Light my fire

No offense but my money is on number 2.

AngryCorvair said:

No offense but my money is on number 2.

Not a good way to invest.

said:

Trying to rekindle the passion for the challenge.  The circumstances of last year kinda killed all my motivation, I was moving along at an alarming pace and then the call about drags being nixed sucked all the wind out of my sails.  Having a hard time getting motivated to tear my engine apart and get stuff done.

light my fire guys, GO

Patrick, We got derailed by the same thing.  We are now starting to think about the Challenge.  Turns out the date change is going to make it more feasible for ourselves and some others. 

I have to admit that the passing of Jim and Mark hit home.  I remember the early days of the Challenge when we lost a bunch of regulars.  To this day one of my most appreciated trophies is the 2006 Best Engineered Award named after Garret Jenkins (Swarfalot).  Garret's mother came out to the event to present the trophy....that was really special as Swarf and I were friends.  The first person who greeted us and "took us in" at the event was Bill Gotwalt. Jon Haas was another and the coolest kid in class. 

I/we have made a lot of great friends thru the Challenge  - Sean, Pat, Ed, John, Steve Blair, Paul, Corey, Tom, Les, Angry, yourself are all people who I am now friends with who were introduced thru the Challenge.

Patrick, I don't have any great words of wisdom to try to talk you into going.  But I will say this.  If we go back and you're not there, the event will not be as good for us....and I think there are others who share those sentiments.

Andrew

In reply to wheels777 :

Im one that shares that sentiment as well. 

And its really nice to see you back here. I missed you.

In reply to wheels777 :

Well Said.

GTXVette said:

In reply to wheels777 :

Well Said.

Agreed. 

While I don’t blame any of you who backed out last year due to the canceled drags, you were all greatly missed. 

I think the obvious solution is one of us needs to hit the lottery, buy 2 or 3 large auto transport rigs & about as many motorcoaches, and spend a week or so traversing the country picking up our Challengers, their families & cars to bring to Gainesville each October. 

Pete Gossett said:

GTXVette said:

In reply to wheels777 :

Well Said.

Agreed. 

While I don’t blame any of you who backed out last year due to the canceled drags, you were all greatly missed. 

I think the obvious solution is one of us needs to hit the lottery, buy 2 or 3 large auto transport rigs & about as many motorcoaches, and spend a week or so traversing the country picking up our Challengers, their families & cars to bring to Gainesville each October. 

Pete, 

After the announcement that the drags were canceled I posted this...

wheels777 said:

Marjorie Suddard said:

Thanks for the positive and understanding response to what is a tough situation for all of us. ......

.....–and the Challenge happens at Gainesville. ...

Margie

I fully endorse keeping the event in Gainesville.  As a competitor there is something special about the event, the location, the track, the hotel and the opportunity to go to family friendly activities nearby.  If GRM decides to take this on the road we will follow,  But Gainesville is like a favorite pair of sneakers...it has a very comfortable feel that is part of the event.

Our decision to skip this year is directly tied to the Drags being eliminated.  It was and still is with great heartburn.  We love this event.  However, for this year we were building 2 cars that were intended to back up last years efforts and for the post Challenge life they will be subjected to. 

We weighed our options very quickly.  One option was to continue the current builds and drive them around the autocross events.  We build Challenge cars.  The cars have to do all three parts and they would not be bad A-x'ers, but they would not be the high(est) performers.  And as JG wrote in a great article, we all have to devise a plan to capture the points needed to win the overall.  2018 was going to be our grand finally for the Drags, as we plan to do an all out attack on the only discipline we didn't win after this year.  That is now going to have to wait.  I am thrilled to share that Fuzzy (Calvin) has many runs deep into the 10s in testing on his own tune and has over a dozen 130+ passes.  A goal this year was to get him to a point where he could get his Pro License.   The car was immediately altered with the announcement of the event change.  More will be heard on these cars and specifically the one Fuzzy is testing now.  Option 2 was to throw the Vette together and come down.  Had the announcement come 2 weeks earlier we would have brought it.  Option 3 was to bring Bugzilla back in A-x dress.  It has placed in the top 10 each time it competed in the A-x, and finished in 2nd in 2011.  But ... we are running points in Bugzilla and we are currently 2nd in the points in our class.  The series final race is immediately after the Challenge and we can't afford a failure or the time to switch things back and forth.  Option 4 - we debated the merits of running another competitors car.  Buying a set of tires for one weekend did not make sense.

Long story short we are very disappointed that we can't share what has been a 1000+ hour effort to prepare 2 cars that will be very successful in the intended post Challenge venues.  For those of you following the X-Bomb build, we started installing higher dollar parts onto the car the day that we got the news about the event change.

We are already preparing for 2019.  We laid out a plan to use information learned this year on the car Fuzzy is testing to help make our 2019 effort even better.

Truth be known, I haven't canceled the hotel room yet...we may just come to visit with enough enticement....we really do enjoy this event.

 

From the PACC Racing News page 11/08/2018 ...

2018 has been a difficult year with the loss of my Dad. We did our best to celebrate life with life. Our racing adventures were mix of high and lows. All things considered it was a good one. With 6 cars we made 28 events, 21 races, 4 shows, 6 Flea markets with 2 to go, built a new car (made 33 passes with it), refurbed 2 cars, 4 wins, a runner-up, a third, class champion, series champion, Calvin ran 9s for the first time and went 9s in 2 cars, we now have 4 cars running 9s, towed 2,885 miles without issue, refurbed the suspension on Calvin's trucks, picked up a lathe for the shop, picked up (2)55 Chevys and a 62 F100 Unibody. 4 engines went together, 3 rears, 2 headers, 5 trans swaps and there have been a ton of other little successes.
Yesterday we started draining the water and the anti-freeze went in. 2019 plans are going to be even busier with 4 major projects already underway. Thank You Lord for the privilege, provision, the opportunity and the support at home.

Pete,

Missing the Challenge was one of the lows.  But we build Challenge cars.  Challenge cars Drag AND Auto-X AND Concour.  If we wanted to go to an Auto-X there are a dozen within 50 miles.  It did not make sense to tow 2000 miles to A-x and forego success in another venue.  

FWIW, we have towed 1927 miles to 11 engagements, made 45 dyno pulls, 24 track passes, recovered from a major trans/driveshaft failure (ask Fuzzy about that mess) to date in 2019.  And, we are prepping for Drag Week  2019 and LSR events in 2020.

I am only sharing this to emphasize that the Challenge is one of many events, and while visiting with the friends we made there is of high value, the competition as a whole is what draws us to the competition.

Pat,

 I hope I did not high jack your thread.  Just want folks to realize that a number of folks are busy with local racing and had to make their own decisions on the Challenge after the change.  

You’re all good, Andrew.  My problem now is the fire is lit but the body that performs the work isn’t able.  

Did someone say “FIRE!?” We gotcha covered.

poopshovel again said:

Did someone say “FIRE!?” We gotcha covered.

Patrick is building a turbo Dodge?

poopshovel again said:

Did someone say “FIRE!?” We gotcha covered.

After work today my father said, “I just want to go home and burn stuff.” Always a good time working with family. 

eastsideTim said:

poopshovel again said:

Did someone say “FIRE!?” We gotcha covered.

Patrick is building a turbo Dodge?

I almost bought a turbo lazer the other day

Patrick said:

eastsideTim said:

poopshovel again said:

Did someone say “FIRE!?” We gotcha covered.

Patrick is building a turbo Dodge?

I almost bought a turbo lazer the other day

AND DEN?????

And den i made an offer on the solstice posted here, and didn’t get either 

NO AND DEN!

Patrick said:

And den i made an offer on the solstice posted here, and didn’t get either 

Buying more projects doesn’t finish the ones you have, ask me how I know. 

Andy Neuman said:

Patrick said:

And den i made an offer on the solstice posted here, and didn’t get either 

Buying more projects doesn’t finish the ones you have, ask me how I know. 

It should be well known that I have a really big problem 

I feel you, Peg, I feel you.

I really should be banned from the cars for sale section, letgo, Craigslist, etc 

This would be my first challenge.  My wife wants to take our daughter to Disney after.  That means it’s going to be really expensive.  I also don’t really have a team outside of me.  I have the car.  It could compete today.  I have parts to make it a lot better.  Now I just need motivation to make it all happen.  

Is the experience worth the cost plus a Disney trip?  

In reply to AnthonyGS :

Yes

Yes, minus disney, which is my hell

Yes to both. I loved Disney with my daughter. I love the challenge. Its AWESOME. 

Well after I few replies I feel a smoldering ember coming on, but no fire.  Anyone have a bellows?

In reply to AnthonyGS :

Go here and talk E36 M3 to AngryCorvair. Not only is it fun but you'll feel good that you're making any progress compared to his no progress.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/angrycorvairs-2019-challenge-build-thread/143873/page1/

Talking E36 M3 to angrycorvair always unspires me!

I noticed the street fire coil o the lt1 on the first page. If you find you have a random miss when warm. It will be the coil. I went back to a stock coil. Never had a problem. It was very annoying chasing a miss that changed cylinders.