Grassroots Motorsports $2009 Challenge!

[DaveSkrab]

Just a friendly remind that the Event is coming up fast! October 9&10 (Friday and Saturday) Gainesville, Florida. Check out www.grassrootsmotorsports.com for more details! Great event, and Great people.

[Pat]

10 days left...and the Mighty Shadow is ready for battle. I know Vigo is in and I'm sure we'll see Reaper there, but is anyone else coming out?

[pokadot1]

I heard our project neon run last Sunday. Now if it moves and stops we will be ok. 10 days is a long time to put it all back together. Look out Fla the Sebring gang is coming to win. Or maybe to Play or it least run. whatever.
we will be there. I have not missed one yet.

Hay Pat I beat you a nice cold one I'll beat you on the tree this year...
Any other Turbo mopar's want a some Drag fun come and Race me.
Cliff Sebring

[Pat]

See you down there Cliff!

[168glhs1986]

Good luck fellas, represent!

[fastasleep]

I'll be there in the Laser. We fired it up about 4 days ago and the thing is running great. We still have to wire the alternator, install methanol injection kit, and install the nitrous kit. We went 12.79 at 113 MPH three years ago on a 75 shot. We took almost 400 lbs. out of it and are hoping to hit 11's. Of course, we are running a bigger shot this year.
Can't wait to see you guys! I am in Atlanta if anyone runs into trouble. Call if you need me! 770-778-7368. Drive safely.

-Les

[Pat]

Loaded up and ready to go. We roll out of Maryland at 4 am.

[Mario]

Who won?

[BadAssPerformance]

Who won?

You just Red Lit man! ...They're not there yet...

[Mario]

My bad! lol

[Pat]

Just got back....exhausted, sunburnt, road weary and a little bit hung over. But, we came in 2nd overall with the Shadow out of about 50 entrants. We also placed 2nd in the drags. Cliff's sweet NYG/Silver Neon came in 6th overall. Vigo's Aries was a huge hit also. I don't remember where he placed, but everyone loved it. Les was there in a DSM Laser...didn't see where he placed, but everytime I saw him, he was smiling!

What a fun event....I'll post more details tomorrow.

[DaveSkrab]

Hey Pat,
While unpacking I found 4 timeslips. It's pretty sweet to see how consistent it was considering the conditions!

[pokadot1]

Sweeeet was the neon door handle to door handle with the shadow on more then one pass.
sweet was the Sebring's both having a ..014 light and Pat having a .017 best.

Sweet was 12.74 @ 109 in a non turbo neon, looking at Pat's shadow only a fender ahead. He had to think his car was broke. LOL
and my last sweet was the look on Pats face when Dave handed him The NOS jets I picked, Number wise for his last pass. 11.7 at 127.mph


anybody Live in gainsville Dummy me left my laptop at the hotel.

[BadAssPerformance]

Congrats guys! Nice work!

Ouch on the laptop Cliff, hope they have it at the front desk!

[Reaper1]

I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it this year. I have a test tomorrow that I was studying for. Good to here that everybody had a good time and represented well though!

[fastasleep]

Pat's car is a MONSTER! 127 MPH traps?! Awesome showing by the Turbo Mopar (and N/A Mopar) communities, guys. My favorite car at the whole event was Vigo's tow pig, though.....ya know, the Dynasty . I should have been door to door with the Neon in the drags, but ended up with a 13.03 at 105 MPH; I suppose it could have done a lot worse, though. I snapped an axle off at the splines on pass 4, but was able to be back in business in less than an hour.
It is obvious to me, though, that the judges don't seem to "dig" the Mopars at all. Dunno, but I know a beautiful car when I see one and one would think that with all of their experience they could see all the work that went in to PokaDot1's, Pat's, and Vigo's cars.
Of you three, who did best in the concourse?

-Les

[Turbo3Iroc]

Another good showing by the TM crew. Before long the judges will see the light!

[Mario]

Yeah, nice representation. I'm surprised there's only 50 entrants. I've wanted to do one for a long time. Big congrats to Pat. Second place...wow. I truly am impressed.

[Pat]

Pat's car is a MONSTER! 127 MPH traps?! Awesome showing by the Turbo Mopar (and N/A Mopar) communities, guys. My favorite car at the whole event was Vigo's tow pig, though.....ya know, the Dynasty . I should have been door to door with the Neon in the drags, but ended up with a 13.03 at 105 MPH; I suppose it could have done a lot worse, though. I snapped an axle off at the splines on pass 4, but was able to be back in business in less than an hour.
It is obvious to me, though, that the judges don't seem to "dig" the Mopars at all. Dunno, but I know a beautiful car when I see one and one would think that with all of their experience they could see all the work that went in to PokaDot1's, Pat's, and Vigo's cars.
Of you three, who did best in the concourse?

-Les

Thanks Les...I was looking for you at the drags. I spent so much time trying to sort my car out, I missed quite a bit of the other cars running, including yours. Vigo's Aries on the dolly being pulled by the Dynasty was awesome. I know GRM'er David Wallens took a ton of pictures of the tow rig set up. Maybe we'll see that in a few months in the Challenge issue.

Here's the quick rundown of how things had gone with the Shadow. I made a ton of suspension changes, fab'd a number of parts out of junk like an old hand truck, van ladder racks and other assorted scrap metal. I made a tubular panhard bar, rear sway bars of different sizes to help tune how the car turned, I end linked a 1.25" front sway bar with Sentra end links to be able to use it with the later dual pivot '91 K frame, the car now has a 6 point bar and I fixed the locking right rear brake issue. Barry Miles drove it in the autocross and drove the hell out of it, throwing it around on three wheels like crazy. We landed 10th in the autocross, behind a number of CRX's, Civics, Miata's and a couple of amazing handline E30 BMW's. For a glorified K car, I was thrilled...it's hard to compete with cars that weight 1500 lbs but Barry kept us right there in the running. One of the GRM editors/professional drivers drove my car through the course on an exhibition run and managed to spin it out in grand fashion (but came out of the car with a huge smile!)...just goes to show how good of a driver Barry truly is.

The concours judging seemed to go well. They all seemed to like the fab'd suspension pieces, the three core intercooler that I made end tanks out of an aluminum truck door, the short throw shifter, the baffled/trap door oil pan, etc. I also repainted the whole car this year to correct some imperfections from last years job. The Sebring's Neon placed 5th or 6th, the Shadow placed 8th. I was a bit disappointed in they judged my car, but, what can you do...

The drags were trouble for me. I made zero mechanical changes from the last time I ran it, when it did 11.4's at almost 129 mph on a 75 shot and old slicks. For some reason down there, the car was horribly soft on the bottom end and mid range and didn't start to really go until about 6k. EGT's were pig rich and the turbo was not spooling very well. I checked and rechecked everything I could think of. Eventually, with the atmosphere and track conditions getting worse, we tried to spray it to a better time. When that wasn't working, we found a bad connection on my WOT switch...fixed that and went back out and sprayed to an 11.90. Team Gutty (who were a very cool bunch of guys and a blast to race against) then went out and did an 11.84, so bigger jets went in. 11.82 at 125, but the car felt terrible. It was slow until the rpms were way up there, then it pulled like it's never pulled before. Since the GRM mph record at the drags was 125, Cliff and the guys talked me into going even bigger on the jets (which I later figured to be about a 150 shot on a stock, unrebuilt bottom end!) and it went 11.75 @ 127. She held together, but is definitely not running right. The way the car felt, I wouldn't be surprised if my whp was approaching 475-500 hp between 6 and 7k, but I was probably making 250 from 3500-6000. But, I now have the trap speed record at a GRM event.

The other nice thing was that the car was chosen for a photo shoot to potentially feature in the magazine. They took a ton of pictures...I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get a write up sometime in the future.

The trip was a blast. As a team, we won Best Attempt to Bribe the judges with flowers, candy and ballons, we won Top Finishing Team, 2nd in the drags with the Shadow, 4th in the drags with the Neon, and an overall 2nd with the Shadow.

Huge thanks to all those that helped me out like Barry Miles, Dave Skrab, Bill Cuttita, Cliff and Lee Sebring and Lee's buddy Gary. It was definitely a team effort.

[Mario]

I get a great feeling just reading this. Can't wait to see the magazine. You must really be happy right now. A big congrats to you sir.