West coast challenge?

Has GRm ever done a west coast challenge? If not, why? And if so, when? 

I know it was talked about...if it happened, I was either traveling or it was far from Los Angeles as I didn't attend.

Watching with interest.

Subscribed

AFAIK there has never been one.  Previously when people have asked about why not the answer has been that since the GRM staff are based in Florida it's a lot harder for them to run an event that's 3000 miles away.

Pretty sure there was one. Only one participant showed up, from Oregon I believe. 

I am pretty sure, but not 100%, that participant got an offer from the mag to ship the car to Florida the next year. 

I think they had an electric Fiero? Very talented guy that built an awesome Honda N600 later. 

The reason it's held in Florida is proximity to World HQ and the ability to get all the assets in place to host the event. People, SWAG, GRM project vehicles, timing equipment,  cones (Nancy's cones are special).

To have it in California would require a monumental act of logistics above the event. 

With one notable exception it was a fiasco, and I'm one of the people to blame. It's easy to talk large, but you've got to show up with the goods.

Also, Lemons originated about two miles from me, so that's kinda our GRM challenge.

Vajingo said:

Has GRm ever done a west coast challenge? If not, why? And if so, when? 

I'm going to put on a version here in Minnesota. Right now I'm the only group  and unless some local in a Chevy shows up I'm going to claim Midwest GRM challenge championship for Jaguar.  

In reply to frenchyd :

There's a lot of cars below a Chevy that can beat a Jaguar.  Just saying.

Slippery said:

Pretty sure there was one. Only one participant showed up, from Oregon I believe. 

I am pretty sure, but not 100%, that participant got an offer from the mag to ship the car to Florida the next year. 

I think they had an electric Fiero? Very talented guy that built an awesome Honda N600 later. 

You sort of got it.

The members all asked for a West Coast challenge years ago (09ish maybe?) and had actually roused up enough interest for GRM to make it happen. Even though the vast majority of the cars being built were in the PNW or Nor-Cal, for whatever reason the actual venue ended up being incredibly far away San Diego, at which point nearly everyone bailed.

Nascho (from Portland, OR) was the user that still went, with a twin engine (ice/electric) AWD hybrid Fiero. GRM got salty about it, but not as salty as those of us (myself included) who were building cars just to have the event held so far away, so we stuck our money where our mouths were and all pitched in and shipped Nashco's car to the real Challenge, where a technical issue kneecapped him. It was GoFundMe before it existed. All the forum members who contributed were vinyled on the side of his car.

Javelin got the details right. Nashco is one of my shopmates here in Oregon, and a very talented guy. The Fiero hybrid had internal combustion in the original location, plus electric drive to the front wheels. The "throttles" for both were two pedals, typically tied together, but could be separated in case one wanted to run it as a FWD pure EV, or a RWD gasoline vehicle....rumor has it that one of the hotshoe pro drivers wanted to (and did) play with separating the pedals during the (eventual East Coast) challenge autocross to independently modulate drive to the front and rear as needed. And to think that my two left feet sometimes struggle with just three pedals....

Yup, it of course happened at a terrible time for many of us with a recession that put more than a few on our butts.

I was out of work for at least 6 months.  It was challenge to say the least.  Mentally, it was hard to deal with.  Thank goodness I didn't have kids then!

Still, no excuse for the lack of physical effort.  I did put a YUGE intercooler into the nose of my Plymouth Sundance Turbo, so that's not nothing, right?

"Dumping"it into another event that was the primary motivation for those that were in charge didn't help the GRM folks at all.

I'm really glad that Nashco made it and in such a big way.  It really helps establish that cool things happen all over the world."  He's awesome and I wish him the best of luck in the future!

Yep. It came at a terrible time, and we did nobody any favors by trying to accommodate the growing outcry on the forum for a West Coast event when we simply did not have the bandwidth, budget or manpower to do so. That's how the event wound up hosted within another existing West Coast event. We had hoped at least some regular Challengers would make the trek, but none did.

We mostly felt terrible for Nashco, who put in all that effort to show up for a party no one else attended, and as I recall we matched the forum funds raised to get him out to the next Challenge, and comped his entry, food, etc.

It was an expensive learning experience for sure, but as the board says, we've spent more on stupider stuff. And it was worth it for the reckoning of how special the Challenge's culture and people are to the event. 
 

Margie

The answer is not multiple events. The answer is to set up sub classes, wherever you are for builds that fit challenge rules (literally a max budget of $2000 class that allows for up to $1000 in recoup) to have an additional registration cost where the additional money goes into a side pot and the season points winner (to be determined before mid September, so the points leader up to that point) wins the side pot to utilize as fuel money to get to the challenge. If you get a local parts supplier, tire distributor, safety equipment distributor or convenience store to sponsor the sub class and to pitch into the tow fund pot, even better. 

(This undertaking would need to be done at all levels by competitors and local club organizers, not our host here) 

The goal shouldn't be an attempt to recreate the challenge, it should be to get more people to the challenge. 

never mind- answering the wrong question.  not a bad thing- just in the wrong place.

Marjorie Suddard said:

Yep. It came at a terrible time, and we did nobody any favors by trying to accommodate the growing outcry on the forum for a West Coast event when we simply did not have the bandwidth, budget or manpower to do so. That's how the event wound up hosted within another existing West Coast event. We had hoped at least some regular Challengers would make the trek, but none did.

We mostly felt terrible for Nashco, who put in all that effort to show up for a party no one else attended, and as I recall we matched the forum funds raised to get him out to the next Challenge, and comped his entry, food, etc.

It was an expensive learning experience for sure, but as the board says, we've spent more on stupider stuff. And it was worth it for the reckoning of how special the Challenge's culture and people are to the event. 
 

Margie

Margie 

   I personally cannot afford the time or cost of attending.  I love the idea of the Challenge and the format. Sort of a budget limited Can Am. 
       So I'll follow the format and send photo's.  Offer an invite to any others interested. I accept that I may be the only one attending and thus miss out on the comradery. ( which is a big part of why the event works for you).   I'll also miss out on seeing the creativity and innovation.
      But I simply cannot leave those kids standing on the corner waiting for the school bus I drive.  Early in the school year it's important they see a familiar face and get that happy greeting from me.  Stability is critical especially for the elementary school kids.  

To be VERY CLEAR I can not afford the challenge any year, ever. This adulthood thing is expensive and time consuming. That will never stop me from trying. I wasted many years between  2002 and 2016 I even successfully entered the even without showing multiple times. 2016 I intended to go, had a car, kept my mouth shut, blew it up, offered my ticket to Aussie and my number placed 3rd. I got to stand around and pretend I had something to do with his success. 2017, 2018 and 2019 were the years I finally decided that I was not going to accept not going, if it meant showing up to help protect cones all day or competing I will be there. The way I see it there is no longer a reason for it to not be a priority. If I want to be there I will figure it out. 

I'm really trying to make a challenge, 2020 was the year I had planned on with my Australian friends making a cross country tour of America. We all know how that went.

I live in North Idaho. The challenge is a 3 week affair for me and many thousands of miles. I'm lucky that I work for myself and even though my boss is an shiny happy person....I can take time off when I need to.

I'm not saying that it would be easy or anything but an East vs West challenge would be cool as hell and I'd love to see it happen

If we are permitted to dream, An event in Colorado would make it worth consideration for my West Coast self. 1300 miles with some nice Rocky Mountain vacationing mixed in sounds wonderful. 3000 miles to Florida is a grind. 

Florida in late October in perfect. It's late enough in the year that the weather has given a few crisp days to the majority of the country, hurricane season has for the most part slowed down and you still have a few weeks before the holidays start rearing their heads. 

If anyone is ever going to consider visiting Florida and it is not during the months of January or February, late October is the time to do it. And let's be honest if anybody's coming in January or February they are flying because they don't want to have to deal with driving through potential snow storms especially on 200 TW tires. 

So here's why I asked this. The gambler 500 started here in Oregon. But, there are now gamblers everywhere and using that name and moniker- it takes flight. 
 

if someone on the left coast decided to do a 20xx challenge, would GRm be willing to lend some form of clout to help get the "regional challenges" going? 
 

let's say there was this forum member, and he's a long time guy, avid and devout. If he was to follow the orders of GRm, take the lead and orchestrate, would GRm be willing to support (even if just in name)?

In reply to Vajingo :

See the first post that I made in this thread. If you can't get people locally or within a region to build cars that fit the challenge rules either just to autocross or just to run at the local drag strip for a season series, then they certainly aren't going to show up for a once annual event. Season long competitions as a sub class within currently operating organizations provide the opportunity for a new challenge, no pun intended, to those who may be burned out or tired of their current platform. They also create value from a potential sponsor partner aspect to enable the winner to have a portion of their potential travel to Florida covered.  

I have concerns with regards to the health of the challenge with regards to entry numbers. The challenge section of the forum has been effectively dead for the past 16 months when compared to the time frame of the previous 8-plus years. 

A feeder series system as opposed to an alternative venue is the answer to building the event up instead of tearing it down by having multiple events with certain people closer to others and not making it to the quote-unquote big one. The most dominant team in the challenge is about 870 miles away. That's not 3,000 mi but it's certainly not just a few hours down the road. I mean an event in Toronto Canada would be about half the distance as traveling to Gainesville would be for them. So if you were to have a second event in Canada you would be pulling the most dominant team away from the event in Gainesville. Splintering the event in the multiple events across geographic locations will jeopardize the event as a whole. 

The powers that be within the SCCA are pretty progressive and open a new ideas right now. I would consider reaching out to them about a class at nationals and within prosolo that mirrors challenge rules. That would work to effectively grow the number of potential entries and would encourage other to take on build projects. 

Having conferences that whittle down to a few competitors has worked very well for all professional sports. Saying that splitting it up would pull away a certain competitors from certain events is valid but if you did a Finals/Super Bowl/World Series/etc they would still be competing with a lot of the same people.

I'm not saying I'll never go, I'll still try my damnedest to make it but if it was 1000 miles away I'd be there every year and I sincerely doubt I'm the only one that would say that. Sure 40-60 or whatever a year is great, but what if there was 200? Entry costs would probably defray the costs of 2 challenges.

Maybe make it that the top 3 from both meet for a Contest of Champions or something. Could be a lot of cool content for the magazine

Also elaborating on pulling the competition to one side of the other I'd kind of moot. People that make the Challenge year after year or even somewhat regularly obviously have the means and ability to get to the challenge. Your targeted demographic is people who haven't been able to go because it's too far away.

I don't see this taking away people as much as adding a lot. For 20 years it's been in the same spot and the same people that are close enough go, a West Coast version just adds more people.

Plus the Challenge is pretty cool idea, having another location adds the possibility of local sponsers and added people with added funds and added content for the magazine. We all love the magazine but I'm betting the Challenge issue is by far the favorite and probably sells best on the news stand too.

I appreciate the downsides too, but it does seem to have a lot of upside

How many attendees from west of the Rockies are present each year at the challenge? 
my thought was GRm reaching a new (another) audience. How many of you live in the SE USA?