Marjorie Suddard said:I was really surprised he dealt with the whole thing as well as he did. I mean, there was a smoking car, a rowdy crowd and a fire crew at his front door, and he basically said, “Okay.”
I always assumed worse stuff happened on football weekends, so they were used to it. IIRC, after the excitement, while the authorities were there, didn't one of the Westside guys ride the barstool out from the lobby, see people in uniforms, freak out, and tear off across the parking lot (or am I imagining things)?
As for my story, I first learned about it with the $2003 Challenge issue, with the Mongrel Motorsports Miata that led to a pretty significant change in the budget rules. I wanted to give it a shot for 2004, but was a little too busy. Convinced a couple of friends to join me, and we did a pretty basic Integra-swapped CRX for the $2005 Challenge, had a lot of fun, and actually finished reasonably well for a bunch of rookies who didn't know what they were doing. That led us to believe we knew what we were doing, and we made multiple failed attempts at bettering our ranking in the event in the ensuing years. Eventually, I accepted the role of finishing somewhat anonymously in the $2017 Challenge with a basic Miata, and am still working on my originally planned vehicle for that year. Here's hoping it only shows up two years late. The most important thing I learned about picking a car is build something you'll have a use for after the challenge, even if that compromises its competitiveness there.
