I don't think it would be a winner but from what I've read of previous events it would've been on the box assuming we didn't run into the unforeseen issues that plague these sorts of things. We all know about assume. Drive there and back; enjoy the adventure and meeting a whole host of folks who enjoy the same E36 M3 I do. Kicking butt, while important is not the primary goal. Having fun is.

2. Either turn it into a Lemons car OR take the build to the next level and enter it into One Lap. Either build requires a full cage; Lemons by rule and One Lap by common sense. Any car that can go 160mph on a closed course needs a full cage. Any cage I would build will not be removable so I would not be able to do The Challenge with this car. Back to the drawing board...

3. If the car runs as well as I expect, I was hoping to leave it in Indiana and fly back a coupla weeks later for a drive to Virginia and the UTCC. I thought this would certainly cap The Barbed Wire Special's career as a budget build racecar.

I was actually going to bring up the roll cage as a budget item to The Powers That Be in person because I don't understand why it is viewed as a performance enhancement in The Challenge and I don't see why TPTB would restrict us from including safety equipment from a motorsports event. In the first case, while the cage may improve Autocross performance, 150 pounds of steel is going to definitely slow the car down in the drags. Not being able to return next year with a competitive car is a real bummer for me. That is the key in this diatribe: Me. I have no idea how many others have brought this up but I can see how the cage as a budget item has a real impact on participation. It does in my case.

I see Patrick's response to this so perhaps this has been brought up before? I'll get the popcorn started.

logdog said:

I haven't looked through the rules in a really long time.  I just went through them and saw the crapcan clause.  In regards to the Lemons/Champ cars do the roll cages count towards the budget? I could make a some changes to our Champcar car and get it under budget, but not if I count the cage since I hired it out.  

The roll cages subject is a touchy subject but I bet if you emailed the GRM staff they could make an exception. If it really is a crapcan racer (i.e. don't use this as a loophole if you want a professionally built cage in your challenge-only car) I think that is exactly why they have the clause. There's just a lot more stuff you need to make a high-speed wheel to wheel racecar safe than an autox/drag car.

It's really tough to write fair rules around cages that say "this part of the cage is for safety and is budget exempt and this part is for performance enhancement and is not".

But, many challenge cars do in fact have roll bars/cages. NHRA will require them as you get closer to the pointy end of the drags. Yes, you probably cannot pay someone to build a cage with a challenge budget, but you can budget for materials and do it yourself.

Robbie said:

Just get married in Gainesville duh

We actually considered taking a long drive that ended up in gainesville for the challenge as a honeymoon if the timing was right. It was not

Although....i consider it to be a great sign that my bride to be was willing to drive all around the country in a 84 Caprice as a honeymoon and was seriously excited about it.

Cant change the venue either, i have people literally flying from halfway around the world to attend

In reply to ThatsNoUsername :

yeah I think you're doing it right

Robbie said:

In reply to ThatsNoUsername :

yeah I think you're doing it right

We will make it next year.......she even asked if she could also build a challenge car.. That could be fun

So... i have been considering bringing the LS1-KART down to play as exhibition. Timing is kind  of convenient in that my club, Jax-Solo is hosting a joint SCCA (Jax-Solo + CFR)  autocross at The FIRM (in Starke) on that Saturday (8/13).  I am the Jax-Solo registrar and other duties as needed... so i will surely not miss it, but i would miss day two of $2018, which since i would run as exhibition i would really just be hanging out anyway! We are expecting 120+ entries, so there will be autocrossers in town. 

i really only have a couple reservations about doing it... 1-how many LS1-KART parts will disappear overnight at a Gainesville hotel parking lot (i went to UF, i have some experience in this area)  and second, $200 for parking lot autocross (since only participating as exhibition) is hard to my cheap ass to justify... 

In reply to Go_Gators :

Check an AW11 for any parts, mainly the LS, that happen to disappear. 

captdownshift said:

In reply to Go_Gators :

Check an AW11 for any parts, mainly the LS, that happen to disappear. 

I'm not sure the puny supercharger could keep up with an LS, or that the little transaxle could hang, but I'm willing to find out!

In regards to cages,  Last year the cost of a cage was umm discussed at length /really about the last 2 years went into this but, It can be argued down to the cost of used Tubing. my car has a nice full cage but I bought it that way which is also acceptable. there are tons of old cages to be removed and put in another car, for free, to dispose of an old bent car, or less. 

Go_Gators said:

So... i have been considering bringing the LS1-KART down to play as exhibition. Timing is kind  of convenient in that my club, Jax-Solo is hosting a joint SCCA (Jax-Solo + CFR)  autocross at The FIRM (in Starke) on that Saturday (8/13).  I am the Jax-Solo registrar and other duties as needed... so i will surely not miss it, but i would miss day two of $2018, which since i would run as exhibition i would really just be hanging out anyway! We are expecting 120+ entries, so there will be autocrossers in town. 

i really only have a couple reservations about doing it... 1-how many LS1-KART parts will disappear overnight at a Gainesville hotel parking lot (i went to UF, i have some experience in this area)  and second, $200 for parking lot autocross (since only participating as exhibition) is hard to my cheap ass to justify... 

 

come down on fri. jus' leave the car at the Hotel. The Owl's will watch it for you, Base yourself there come back Saturday evening and hang at the Awards Show

Circuit_Motorsports said:

Howabout dropping safety related stuff from the budget?  Lights, gauges, roll bars, etc.?

Stuff that can't really be any sort of competitive edge, and must be on the car at all times (not just for concours, or night-time, etc.). That makes sure anything that adds weight or lowers aero-efficiency (is there such a thing on a Challenge car?) is there for the penalty as well as the benefit for all 3 areas of the Challenge. 

I think we have an old hatchback that may be able to make an appearance ;)

A budget free roll cage would greatly benefit my next build for safety and performance which is exactly why they need to count towards the budget.

Roll cages can be considered a significant structural rigidity improvement and therefore have performance benefits.

Roll bars make less difference in torsional rigidity but make the car a safer place to be and give you a solid way to mount harnesses.

An idea:

Draw the line at anything more than a 4-point roll bar is subject to budget, but 4-point bars and hardware are budget exempt. ie. your main hoop, two rear diagonals, and 4 spreader plates/boxes are free. Any material added beyond that gets accounted for in the budget. This would appease the serious drag racers by keeping the high barrier to entry for seriously quick drag times, and allow the autocrosser in a convertible to not have to decide between a simple roll bar or doing without. 

In reply to n8 :

I'm not sure the material cost is really the problem. If you are fabricating a roll cage yourself I think you can probably make your own challenge legal structural rigidity improvements. (And as stated before, plenty of challenge cars have been able to put a full cage in the budget).

IF a roll bar is a safety item, can I buy an expensive (like $1k) off-the-shelf pre-fabbed par and slap it on for free and not change the budget of my $2018 car? Or possibly even worse, could I drop my $2018 car off at a race prep shop and pay them to custom fabricate a 4-point roll bar for me?

Many safety items are still expected to be budgeted for. Examples are flexplates, driveshaft loops, parachutes, bellhousings, etc.

Can we not talk about this every year please.  Same E36 M3 different day.  A certain team(who i will not point public fingers at out of respect) dominated the $2015 town hall meeting complaining about(making the personal decision to) sacrificing safety of a budget counting cage to put money at other parts of the car.  It was maddening enough that I walked away and haven’t participated in another meeting.  

Work within the rules and stop trying to change them to suit yourself.  It’s called a challenge for a reason.  You don’t need a roll bar until 11.49 in a closed car and for 99.9% of entrants ever the barrier to running quicker than that is not the lack of a roll bar, it’s that it is not easy to make a car do all the things it needs to do in concert to run those times on any budget let alone $20xx.

Trying to get a roll bar or cage passed off as exempt safety equipment is just a way to stiffen up a wet noodle chassis without having to actually work at it. Gauges and lights for safety?  Pssh, please.  I pulled out my tach and ran one headlight to make budget.  Oh lordy i have 1psi of oil pressure i better stop for safety’s sake.