Jordan Rimpela said:For inspiration:
But also:
Yep. I was there. I don't remember it, but I probably turned a few bolts on it. We still have a few chunks of it laying around.
Jordan Rimpela said:For inspiration:
But also:
Yep. I was there. I don't remember it, but I probably turned a few bolts on it. We still have a few chunks of it laying around.
That blue rx7 with the 302 (I think). I bought an issue at Powell’s books. I sat down for lunch and devoured the mag. I was stunned to find that people (as far back as 2005) were doing so much, with so little money.
Jordan Rimpela said:For me, it was the $2004 Challenge. I had heard of Grassroots Motorsports from long-time GRMer Mad Scientist Matt who mentioned it in some capacity on a now-defunct forum.
Modern Muscle Cars, by any chance? 2004 was when I'd entered a Probe GT, only time I've had an entry that wasn't a DNS. The car that stuck out in my mind from that year was Andrew Nelson's Nova, the first time a $200X Challenge car cranked off a 10 second drag pass.
The first build I'd remembered hearing of was Mike Guido's MG Midget, as well.
In reply to Jordan Rimpela :
Thanks very much for the pic of my beast I brought in 2004. I autocrossed that beast for a few years before selling in 2008. I miss that car. It was fun.
The black nova was a beast and funny to watch andy smoke the tires on the autocross.
The 500cid bmw that year was fun.
The clown and the smake talk from the boards was always the fun time for sure.
Tattooed welder bringing a 80's caddy with a 500 in it is what lead me to bringing the delta 88 in 04.
in 15 and 17 i brought the pizza deliery subby wagon and got longest drive award with.
we also have to talk about the clowns chicken coop 300z that he ran for a few years and then ended up in IL somewhere and was making the rounds for sale for years. I have to wonder what happed to some of the challenge cars. I know the sucker vette was in the corvette museum in 2015 in the garage area.
NickD said:John Welsh said:poopshovel again said:In reply to John Welsh :
I just searched for the “money shot” from right before the authorities arrived, and I’m afraid it may be gone forever
The picture you seek might be in here...
Can someone please recount the story for those of us who weren't around then? I've heard people reference it but never the full story
I’ve blocked most of the memories, but here’s what remains:
The Hongs showed up with a godawful, yet alluring, K-car convertible with Texas-sized horns on the hood. Also a seemingly endless supply of attitude and alcohol. Now, we are reasonable people and of course publishing professionals, so we tried to resist the gravitational pull of the whole affair (alcohol is bad), but.... K-car convertible with horns. So we perhaps failed to administer the admonishments that such an effort demands, and in fact said, “Oh wow, that’s awesome—you have horns. And beer.”
Fast-forward to the “back at the hotel” portion of the show, where “hotel” and “ranch” are interchangeable except that, sadly, hotels are NOT impressed by horns, or beer, or fire, and the Hongs decide that nighttime is the right time to unveil the horns’ secret power, which is (yeah, I buried the lede), fire. Lots of fire, literally squirting out of the horns, across the hood, and lighting up the porte-cochere where, you know, the arriving guests had to pass through to enter the (unbeknownst to many of them) Challenge host hotel. I could hear the crowd of Challengers roaring from my room, where I thought I was retiring for the night.
I arrived at the scene after being summoned by a very indignant hotel manager with a very small mustache, who told me our group probably needed to leave because, well, smoking behorned convertible in the porte cochere. I somehow convinced him, thanks to my middle years, small stature, and (I fancy) fortunate choice of pearl earrings that evening, that these were merely some “special” boys who were “really excited” and that everything happening there was for the good of mankind. He left, because small mustache.
I have no idea what else happened that night, because really, I like to go to bed early, but ever since we have employed security guards at the Challenge.
And that’s all I know about that.
Margie
ah yes, the hong north beer and fire issues......that was very big on the boards for a few weeks......
Margie painted about the rosiest version possible. I'll add some details that i remember:
the K-car featured Hongraffiti that had to be obscured due to it's Hongffensiveness. they spun a rod bearing at some point in the competition and it was barely running at the end. combine scientific curiosity and beer and Hongs, and someone says "how long will it run at WOT with that spun bearing?" so, right there in the porte cochere, the car is started and held at WOT for a shockingly long time while the concours secret weapon fire-shooting horns are activated. and reactivated. repeatedly. Eventually, someone says "man, this is berkeleying boring. how long will it run with no engine oil?" so, right there in the porte cochere, the engine oil is drained and the engine is restarted and held at WOT for a shockingly long time while the concours secret weapon fire-shooting horns are activated. and reactivated. at some point one of the squirters didn't shut off, and spilled a bit of fire-shooting fuel onto the hood. which ignited. and looked cool. so the refueling bottle was simply sprayed on the hood and a carbecue was enjoyed by some, and not enjoyed by others, including mister small moustache.
I walked away when the Gainesville Fire Dept hook and ladder showed up.
In reply to Marjorie Suddard :
Let us not forget the good times though. There’s a righteous series of pictures on here somewhere (or the old board?) of you and a bunch of Challengers, some who are no longer with us 
smashing the old girl to pieces with a sledgehammer pre-incendiary shenanigans.
poopshovel again said:In reply to Marjorie Suddard :
Let us not forget the good times though. There’s a righteous series of pictures on here somewhere (or the old board?) of you and a bunch of Challengers, some who are no longer with us
OMGeebers I forgot about that! there is a really good pic of [someone who looks like] Margie, throwing a double-bicep pose that made Lou Ferrigno glad that there were separate male and female categories at the Olympia. Now i have to power up a really old laptop and see if I have copies of said pix.
Glad to finally know the story. Wish I'd been there to witness it.
MadScientistMatt said:Jordan Rimpela said:For me, it was the $2004 Challenge. I had heard of Grassroots Motorsports from long-time GRMer Mad Scientist Matt who mentioned it in some capacity on a now-defunct forum.
Modern Muscle Cars, by any chance? 2004 was when I'd entered a Probe GT, only time I've had an entry that wasn't a DNS. The car that stuck out in my mind from that year was Andrew Nelson's Nova, the first time a $200X Challenge car cranked off a 10 second drag pass.
The first build I'd remembered hearing of was Mike Guido's MG Midget, as well.
I'm nearly ashamed to admit this, but the old Rice Cop forums. Hard to fathom that it was nearly 20 years ago.
As an aside, I'm somehow glad to report that I have a rather large mustache. I somehow feel protected after reading about the debauchery that was K-car Hong.
I haven't been to that forum in a long time. What was your handle back then?
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Hoop. It's long dead, though I think Rice or Not might still be up.
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Since we’re going off on crazy tangents: Did you ever do a turbo slant-six build?
poopshovel again said:In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Since we’re going off on crazy tangents: Did you ever do a turbo slant-six build?
Yes. It was running for a year or so on a badly tuned carburetor before going EFI. Unfortunately it has been sitting for a while - I finally got it on the road a few months ago, only to find that the coolant disappeared into the oil pan. I've just about finished a head gasket and water pump replacement. If everything goes well (since when does that happen?), it might go on the dyno next week.
In reply to John Welsh :
I spent countless hours cherrying that thing out to “like-new” condition, knowing the end-game was us smashing it to pieces with a sledge-hammer at the concours as some weird performance-art thing.
This was back in the days when lots of people were demanding a “claimer class,” and the concours was held in an easy-up.
The Canexican and I figured we’d put the car “up for auction” at the concours tent, and if we didn’t get a $500 bid (I think that was our budget that year,) we’d smash it to pieces with axes & sledgehammers we’d placed in the trunk.
We rolled the car into the tent. Started the bidding at $100, and when no one bid, we busted out the implements ov death.
”$100!!! GOING ONCE!? GOING TWICE!?”
Still no bids. So we berkeleying destroyed it. And NO ONE but Wayne and I “got it.” We laughed like little kids, smashing it all to hell. No one else was laughing. We were “shamed” by Tim Suddard and others at the hotel that night. “How could you do that!? That car was so cool!?!?”
Everybody had a chance to bid. No one did. We paid $90 for the car at the towing yard, and the plan was to stuff the turbo 2.2 into the General Tso from the year before.
After “the incident” in the hotel parking lot, we dragged the car back to ATL, yanked the motor, and did a “test fit” in the General (Yes, a 2.2L turbo dodge motor WILL fit in a 1st gen CRX with a little frame rail notching.)
Shortly after, our buddy Mike Sands reached out to us, frantically needing to move his non-moving Civic or face eviction. The s00p3rturd was born, the General received a stock junkyard motor, for LeChump purposes, and the 2.2 swap never happened.
Funny aside: I’m cleaning out our basement today in preparation for selling our house. I found the hood for the Boss Hong buried behind the “Tire Tower.” I had no idea it was there till a couple hours ago.
#coolstorybro
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
We should talk.
In reply to AngryCorvair :
As I said, I've blocked most of the gorier details. Wish that little mustache had gone the way of my memories of the graffiti, etc. I'm not sorry about swinging that sledge, though. Poopy's right: It's a glorious feeling to beat on a terrible car.
Hotel manager was unfathomably cool. I apolgized to him personally, and offered to grab our E36 M3 from the room and hit the road, and he could bill us an extra couple nights if necessary. He said, basically, “I don’t want you to LEAVE, this is just the culmination of 2 nights worth of noise complaints from other guests.”
The Canexican and I offered to be “security/crowd control/fun police” for the evening, and that’s what we did. He caught us cleaning up the parking lot a bit the next morning and laughed. We talked to him for a bit before hitting the road, and I remember him being a nice, funny, interesting dude.
If I ever need to crash in the area, I always stay there to throw a few pennies into the karmic kollection/pennance plate.
I was really surprised he dealt with the whole thing as well as he did. I mean, there was a smoking car, a rowdy crowd and a fire crew at his front door, and he basically said, “Okay.”
poopshovel again said:In reply to MadScientistMatt :
We should talk.
Unfortunately, I've kind of been in an "cobbler's children have no shoes" situation a lot lately - working with enough people with their own racing projects that I haven't had much time to spend on my own.
Jordan Rimpela said:For inspiration:
That picture is actually one of my all time favorite pictures of any and all of our cars. I would love to have that one framed and hanging. That picture is second only to the Yellow Coupe and Stude pic taken on the Gainesville starting line.
In reply to wheels777 :
When your headlight is wider than than your front tire, you’re doing it right.
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