$2009 West Coast Event

How would you like to have a $2009 Challenge Weekend in Southern California? If you come, they will build it (how's that for a Field of Dreams twist?).

Many of you have been holding out hope for the $2009 Challenge to migrate to the West Coast. GRM looked really hard at that possibility, and even went so far as to recruit local help and invest significant time in exploring options. In the end, it was not a financially or logistically sound option for 2009. I can tell you from having worked with them that GRM has abundant enthusiasm for the West Coast, so if it had been at all possible, it would have happened.

For folks in the SoCal area, the GRM Grand Challenge series is a windfall. A whole season of racing with a $1000 build! Build one car on the cheap, and then race it over and over. Plus, you get to enjoy the challenge of tuning between events, and you share the joys and agonies with a buddy, since each team has to turn in times from two drivers.

Non-locals can also enjoy the Grand Challenge, but it would require three weekend trips down to Sunny San Diego. Even after enduring three trips, skipping the other four races would leave traveling teams at a disadvantage since it is a best-of format. Thus, the appeal of the multi-event format, which makes it a huge bang for the buck for local racers, is the very same thing that makes it very difficult for non-local teams to participate, let alone be competitive. Clearly, the Grand Challenge is a great regional series, and a poor stand-in for a $200X weekend.

Well, SDRev and Grassroots Motorsports Magazine are willing to throw you would-be Western Challengers a bone. If just twenty of you submit a prepaid $150 registration fee by the end of 2008, you can run the Grand Challenge in your own special $2009 Class. Rules and format will match the Kumho $2009 challenge, except the drag event will be run on a 1/8th mile. If you are available to build a 1/4 mile strip in the San Diego area and provide it to us for $2000 or less before June 2009, we can run the 1/4 mile, otherwise, don't ask.

The $2009 Class will be run in its entirety over the course of a single weekend in June, 2009, here in San Diego. The exact weekend won't be available until the local SCCA and Barona Drag Strip publish their 2009 schedules. We will schedule our first Grand Challenge drag race and autocross back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday midday will see a special $2009 Concourse at the drag strip, and Saturday night we will have a little get-together for the Challengers. We will get you off the track by early afternoon on Sunday, slap some trophies in your hot hands, and kick you out of town so that you can get back to work on Monday! Okay... maybe Tuesday.

Please email me at davidchong@sdrev.com, or visit www.SDGrandChallenge.com for registration details. As we have additional details and specific dates to share, we will announce them on the SDGrandChallenge website as well as here.

If you want the $20XX Challenge out West, now is your chance to vote with your feet!

David - Nicely done. It is now in the west-coaster's hands to control their destiny! I'm looking forward to seeing what $2009 creations you leftys can create. GO!

righteous.

Very, very awesome!

Time to start scheming/building again!

Sounds really good David!

To clarify, the cost to enter would be $150, PLUS cost to run at the drag and AutoX, correct? So maybe 2x $35 for the drag and 2x $65 for the autox? So a 2 man team is going to cost ~$350 to enter.

Also, just a friendly suggestion on this subject...

David_Chong wrote: If you are available to build a 1/4 mile strip in the San Diego area and provide it to us for $2000 or less before June 2009, we can run the 1/4 mile, otherwise, don't ask.

http://www.autoclubspeedway.com/dragway/

Just throwing it out there (full 1/4 mile strip)... we could likely find a Friday drag test and tune + Saturday SCCA Autox in the same weekend at Fontana sometime in '09. If its already going to be a "one weekend" event, might be worth checking out.

But its your show, so obviously doing it in your backyard is desirable. I don't think running only an 1/8th is gonna be a big deal killer for many people. I suck at drag racing anyway.

Sah-wheeeeeet!

The $2009 Class does not require a two person team like the $1000 Class. Challenge competitors enjoy 50% off all drag fees, including admission for registered teammates. We have set up a special one-day SCCA membership pass, so the AutoX costs are lower as well. Total drag cost will be about $30, and total AutoX fee will be about $45, or less if you are already an SCCA member.

Regarding the 1/4 mile, please believe me when I say that I am fully aware of all tracks in the bottom half of CA and most of the Southwest, and I have thoroughly researched the opportunities. I have already addressed this issue in my initial post, and don't care to beat the poor dead horse any more. At some point "just throwing it out there" starts to look a lot like "gift horse mouth looking," so let's get on with what I've set up for us.

Awesome. I'm in. June gives me a lot less build time than I'd like (never seems to be enough time!) but I'll still be there just the same.

David, any chance we can pay without a check? I don't have a check book (seriously), I didn't know anybody used those things anymore. Paypal? Money order/cashier's check? Credit card number over the phone?

If anybody in the Portland-ish area wants to join in on a build, I'm more than happy to host you.

Bryce

No checkbook huh. How do you pay your bills? Your credit card bill for instance.

I rarely write checks either, but I use online checking to send them for me. Saves me the cost of a stamp. Just curious.

Bryce,

Seriously? I'm about 40-50 miles north of you but in PDX all the time (including this weekend). I have a 302, nitrous kit, cam, and some other goodies already saved up for a build. I may even know where to get a car. I just don't have the space or enough manpower to make it by myself until June. Team Portland?

Oh and even being a hardcore drag racer, 1/8 mile is fine with me! Less parts breakage!

Clay wrote: No checkbook huh. How do you pay your bills? Your credit card bill for instance. I rarely write checks either, but I use online checking to send them for me. Saves me the cost of a stamp. Just curious.

My credit card company pulls money from my bank account electronically. Every bill I pay to some far-off place has some form of automatic payment, everything I do locally is either cash or card. I didn't think about sending a check from my bank to David, I suppose I could do that, although he might be a bit confused when it shows up seperately from entry form.

P71 wrote: Bryce, Seriously? I'm about 40-50 miles north of you but in PDX all the time (including this weekend). I have a 302, nitrous kit, cam, and some other goodies already saved up for a build. I may even know where to get a car. I just don't have the space or enough manpower to make it by myself until June. Team Portland? Oh and even being a hardcore drag racer, 1/8 mile is fine with me! Less parts breakage!

I guess I should clarify...if anybody wants to help with the build I've already started, there's no such thing as too much help! I already have the car, powertrain, and plan. I've been working on the car already (it's currently my daily driver as I debug the little stuff) and have either WAY too much work by June by myself or just enough to keep me busy until June depending on how much of my pile of parts ends up in the car. I've got a garage, welder, access to lots of cool tools, kegerator, etc. I was planning on a very wild build for $2009, but with the June date instead of something like Sep/Oct I'll have to pare down my ambitions a bit to get it to San Diego if I'm working solo.

Bryce

Nashco, P71, lets talk. PM me.

Bryce, it doesn't have to be a personal check. If you can just send along a Wal-Mart money order or an official bank check (cashier's or "official check") from some bank we at least vaguely recognize (1st National of Namibia won't do), that would be great.

No Western Union, they are difficult. Seriously, has anyone ever been sent one of those things? It says right on there that they don't guarantee that it is good, and if it isn't good, you are responsible for a hefty bounce fee. Nice service!

I will most anxious to purchase the entry for your excellent most hero %2090 west coast event of challenge. I would like to pay you to the sum of $1000.00 US to cover my fees of entry. If you could forward the balance to my vehicle shipper agent I owuld be most apprcaittive

David_Chong wrote: Regarding the 1/4 mile, please believe me when I say that I am fully aware of all tracks in the bottom half of CA and most of the Southwest, and I have thoroughly researched the opportunities. I have already addressed this issue in my initial post, and don't care to beat the poor dead horse any more. At some point "just throwing it out there" starts to look a lot like "gift horse mouth looking," so let's get on with what I've set up for us.

Fair enough, I'm definitely still interested. 1/8th mile is fine with me.

Your first post says the $2009 class would run with identical rules to the Gainesville event, does that mean we can just build our cars per the rules posted here on the GRM site?

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/events/2009-challenge/#rules

For instance, my lemons car was a wicked good deal because it has a history of title trouble and cannot be street registered. This is ok in the GRM rules as long as the car is still "street legal" but I saw the SD GC rules mention the cars actually had to be plated. Similar questions can be posed in regards to GRM's budgeting techniques and such.

Again, these are just some small details, I'm still really geeked about this developing event.

With very, very few exceptions, if you are legal in Gainesville, you are legal in San Diego in the $2009 Class. Also please note that we found out our new insurance company doesn't care if they are street legal or not, and therefore we announced last week that we also don't care if they are street legal!

Right now, the only differences I can think of in the rules is that there is a 92 db limit in San Diego.

Edit: We will still be offering optional initial "vehicle verification" as a service to $2009 San Diego Challengers. No, this does not mean schlepping your car to SoCal so we can pick it over, it means sending us some photos and descriptions of what came with the car before you started messing with it.

How is this a service? Because everything not pictured/mentioned in your documentation come Judgement Day will be strongly suspected to have been stock when it started. So for example, let’s say you showed up with Tokico Blues installed on race day. If they weren’t documented at the start, then we’d be looking for receipts. If they came with the car, then you don’t have any receipts. At that point they are going to be valued in a worst-case (most expensive) manner, which sucks for the Challenger.

Wow. Talk about power of the people!

David, the fact that you are willing to do this for those folks on the west coast jonesing for a Challenge event is incredible. Best of luck with the Grand Challenge and the $2009 West Coast Challenge!

Good luck to the competitors too. It's a fun event.

Bryce,

I'm in. I can drop by on Sunday afternoon (after my autocross at PIR ) and you can show me what all needs to be done. Fiat22 sounds interested too.

And David THANK YOU for trying to get this rolling!

See, I knew if we all relaxed, we could figure something out that would make everyone happy.

The "Man" ain't so bad after all

Uh-huh and why did we HAVE to jump up and down and practically scream to get "THE MAN" to pull his proverbial head out of his proverbial butt?

Lets just say you and your cohorts are not off the hook with me, Suddard.

I'm here to say:

BtWC! Gainesville for LYFE!

Unlike our real country, this is how a democracy should work. I figured it would end up this way, but wanted it to get worked out by concensus, not by me pushing everyone around.

By the way, while I prefer a 1/4 mile drag, it absolutely does not damage the idea of the event to run an 1/8 mile event. It is also way easier on equipment and safer. The only reason we chose a 1/4 mile strip to begin with is that that is what we have in Florida and it sounds sexier on a magazine cover to say 10 second quarter mile time, rather than six second 1/8 mile time.

I also see Osterkraut saying Gainesville for life. I am not promising that. We will look at what we get for entries out west, look at entries in Gainesville for 2009 and then make some decisions.

Quite honestly, in addition to being fair to our readers out west, one of the primary reasons we started to look at going back and forth every year is that until this year, it seemed perhaps, readers were getting burned out with coming to Florida every year, as interest seemed to have waned some. If you want to guarantee a permanent future in Florida, then get some of your buddies to join in on the fun. Although we love you guys, this is not a profit center for us, and we do this primarily to promote our publication and our sport. We love seeing new teams with crazy cars. This is what makes it interesting to read about and easy to promote. Spread the word. We love seeing YouTube videos on your cars, articles in your local media and club involvement.

So who's coming? :)

I'll be there. I'm spreading the word to my West-Coast car boards to see if I can get some others interested in the event.