Open-Track Smackdown

[Damn True]

HOT-ROD lagged and GRM picked up the ball.


Originally Posted by GRM
Raise your hand if any of the following describe you:
* I get so excited the night before a track day that I have trouble getting to sleep.
* My team and I build the fastest cars around, and we’ll take on any challengers.
* I love beating up on the fancy-pants hardware with my crazy driving skills and this trusty (Your Car Here).

Now put your hand down and prepare to lose sleep, because we’ve got an event just for you. GRM has teamed up with NASA to create the Grassroots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge. We’re going select a variety of cars to compete in a NASA Time Trial format at the Virginia International Raceway North Course on Friday, July 27.

The fastest car wins, but since we’re a bunch of car-crazy writers, we’ll be looking for neat stories throughout the field. While the only hard data we’ll be gathering is the lap times, we’ll have our eyes peeled for outstanding (or horrific) engineering, daily driver manners, bad assedness, durability, ease of duplication, operating budget, driving ease and the use of brains over brawn.

To keep it simple, we’re going to have two categories, Shop Class and Independent Study. Shop Class is for the heavy hitters who build and prepare cars for a living. Independent Study is for the guys and gals who come home from work and spend late nights doing it themselves in the garage.

Each category is broken into two classes, Varsity and JV. All naturally-aspriated, four-cylinder (or less), mass production based cars running DOT legal tires are in the JV class. Anything with forced induction, racing slicks, a tube frame or an engine with rotors or more than four cylinders runs in Varsity.

This is an invitation only event, but we’re teaming up with CarDomain.com to make the application process part of the fun. If you want to be considered for the GRM UTC Challenge, log on to www.cardomain.com/grm and follow the steps to create a CarDomain.com site for your entry.

As part of this process you’ll be required to upload a photo of your car, so have a digital image at the ready. The deadline for entry is June 1, but the sooner you submit your entry at CarDomain.com the more time we have to get to know your car before we make a decision.

Be sure to put in as much information as you can on your CarDomain.com site. We’ll be picking entries based on this information, and we won’t know how cool your car is unless you tell us.

Best of all, you’ll be able to poke around the GRM UTC Challenge category and see what other cars are in the running for a coveted entry spot. Readers can even vote on the entries on the site to influence the staff as to what they want to see in the competition. We’ll notify the invitees six weeks before the event (see sidebar). Up to the minute details will be available at grassrootsmotorsports.com, and we’ll keep you posted in the magazine as well.

...

If we choose your car for the GRM UTC Challenge, you’ll then need to register for the event through NASA and expect to pass a NASA tech inspection for a Time Trial car. Specifics will be posted along with the official rules at GRM Online. Each car can have one driver, and that driver must hold a NASA Time Trial or equivalent license. Generally this requires HPDE 4 or higher experience; obviously a road racing license does the trick too.

If you’re not already a NASA member, check out nasaproracing.com; signing up for a year is just $40, and that includes a 1-year subscription to GRM. They’ll be happy to get you on the path to getting your Time Trial license if you don’t already have one, or you can hand over keys to the qualified ringer of your choice if you prefer.

Time Trial rules will apply, so if you drop a wheel off the track you loose your time for that session, and metal-to-metal contact with another car on track means immediate disqualification with no refund. Open passing is allowed during each session.

The entry fee will be less than $200 per car and will be announced as soon as it’s finalized. All cars must run an AMB transponder, and a very limited number of rentals will be available at the track. Our tentative schedule includes a 20 minute morning warm-up session followed by three 15-minute afternoon sessions. A car’s single fastest lap from any of the afternoon sessions counts for the purposes of scoring.


Anyone in?

Steve-O already entered. Make sure you go vote for him so we can see some PT love in the event.

[68protouring454]

KILLER!!!!!!!!!!!
if my car is driving in may i am going to try and enter

[KAA]

Originally Posted by Damn True

and that driver must hold a NASA Time Trial or equivalent license. Generally this requires HPDE 4 or higher experience; obviously a road racing license does the trick too.

This disqualifies me and I'm sure a lot of others as well. If this was HOT ROD's event, you wouldn't have that requirement.

[68protouring454]

after looking it looks like you only need a track day under hpde, then your good to go.

[KAA]

Originally Posted by 68protouring454

after looking it looks like you only need a track day under hpde, then your good to go.

Hmmm.....I don't know about that. I participated in a NASA event last year and the way they explained it to me is you have to progress through all the HPDE levels. You just can't jump from HPDE 1 to HPDE 4. They wouldn't let me out of HPDE 1 even though I had several open track events under my belt.

HPDE 4 or equivilent experience required seems pretty clear to me. In HPDE 4 there are NO passing restrictions. That's basically wheel to wheel type driving. I don't, and never will have, that kind of experience with my car. I simply will not take the risk.

I'm sure there will be a lot of questions asked about that so the requirements should be pretty clear by the time of the event. But for now, it looks like some type of advanced driving experience will be required. That's going to eliminate a lot of people like me who may have open track experience but don't compete or have NASA experience.

[KAA]

"Time Trial rules will apply, so if you drop a wheel off the track you loose your time for that session, and metal-to-metal contact with another car on the track means immediate disqualification with no refund. Open passing is allowed during each session."

As much as I'd love to try and do an event like this, I am not willing to take the risk of running my car where there's open passing.

[Damn True]

Originally Posted by KAA

This disqualifies me and I'm sure a lot of others as well. If this was HOT ROD's event, you wouldn't have that requirement.

When did Hot-rod hold that event?

[Steve1968LS2]

Originally Posted by Damn True

When did Hot-rod hold that event?

I think you missed the his use of the word "if"

Two things keep me from doing this event.. one is that it's THOUSANDS of miles away.. and two is "open passing".

Open track days are great and no more dangerous than driving with the knuckleheads on the freeway. Open passing is another deal. If someone screws up durring a pass and wipes out my car he gets kicked off the track, that's hardly and cosolation for me. I can't afford to rebuild this car.

Since this is not racing for a checkered flag I don't see why they can't run it grouped and staggared for lap times only?

I do think it seems like a way cool event though. I need to build a beater fox-body mustang track car for something like this.

[Steve Chryssos]

My car's already been wrecked once. Doesn't mean a thing to me. I'll just build it again. This is a Solo 1 event. Time Trial--not a track day. Wrecking, while always a possibility, is a very low probability under the provided format. The only other people on track will be experienced drivers. No bozos. No newbies. I assure you there is more risk associated with driving on the street or during your typical track day.

[Steve1968LS2]

Originally Posted by streetfytr68

My car's already been wrecked once. Doesn't mean a thing to me. I'll just build it again. This is a Solo 1 event. Time Trial--not a track day. Wrecking, while always a possibility, is a very low probability under the provided format. The only other people on track will be experienced drivers. No bozos. No newbies. I assure you there is more risk associated with driving on the street or during your typical track day.

I don't necessarily agree. Open passing in effect means "aggressive passing".. then can pass in turns or whatever. When the adrenalin is pumping and your trying to get a great time so you can "win", well that can cause errors in judgement one when/how is the best place/time to pass. Open passing is bascaly racing and I don't see that as the same as the "typical track day" (ie, open track day). NASCAR drivers are professional drivers and wad stuff up all the time.. lol

I would just think more people would be interested if it was a time-trial without the open-passing. Although that would make the event take longer since the intervals would have to be increased.

I would rather grenade and engine than smash up body panels.. I hate paint-jail. Still it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.