Is the Gastropod class coming back for 2020?

Just checking, I didn't see it as an official class on the event page, but was wondering if it is still going to be an unofficial class again this year, and if so, same rules as last year?

I hope so.

I'm confident that Radwood is the 2020 class, should have lots of gastropod crossover.

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm confident that Radwood is the 2020 class, should have lots of gastropod crossover.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking if Gastropod is there, I’ll go with 250 TW tires so I can run it and Radwood.

Was there ever an official tire decision made? 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

Was there ever an official tire decision made? 

It was in the official unofficial rules for Gastropod.It wasn’t an official class last year, but I think there was a street tire class, that had an even higher TW value requirement.

I think if people want to do it, we should do it. I promise to not break myself prior to the event this time. The runup to the event was fun, making shirts was fun, hearing the stories was fun. We should have more fun. 

Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong, I'd be in. 

I have been in a mental struggle over what to bring to Challenge for 2020. A Gastropod sequel would likely inspire me to cool the jets a bit and stick to my original thoughts; not a bad thing by any means. 
How does everyone feel about keeping Gastropods unofficial versus blending in last year's Daily Driver recoup rules and trying to have an official class?

I'm mostly fine with the same rules as last year's Gastropod class, and leaving it as an unofficial class.  How was the brake component/safety items budget rule handled last year.  In or out of budget for Gastropods?

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I think if people want to do it, we should do it. I promise to not break myself prior to the event this time. The runup to the event was fun, making shirts was fun, hearing the stories was fun. We should have more fun. 

I would put forth that the Gastropod spirit is endemic to the challenge no matter what. At most, there are a handful of people who are there to "Win" the event as spelled out in the rules. But at the core, I see a lot of people that are there to have a really good time while flogging the bejeezus out of some poor mechanical chimera that they concocted out of semi-mobile scrap metal and couch change.

I have no skin in this but I think bringing Gastropod closer to the daily driver category would benefit both.

Stampie (FS) said:

I have no skin in this but I think bringing Gastropod closer to the daily driver category would benefit both.

There does not appear to be a daily driver trophy this year.

Let's keep chatting about rules/changes. The more we can talk about it, the closer we get to firming things up. 

Since I did not run last year, I don't have strong opinions on where changes may be needed, so I'll mostly listen in.  Would definitely like to hear what worked/didn't work last year, though.

Just from watching you guys talk last year I think the tire rule caused the most concern.  

I think gastropod is best as a "you know it when you see it" and just let people enroll their own cars. Less "does it have interior trim pieces present?" and more "would you use this as your only car for a summer?".

Another interesting idea - in my opinion of course - would be to find a 'tire sponsor'. ie help find a manufacturer or brand who is interested in sponsoring the even who has a high-performance street tire in a lot of sizes. Gastropod is any car that runs that tire in the size they choose for the whole event. I guess even without the sponsor I have liked the idea of a spec tire class for a long time.

The '19 Gastropod rules, and Seth's efforts, worked quite well for the intended purposes of not only getting some of us to the Challenge, but also giving us a common rally point. This helped ease introductions to each other as well as the event!

I like the way lowering the entry barrier in this class removed some pressure to be competitive; allowing driver level cars to have a bigger presence at the Challenge. I don't believe making the changes necessary to be an official class need to negatively affect that.

Three season drivers are definitely subjective, as Robbie stated, you know it when you see it. This is tough to regulate, so employing common sense and not being a dick are paramount to success. I hate rule sets that tell me what a street car is or isn't, so I refrain from getting down in the weeds on the subject. Tags and insurance, lights, horn, wipers, and some semblance of a finished interior. Basically keep what we had and the reasoning behind it.

Tires. We went down this road pretty far in the discussion last year. Far enough that it began to feel like we were beating a dead horse. I was perfectly happy with the available choices at 280-300TW and up. Lowering that to 250TW was fine, and I would suggest leaving that alone as well.

The area that created the largest gap to being considered an official class was the lowered recoup cap and restrictions on how those dollars were spent, IIRC. Doing away with this gives more room for "built right" vs. "bought right." I think both are important for Challenge cars. Knowing others were on limited recoup was ok when I showed up in a basically stock car with wheels and exhaust, but there wasn't much "build" going on for my entry.

My suggestions for 2020 would include reverting to normal Challenge rules overall, while keeping the tire and finished car restrictions the same as last year. If there is overwhelming concern that budget shenanigans with the recoup might ruin the Gastropod intent, I would consider including a stipulation that FMV trades be recorded on the recoup sheet to keep them under that $1000 cap.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I've been biting my tongue for months regarding the potential for a tire sponsor (likely on the distribution side) that would fit this mold from available sizes.  I know that GRM has had a tire sponsor in the past, but doesn't appear to (as of yet) for this year. Knowing what sizes people would be running would definitely need to be known if leaning towards a spec tire, versus just a preferred distributor who knows of the class, competition and appropriate options they supply that would fit the spirit of each specific sizes. 14" seems to be the most difficult to find decent rubber in, as 13" rubber options are actually better now than they were 5 years ago, 15 inch rubber has never left (thanks Miata) and 16" becomes a bit of a hole again. 

It's probably not a great year to approach any company about support. 

One thing I missed last year was the personal interaction with the lot of you about how you felt about /perceived the rules, which was totally my fault for not actually being there. Sorry about that. 

Talking to people online and looking at the cars that considered themselves Gastropods, the things that I liked were: 

1. The "real car" rule. You needed interiors and car stuff and everyone seemed to follow that without halving to write 38 pages of rules requireing radio knobs. 

2. The tire rule. Yes, it's got issues. All tire rules have issues. The point was to prevent it from becoming a tire war and I think that worked. If it didn't work, let me know why. 

What I didn't like: 

1. The recoup structure that I made. I don't think it was necessary, and like mentioned above I think it prevented some actual building that would be cool to see. 

For 2020 I'd like to see: 

1. The community that was the Gastropods last year. I want to see this again, but in person this time. You guys were awesome and I want to hang out. 

2. That's it really. That's the important thing to me. To have a like minded group of people that are building.......less.......serious? No, that's not the right word. Less....intense? Maybe? People with cars who want to come and hang out and maybe take their first autocross runs ever or their 10,000th and see what nonsense the Nelsons bring and eat some tacos. Let's figure out how to do that again. 

If, and a BIG IF, mary and i pull off the neon build under budget. it wouldn't be gastropod legal due to maxed out recoup and 200tw tires. Right?

Dusterbd13-michael said:

If, and a BIG IF, mary and i pull off the neon build under budget. it wouldn't be gastropod legal due to maxed out recoup and 200tw tires. Right?

By last years rules, it wouldn't be legal.  I'm guessing this year that 200TW tires will still keep it out.

I would like to see the class come back, I think it was fun to have a little friendly competition at the non pointy end of the stick. We had one of the most "built" gastropod entries , and the recoup restrictions did make it a more difficult build. 

Personally I think the 250TW tires was a good threshold and fit the original theme " I want you to be able to sell the car to your niece at the end and have her be able to put 25k miles on them as she finishes high school. Only four tires for the event. " 

Not sure it is worth it to play a bunch of recoup games to try and win this class, but standard recoup rules would generate more built vs bought cars. I think both types have a place in this class. 

We all know what street cars with wipers and lights and interiors are, so do that. Add the tire restriction of 250 TW and I think you have the class in a nutshell.

I liked everything about it last year (although it should be noted I didn't have much to do with the budget management on my entry since it was bluej's) with only one real exception: we didn't get everybody together at any point.  Looking back I could have taken the initiative to try and make that happen, but instead did my usual challenge thing of getting involved in other people's cars and generally roaming around.  But I really liked having the Gastropod shirts, it made it easy for people to go "oh hey I'm slow too!" and you could BS and have fun and compare times- I think the actual rules are far less important than the existence of the group in general, and we could simplify things by just saying something along the lines of "Gastropod is Daily Driver class with no recoup" and be done with it.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I agree with everything but the no recouped, since that would eliminate many cars from last year. I agree the rules are not very important, I just would not want to excluded too many people with a no recouped clause. Simple is better, and the more we can get to come out and have fun the better.