Just a few pictures from April 3 at Gainesville Raceway, site of the Grass Roots Motorsports magazine $2004 Challenge. For anyone who doesn't know, this is a contest where the car must be built for a total budget of $2004; then run on a dragstrip and an autocross. The cars are also concours judged and the winner is the car with the best overall score. This is loads of fun and I think I may have to bring a car (or truck, as the case may be...) next year.
A few comments about some of the cars that I was interested in: the black CRX with the Vette
wheels was done by last year's winners, Denny Crabill and friends. Crabill is a talented fabricator.
This car had a small block Chevy with a major setback,
Vette front suspension and a Mustang 8.8 rear suspension with a 4 link. It weighed about 2000 lbs with a driver, ran 12.2s at the
drags and a 54.0x time on the road course (in the top 2 or 3). Cool car! There were
some excellent performing DSM Talon/Eclipses; the fastest one ran 11.7s at the drags with some nitrous help and 55 seconds or
so on the road course. The Mini-Me team was back with their silver Omni, which ran 11.9s at the drags
and 54.xx on the road course. Erik Lawson had his yellow 280Z back again and it may have been the car to beat with
a low 11 (11.17?) at the drags and a 55.x time on the road course. It had a nitroused, Vortec headed 383.
Other good performers included a couple of very nice V8 swap RX-7s and a nice V8
swap 944; it needed more time to get the bugs out. There are several others
that can only be explained by good drugs..I'll let those pictures speak for themselves.