There’s a new race that’s going up against the 24 Hours of Lemons and Grassroots Motorsports‘
$2,00X Challenge in the world of super-dirt-cheap events: it’s the San
Diego Grand Challenge, a six-event gig for cars that are campaigned for
the entire series for $1,000 or under. The championship includes three
autocross days, three drag races, and one judged car show. Competitors
are required to keep strict cost records for their cars; only tires,
seat belts, fire systems, and small junk like fluids, duct tape, and
baling wire are not counted toward the total price of the entry. Racers
can only sell up to $500 of stuff from whatever car they started with
in order to recoup costs.
Always supportive of this type of deal, Grassroots Motorsports
magazine has stepped up as the title sponsor, and a $2,00X
Challenge-type program is also being considered by the San Diego
promotor.
We’re jealous of this deal because we’ve been talking for a year or
more about doing a similar event ourselves but have not had the time or
money to put it together. We reveal our envy so that you can take it
with a grain of salt when we offer a dubious note, and that is this:
the 24 Hours of Lemons is already highly bogus when it comes to the
expense limit of $500, and the GRM $2,00X Challenge is tainted in our
view by the guys who seem willing to spend 25,000 man hours with their
closest machine-shop and fabrication-expert pals to build a $2,000 car.
The cost judging and the tab-keeping just hasn’t held up. Don’t get us
wrong: we greatly admire the intent, but we suspect that only a claimer
rule will reel in the bogus entries.
Also, in our opinion, they should ditch the car-show aspect of the SDGC (and the GRM event, for that matter). While proving that you can build a “nice” car for cheap is a gallant notion, we are way
more interested in going fast for cheap than we are in dressing up
junkyard parts. A competitor virtually has to score well in the show
and shine in order to win overall, and that fact alone would keep guys
like us away. The promotor should realize that guys are short on money and time and don’t want to burn the later polishing a turd.
Those critiques aside, we’d still participate in this deal…if we even had $1,000. Learn all about the San Diego Grand Challenge here.
