It's official, the word "Grassroots" is now meaningless outside of GRM.

In reply to HiTempguy:

4cylinderfury said: Grassroots means at the base level, but aiming upwards. No dollar pre-requisite/ceiling/limit/jargon will ever define it.

^^^ What this guy said.

Duke wrote: Something under $50,000 at an absolutely ridiculous maximum. To be an "everyman's race car", it should be something around $10,000-$15,000 maximum. Less is better.

I agree there is no finite limit, but for sake of debate I'd add some context here though. I like to look at things in means and averages.

The AVERAGE new car purchase in 2015 is just over $30K dollars. So the "everyman" Joe Blow buying a nicely equipped CamryCord or CrossoccermomUV is spending that much.

Car guys likely would be willing to spend a little more of their budget than the average person.

With that context, an "everyman" gearhead could easily daily a $2K Cherokee or something, and put $30K+ into a race car... and still be in the wheelhouse of what the average American spends on a new car.

That said, the average car is now 11 years old... so it's not like you're building a $30K+ car every year, but the average household has ~2.3 cars, so you're looking at replacements every 4-5 years, so if you can convince your wife to drive a cheaper car...

HiTempguy wrote: What is essentially the "bottom" of the hierarchy.

Trolls.

JG Pasterjak wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: Did he buy a factory rally car or did he build one that could compete with them? If I were the GRM editors, I'd probably regret the word Grassroots in the title of the magazine, as it seems to be interpreted by some people as "something done for a little bit less than I could afford".

"Regret" is kind of a strong word, but we do recognize that the use of the word has changed since the name was first coined. Of course there's also a quarter-century of name recognition now, so changing the name to "Moderately-priced-but-still-attainable Motorsports" would probably be a mistake. And "Hustler" is already taken. As for the term itself, I suppose I've always seen it as more of a mindset than a number. And I think the mindset exists at every level of the sport. If I go to a Ferrari Challenge event, I'm probably going to be able to hang out with the guys swapping brake pads between sessions a lot more comfortably than the ones shuttling VIPs around in golf carts. Basically once you lose the ability to tell the difference between blood stains and grease stains on your shirt, or the inside of your helmet smells like a middle school gym locker, you're my people. I suppose for me ultimately "grassroots" has some sort of blue-collar or filth-based connotations, regardless of price of entry.

Yeah, I can see this. I once knew a guy who was into custom Harleys, if you've ever been around that world the amount those guys spend on chrome, paint etc is berkeleying INSANE. Not my cup of tea at all, I'd rather go fast than be shiny. But to each his own... He worked nights at UPS down here, owned one set of greasy clothes and an absolutely stunning Harley. Drove an ancient Chevy pickup, lived in a damn hovel, the front room was the bike's garage. Every spare dime he got went into that bike, at the time (early 1980's) he was probably $50k into it. He was always taking it to the shows and crap, the bike was recognized on a national level. On the one hand he was an insane amount of money into the bike but OTOH he was not by any means a 'wallet build' guy. That to me counts as grassroots.

Me, I'm probably $9k into the Jensenator. Throw in the trailer tools etc probably around $14k total. I do take great pride in running away from $50k+ German cars...