Post your photos and stories from the $2000 Challenge here!

Well this was my first year and man what a blast. I already can't wait til next year. We brought my foxbody aka danger zone. Had some issues but had so much fun. Blew out bmthe passenger front strut my second autocross run and my very last autocross run blew out the drivers side. We still scavenged a 50.1 in autox. In drag racing once we fixed a burnt nitrous circuit wire we started tk get the car dialed in and we ran back to back 12.7 at 113mph. The street tires really held us back from being able to leave the line any kind of aggressive. We went from the 100 to the 150 shot on our last pass and the transmission just let go, so all we have is 4th gear now. Concours was great just to watch some of the presentations. All in all we finished 19th overall and won CAM class and Editors choice which i am extremely honored to win. Thanks to everyone who helped us out and for being so friendly. The build for next year starts next week when i pick up the new challenge car! 

Also my wife bought scott ercins clean ser for 1600 bucks. Im happy with that purchase as the car is in great shape. She has indicated she might race it next year lol. 

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

I would have ratchet strapped that in there and had me make a nitrous run.

Hey AAZCD did we meet or did you just take pictures of me?

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

In reply to Pete Gossett :

is the 57 cars with scores a record for challenge?

I don’t think so. 

IIRC, there were 72 in 2004. 

SVreX said:

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

In reply to Pete Gossett :

is the 57 cars with scores a record for challenge?

I don’t think so. 

IIRC, there were 72 in 2004. 

Considering the last week posts of people not going, 57 is really strong!  Great job, ALL!

AngryCorvair said:

Mndsm said:

Andy Nelson 9.90 out of the box. Don garlits in a 1000hp hellcat woth multiple test launches- 10.16. 

one of these days, Andy is going to get tired of winning the drags by such large margins.  i mean, can it really be *that* entertaining 15 years running?  He's kinda made his point, IMO.

For the record, Andrew Nelson never drove this year.  That was Calvin driving both cars. 

In reply to SVreX :

I did not know that. Thanks for the update. 

Patrick said:

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

I would have ratchet strapped that in there and had me make a nitrous run.

Nah. Im ok with the decision to quit fighting to save it for another challenge run. No sense in doing more damage for one spot....

And ill post full damage report in the build tbread, as well as repair/maintenance/upgrades. 

Patrick said:

Hey AAZCD did we meet or did you just take pictures of me?

I don't think that we actually 'met'. Most of the time I was either at my car, explaining it to people or wandering around trying to figure out where I should be. When I had my camera handy, I got just a few shots of all the sexy people.

drove it down, got some sutocross rund (johhny pruitt bettered my time in my car), got s few decent drag passes in and drove it home. all in one piece still.

i also had a good time judging everyones cars again this year.

already looking forward to next year

AAZCD said:

Patrick said:

Hey AAZCD did we meet or did you just take pictures of me?

I don't think that we actually 'met'. Most of the time I was either at my car, explaining it to people or wandering around trying to figure out where I should be. When I had my camera handy, I got just a few shots of all the sexy people.

It's the sideburns.  It does it every time.  I've had more men tell me "I love you" this weekend than usual

In reply to Patrick :

The sideburns plus the Mercedes are really irresistible. 

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

In reply to Pete Gossett :

is the 57 cars with scores a record for challenge?

edit:
also, kudos to the High Schoolers with the MR-2... they jumped 18 spots from 48th to 30th on the strength of their presentation (which was the 8th highest).  That's all phenomenal!

Thanks for the mention, they were very disappointed that the car broke before the drags. We should have been able to run a 15, but when we took the oil pan off today there is a lot of pistons in there. The concourse was a big thing for them from the beginning, so to do so well was a big thrill. We are already talking over improvements for next year. 

So....did it ever rain or not? I know that this was a big concern earlier in the week.

In reply to Woody :

Held off til right before the banquet when I was talking with a couple hongs about some mysterious character I'd only heard rumor of and I'm reasonably certain I should not name. 

One day I'll bring an actual challenge car again. The mustang ended up coming because I was too much of a wimp to drive my 1980Mercedes 240d 890 miles to the challenge after only getting one very slow 8 mile test drive in. Jermey was going to let me enter the CAM camaro but instead I entered my friend Chris who never had the chance to autocross or drag race before. He always made it to the challenge the years we broke the car. 

I ended up buying a new mustang in 2015 after my DD blew the engine. The daily had been my $2013 Miata. Usually I'm pretty cheap, but I wanted something I could take to any automotive event given the chance. Fortunately my life keeps getting busier so the only event I've been making it to is the challenge. I've used the mustang year round in PA since purchase putting on 55,000 miles.

Actually purchased a set of "will not ship snow tires and wheels" from Ohio via the GRM express. This ended up with the guy dropping the wheels off at Pat's house in Ohio, at this point I had never met Pat and he hadn't been to the challenge. As arranged Pat delivered the wheels to me via the challenge, I know Ohio to FL to get them to PA wasn't the ideal shipping solution but it worked. 
 

Managed to find a wife and get married during Mustang ownership, she never wants me to get rid of it. I'm not that sentimental and we have a kid on the way so it's not quite making as much sense anymore. Still trying to convince her that we will need a minivan eventually so we should just make the jump. 
 

Back to this years challenge, took our time getting there 890 miles in 2 days is a lot nicer than a one day drive.. Especially when you need to stop in Jacksonville to run errands with Jeremy to pick up another car on the way. 
 

I don't know how I get suckered into working on cars in the parking lot, I also don't know why anyone would want me to work on their car. Parking lot projects have been one of the best ways to form new friends and have time to talk to your fellow GRM members. I can't say I knew many of the challengers before the $2014 Fiero fiasco, still one of the best experiences. Bad ideas make for great stories.

The grid in the autocross was excellent this year and have time to have lots of fun runs. Having the mustang allowed me to make enough runs for me to learn the mustangs tract/stability will save me and I have no idea how. Only took me 12 runs to put down a time faster than the one try I gave the pro driver. 
 

Using all of the mustangs trick settings was too hard to learn in the five minutes of watching YouTube videos. I was trying to use the launch control on the drag strip, this led to some massive wheel spin and some 15 second runs. At least trapping 106 felt pretty fast. Eventually I was able to baby a 13.8, makes me question how many runs it takes the magazines to get the best times. 

Overall it was a great time. I feel this year was pretty relaxed with an everyone love everybody attitude. I didn't get the feeling from anyone that they were there just to win it all for themselves. Everyone is so helpful trying to make each other faster. On the way home Chris was on the phone with his father, for an hour, telling him what a great time he had, making his first drag passes and autocross runs of his life. 
 

Not sure if I'll make it next year, but I'll be back at some point.

I know you wont believe this but I purchased the mullet wig back when I had a 4th gen fbody with Ttops to drive around wearing in 2009. 
 

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Its a pretty clean break....

Bummer!

Back home safe and sound.

It came off the trailer a lot easier at home than it went on the trailer at the track. Thanks to everyone who lent a hand getting it on the trailer Saturday afternoon.

17.5 hours, 1006 miles, and 13+ quarts of oil later and the car is in my yard.  I don't normally worry about the driveway, but this thing now leaks ALOT of oil.

Almost hit a 10+ point buck about 5 miles from home while avoiding main roads (because no plates).

Can't wait to do it again next year!

I attracted a friend:

I reconnected with Jordan!

Patrick said:

I reconnected with Jordan!

 

And it was great to see you again! Can't wait to see what you bring (Wartburg?) in 2020. 

This year was one of my most fun Challenge years even though I didn't have a car. I got to put a lot of faces to screen names and really enjoyed getting to know some new (and older) friends better. For some reason, all of my clothes now smell like something on a grill. I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who gave me a hand, or offered to, this weekend. This is truly a great group of people.

I was psyched to get the new roof addition for my ride! Thanks to Ted/Tod and Jeremy for hooking me up!

I was psyched to finally see some serious aero packages on cars.

I convinced a friend to throw her hat in the ring. I'm pretty sure she had a good time.

I even got to see what men of the cloth choose to drink.

Thank you also (and always) to the full GRM crew for putting on this event and for making this all feel like a big family gathering. 

In reply to hobiercr :

The roadkill Mustang as I've decided to call it was pretty cool actually. I'm glad she brought it, and I hope she becomes a returning challenger.

We came, we saw, we had a fantastic time.  Another great event! We met some awesome new friends, and got to talk with some old ones.  We love this event and we can't wait for next year.

Great job to everyone who helped this event roll forward!