FAIR MARKET VALUE!!!

Bottom line I'm Broke, I could'nt come down to the challenge 'cause my car isn't finishd,So while I sit broken hearted,I decided to fix this by Loading up a 12' U-Haul with ALL my stuff ;engine parts tranny's frame's rear ends body parts Literaly 2 cars worth of parts. took it to Commerce swap meet(atl.dragway) Saturday swearing this won't happen Next year. So my wife gave me rent money to get u-haul gas and entry cash,I sold an old turbo for 20 a holly blue fuel pump for 10 and an Air filter for 10. It cost 150 to get there and back. and yes that WAS rent money,pretty Stupid on my part.so to me the things I Cherish aren't worth Buying to other people, HOW the HECK can we really find FMV. Understand that I won't start building a car that can't be Tagged and Driven. and seeing the portion of the drag racing event that I did,Seeing cars compete that have had ALL body Parts Skinned off Makes me think they need a class of their Own,Even the Dirt track car's up here Have More body than those,and that's giving them a break, the 917 clone was creative,Like a Key West Funny car. I guess one built from Bamboo would be Over the Top. but back to me,I feel a tagged car should be given Mucho denero off and if it drove through the gate even more so. Maybe if I owned a trailer I wouldn't feel this way but I really do not think I am wrong. I really want to be a part of ya'lls Clique But even I have some Limits. I hope that dosen't sound rude or egotistical,I just wan't some friends to Play cars with. or I could be just a D A that dosen't belong.

Swap meets are hard luck sometimes. I had one day i sold close to $700, next day i sold a $3 bug deflector.

Keep your chin up. It took me 10 years of working on a challenge car to finally make it. My car is plated/insured and drove it on the street last weekend befor i loaded it up. The roadmonster was driven from indiana or chicago and driven back as were the vans of jrw6969696969 and vigo.

You know that you don't actually need to build a car, you can just buy a $2000 or less car, take advantage of the rules concerning wear parts, brakes and tires and bring it as is.

Sure, you won't win, but will get the fun of participation and possibly a mid pack finish with some luck.

I've got a challenge project that I've been working on ,on and off, since 2007(mostly off). If everything went perfectly with my project, it'd still only be an upper mid pack finisher. I'm going to finish it just on principle. During the time that I've wasted trying to make this project work I've lost opportunities on much better ready to run cars, including an E36 M3.

Hopefully I'll complete my project and get it down there for 2017 , if I make any attempts in future years it will be with a ready to run car.

Kudo's to all of you that made the show,I truly respect the Opinions of Several of you guy's,and thanks for letting me rant about my problems,and to add Injury to this whole thing I hurt my back so bad stepping out of the U-Haul while tottin' a top loader tranny I didn't even sleep last nite.so this could all be just Sleep Depravation or read Tim's story about feeling age creeping in. LOL (ouch)

@ the op

First off in your situation I would be selling things with zero out lay.

Regarding the challenge. It is not a competition. It I an editorial exercise. GRM makes the rules to facilitate editorial content for there magazine. I look at is as it is there party and as such there rules. I have never made it to one. Mostly because of the time and distance. But that is my problem. I choose to live where i live.

I would suggest that you try joining a team. Many hands make light work.

Has there ever been a one man/woman team?

The only way I will ever make it there with a car is with a team.

In reply to GTXVette:

Here is my #1 advice: Come to the Event.

You may read that as come to the event and spectate. This is a hard event to "spectate" and not find yourself fully immersed in helping. Here is what your year could have been like this year.

8 people were deeply and intimately involved in the Parking Lot Build. Another 5 or so people provided deep and somewhat unexpected and unplanned invaluable help to the build. These 5 were other competitors on-site who had areas of expertise on various matters. Another 5-8 people actually did more than just watch others build but gave genuine good advice or lent a tool or made a suggestion.
There was actually a "rule" to the build that you had to get 3 people to review and agree before any cut could be made (like cut metal or cut wire.)

One of these guys of the core 8 had never been to before and had never met any of the other core 8 before. We expected another to join in the smae fashion but travel and flight cancellations kept him from arriving (so sad.)

My point being...you could have been anyone of these guys.

What would it cost?
From what I gather, you live in metro Atlanta. Not an impossible drive.
I did a room share with another competitor to reduce costs. Additionally, I put one of the core 8 into my room for free because he has proven in years past that he is too invaluable of a resource to the team build to not have him there.

On Thursday, UNLIMITED free Brats were provided by John Hoops (long time competitor)
Breakfast is provided by the hotel.
You buy lunch at the track but Friday & Sat dinner is part of the $65 "banquet package"

By seeing the event, many of your questions of how will be answered and just attending will really not cost that much.

Had you done a room share you would have spent $180 on a room for 3 nights and dropped less than $100 on food plus gas for personal travel. $350 would have done it.

For the guy that has proven himself to be invaluable, I bet he did not drop $100 to be there for 4 days.

dean1484 wrote: I would suggest that you try joining a team. Many hands make light work. Has there ever been a one man/woman team? The only way I will ever make it there with a car is with a team.

Unfortunately the road-trip Roadmonster was largely a one-man build team. I picked up a friend in Atlanta on the way down from Indiana, which helped break up the drive, but I couldn't get much help on the car. You would think a 20-something engineer working in a small boring town, home of an engine company, would be able to convince other 20-something engineers to come over after work and wrench on engines for free.

I don't understand these people.

I dig what you are saying and would love to be considered "Helpful". with about 11months to save for the trip I can do that, What I really want is for some Of the Guy's from that North Avenue trade School to help,They know how an automatic tranny works(haha).I'm Even Catholic. But for every hand I don't have helping the ONLY replacement Is Cash. It's not that I am 'Tupid just getting Old and have moved to the mountains so it's also Logistics.also I was raised 2nd place is the 1st loser. I once made a comment Racing isn't Fun...Racing is Work, Winning Is Fun. Someone said I wasn't doing It right. 7 day's a week my friend is work,but we won a lot of shows and was 1st loser more than we wanted,at season end the car paid the bills Thats A win win. So Peace My Friends,11 months to go.

P.S. I would even accept help from a UGA Grad.(bet I hear 'bout that!)

It was fun, until i was top 5 post racing and had my hopes up, only to walk away from the overall resiults table feeling screwed over by the concours portion on behalf of several teams

Then after talking it out, i had to remind myself that the editorial event comes into play, and they have the power knowing the race results to make the final results say whatever the best story is in the eyes of the magazine.

So armed with that, i know who had the top 5 race cars, and i'm honored by the company of those other 4 teams.

Thanks GRM for the "editorial event" be prepared next year for something you'll probably want to see more of than a badass 12 second LS swapped datsun that was the only car to sniff andrew nelson's bumper in trap speed

Pat, just a comment here: None of the judges had any more than a very, very rough idea of the results going into the concours. They stay in the dark for the most part, in order to prevent any unintentional bias like that.

We're already talking about how to make the concours fairer next year, and I'm sorry your car didn't do well this year. I thought it was awesome.

Tom Suddard wrote: Pat, just a comment here: None of the judges had any more than a very, very rough idea of the results going into the concours. They stay in the dark for the most part, in order to prevent any unintentional bias like that. We're already talking about how to make the concours fairer next year, and I'm sorry your car didn't do well this year. I thought it was awesome.

Tom,

Thanks for the heads up. I just had some thoughts I couldn't keep inside. Probably not the best place to put them out, and I apologize if thats the case. I was taken aback by lack of outside judges this year, but understand sometimes things don't work out. I no longer feel slighted, i was angry Saturday night but talking with several people, david included, helped me calm down and remember just how much fun everything was.

Thank you, your family, the mag crew as a whole, and every single person that showed up to make the event the highlight of my year to this point! Tim, Margie, JG, Tom, Katie, David, Ed, and even Rick. Sorry to those i missed, but keep this up and Team Alavanche is coming back every year. My family had a blast, you all were so cool to the kids, it felt so great to see so many next generation challengers this year.

Again, thank you. Tim, if i made an out of line comment i am sorry. I have some ideas i'd love to share with you for future events, back to Sea World

First mistake was paying for a Uhaul, Loading it with parts, and trying to make money at a one day event. That's the old way man. The way to do it today? Craigslist and eBay. It's nearly free. The customer goes to you, the people buying parts are looking specifically for the part you have listed, and you reach an audience of several million for weeks or months on end.

There is still an audience that hunts at swap meets and doesn't "do" the internet but it is dwindling rapidly.

Have been in the same boat. No money? Then stop spending it. Especially rent money. Digital pictures and a craigslist ad are free. Don't get talked into delivering further than the gas station down the street. If they don't want to come to you, move on to the next potential buyer. Weeding through the idiots takes a little time, but less time than loading and unloading a whole uhaul. Stuff will move slower, you won't sell it all, but again, $50 coming in here and there as you find a legitimate buyer is much better than blowing a ton of gas money/rental/entry fee and possibly selling nothing.

I have been a seller on Craigs List for Many years, And yes this was a Knee Jerk Reaction, 90% of what I took has been Posted Several Times,Hence the Title FMV. I'm Just On A Bummer as work is slowing down for me.

maschinenbau wrote:

dean1484 wrote: I would suggest that you try joining a team. Many hands make light work. Has there ever been a one man/woman team? The only way I will ever make it there with a car is with a team.

Unfortunately the road-trip Roadmonster was largely a one-man build team. I picked up a friend in Atlanta on the way down from Indiana, which helped break up the drive, but I couldn't get much help on the car. You would think a 20-something engineer working in a small boring town, home of an engine company, would be able to convince other 20-something engineers to come over after work and wrench on engines for free. I don't understand these people.

I'm in the same situation but only about 3 hour drive from you (south chicago suburbs). I'd be willing to swing down for a weekend or something and help wrench if you like.

OR - I would be down (and I bet I could talk some other semi-local folk into it) to do a traveling build like paul and crew have done in the past. Car is at person a's house for a month to get suspension. Then goes to person b's house for motor work, then on and on.

to OP:

I hear ya. I personally have done a few 'single use cars' in the past and I never end up enjoying them as much as I think I will. Cars that can be daily driven AND raced are much more up my alley, but of course, present different challenges when racing.

come on down to the challenge. even if you don't have a car you can drive ours.

Tom Suddard wrote: Pat, just a comment here: None of the judges had any more than a very, very rough idea of the results going into the concours. They stay in the dark for the most part, in order to prevent any unintentional bias like that. We're already talking about how to make the concours fairer next year, and I'm sorry your car didn't do well this year. I thought it was awesome.

Just a note on this - I noticed the concours was "worth" 75 points this year - 3 x 25 rather than average of judges scores worth 25 points total like the rules say. I don't think it would have significantly changed the overall results, but I do think the concours got much more weight this year than it did last year (75 points out of total possible 175 = 43% rather than 25 out of total possible 125 = 20%).

In reply to Robbie:

It was still just 25. You were looking at the "raw total" concourse score, which is the sum of the 3 judges' points. It was divided by 3 to get a number out of 25, then added to Dynamic score like usual.

maschinenbau wrote: In reply to Robbie: It was still just 25. You were looking at the "raw total" concourse score, which is the sum of the 3 judges' points. It was divided by 3 to get a number out of 25, then added to Dynamic score like usual.

hmm. cool. the sheet I saw (and took a picture of) after the awards ceremony shows total scores in the 170's. There must be a more up to date final score sheet that I missed.

EDIT: just saw the results posted online here rather than the photo I took. Moved up from 27th to 24th! Guess that means I need to work on concours score improvements...

Sorry about the scoring issues, everybody. The first results sheet was incorrectly weighted at the banquet, but we quickly corrected it and printed a fresh sheet. That concours weighting problem was a simple oversight in Excel due to our move from four to three judges this year.

More seriously, after talking to Stan Dorsey about his super cool truck, I went back through the individual concours judges' sheets. While the vast majority of the judges' handwriting was input correctly, a few cars (including Stan's truck) had incorrectly recorded scores. I just went through the sheets again and personally entered every car's score, and it is now correct. I'm also calling Stan to let him know his new finishing position (18th overall). Team Alavanche also moved up to eighth place with his sweet 280Z.

The corrected results are posted here. Challenge Results

Good deal Tom. Thanks for the fun time, see you next year.

OP have you listed your items here? I dont recall seeing anything in the classifieds, and it sounds like you may have something we can use for $2017

Got an ERA 427 Cobra frame for sale, most else is Drag or round track stuff.

GTXVette wrote: Got an ERA 427 Cobra frame for sale, most else is Drag or round track stuff.

Ask Andy Nelson how to make a circle track cam go fast in a straight line. :-)

Shurely you jest, Mines a Boat Cam