Congratulations to Wreck Racing, Corinth Holders High School Automotive, and Smith College Racing! It's awesome that these 3 teams all wound up with top 10 finishes!
Georgia Tech Wreck Racing claimed an extremely close overall win.
Two killer drag Datsuns. Left: Patrick Guzowski's Team Alavanche 280Z finished third overall. Right: Andrew Nelson's 260Z set a new all-time event record with a 9.521-second run.
This Mazda RX-7, built by high schoolers won the Spirit of Mazda Award.
Gainesville, Florida, October 24, 2017 – This past weekend, forty teams of low-buck builders redefined what it costs to go seriously fast. Competitors built cars quick enough to dominate your local autocross and drag strip—all on a $2017 budget. The overall win at the Grassroots Motorsports $2017 Challenge sponsored by CRC and Miller Electric went to Georgia Tech’s team of engineering students.
On that $2017 budget, Georgia Tech Wreck Racing built a Honda Insight that can autocross faster than a new Honda Civic Type R. Challenge veteran Andrew Nelson created a Datsun 260Z that can gobble a quarter mile faster than a new Dodge Demon (9.521 seconds). Ever seen a miniature Mystery Machine van powered by a Hyabusa engine? The $2017 Challenge is where wacky fantasies become reality.
A car can’t just be fast to win the $2017 Challenge, though. It has to be pretty. After a day on the autocross course and drag strip, teams broke out the wax and clay bars, polishing their entries to a mirror-finish, and preparing their presentations for our team of judges. Only the team that could do it all–build a fast car and make it presentable–would win the overall title.
After 10 years of developing different platforms, Georgia Tech Wreck Racing finally found their answer: a mid-engined, Subaru-powered Honda Insight. They won the autocross, laid down a respectable 13.893-second quarter-mile time, and claimed first place in the concours. That performance earned them a narrow overall win over the turbocharged, nitrous-breathing LS-powered Mustang of Dark Matter Racing.
This year’s event also attracted five other school teams, with a group of home-schooled teenagers claiming the Spirit of Mazda Award with their RX-7 roadster. Dean Case, Communications Officer for Mazda Motorsports, personally presented the award. Smith College Racing, another school team, finished seventh overall, making them the top-placing Mazda at the event.
Click here for full results. A photo album will be added to our Facebook page with more images from this year’s event.
About the Grassroots Motorsports $2017 Challenge: For 19 years, the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge has pitted the country’s most resourceful car builders against each other. The only limit? Their wallets. Teams have just $2017, increasing each year by a single dollar, to build a well-rounded race car that will be featured in the pages of Grassroots Motorsports. The three disciplines of the competition are autocross, drag racing and concours. The $2018 Challenge will be held at Gainesville Raceway in Gainesville, Florida on October 12-13, 2018. More details are at grmchallenge.com
About Grassroots Motorsports: Grassroots Motorsports magazine has been the leading publication for amateur motorsports in the United States for the past 35 years. Its goal is to be your personal guide to the sports car world, and it does so by providing the best editorial content, events, and experiences possible to its 50,000 readers.
Thank you to our partners CRC Industries and Miller Electric Welders for helping to make this event possible.
Look for full features on the standout entries–plus a run down of the entire field–in future issues of Grassroots Motorsports. Subscribe here.
Congratulations to Wreck Racing, Corinth Holders High School Automotive, and Smith College Racing! It's awesome that these 3 teams all wound up with top 10 finishes!
Does Andrew Nelson have a build thread on this BADBOY ?
759NRNG said:Does Andrew Nelson have a build thread on this BADBOY ?
We did a photo shoot on the car so, well, you can probably figure out what that means. It's an update to a Z he has run before, but it's now way more radical. And longer, too.
Thanks again to everyone who joined us. Great people. Awesome builds. Late nights. Fun stuff.
Hope everyone gets home safely. Please check in when you do.
Is there a way to see how we were scored on the concourse? We're very happy with the score, but it would be nice to see what we could improve to grab a few more points.
It's not that I'm competitive, this is just how I get once we start keeping score. 
In reply to David S. Wallens :
I just arrived home after leaving the banquet. Drove, slept, drove, ate, drove, slept, shopped at Summit Racing, drove, shopped at Trader Joe’s, drove, ate some dinner, drove, and arrived home in a nutshell. Few gas stops mixed in there....
Had lots of time to think about next years build for the potential subclasses.... 
I am in a hotel about 2 hours from the Tail of the Dragon. I am taking the subby there in the morning to run the dragon with the outback of the beast as a couple of people called it this weekend....
In reply to Ranger50 :
How many of us stopped at Summit on the way home?
My first ever challenge. My first ever drag race. My first ever driving a Miata (no really) and I got to drive two (the Tire Shootout and a much more...rustic '96). And now I'm picturing a cheap Suabru wagon of my own if that ends up being the sub-class next year.
759NRNG said:Does Andrew Nelson have a build thread on this BADBOY ?
We have a build site. It will be linked in after GRM has a chance to pick thru it and pull pics. It has pics of the engine parts including the pistons that have the valve pockets clearanced with a belt sander, the scored cylinders, the piston that bounced off the cylinder head and the rusty lifters. The only thing missing is pics of the cracks in the cylinder heads.
Dumb question- how did the insight win the concourse?
From all of the pictures that you've posted, and the video I've seen- it looks very thrashed together, with not so elegant fender flares and a complete missing rear of the car bodywork....
Other than getting the engine to fit in the back of the car to drive the rear wheels, the appearance execution looks terrible.
That seems rather odd, to me.
(maybe a lot of my time was just saved)
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