Prep for 2010 begins!

Its been a little over a month since the 2009 Grassroots Motorsports Challenge. We have had time to relax and do everything we didn't have time to do in the months leading up to the event. Needless to say we are still motivated, and have big plans for 2010. The first step of our plan includes finding a good parts car where we can source some good metal panels for our new widebody. We recieved really good feedback on our fiberglass fenders, but I was never happy with the undercoating treatment that we had to resort to because of time constraints. I really would have liked to finish them correctly by smoothing them out with fiberglass filler and a light coat of bondo. Rather than strip them down and finish them, and still not be 100% happy with the shape, we are planning on creating a steel widebody similar to the e30 M3 widebody, only much more extreme.

Some friends of ours purchased this non running automatic 325is for $250. They want it for the LSD, wheels, headlights, spoiler and complete interior. Once they are done with it they offered it to us for next to nothing. Its got quite a bit of rust, and the paint is pretty far gone.



At this point the stripping has just begun, We have only pulled the front fenders and trunk lid for our challenge car.




A few days later we were back at it with a cutting wheel and a sawzall. We cut out both Quarterpanels and the inner wheel wells in one piece.



We also cut out the rear section of the roof panel for our sunroof delete mod that we will be performing in the near future.


I also took the headliner and quarterpanel windows for my 318is project which can be seen here, www.rede30.blogspot.com.

At the 2009 Grassroots motorsports Challenge

Day 1 Thursday morning we were all packed up and on the road by 10:30 am. We had a 6 hour drive to Gainesville ahead of us.


Things went smoothly for the first 5 hours.



About 60 miles from Gainesville, the driver's side front of the car began to bounce. We pulled over to see what the problem was and discovered our tire was grossly disfigured! We jacked the car up swapped the wheel with our only spare.




Check out the lump on it!

We had a good laugh and put things back together.



Day 2 At the event. The first thing we did after getting the car through Tech inspection was get in line for the Concours portion of the event.






Later that day we did all of our Autox runs


Bartley and his son Sven were nice enough to meet us at the event, and give us a hand whenever we needed some help.




Day 3 Drags.

Andy Nelson set the fastest time of the day in his Beetle.



Team Gutty's CRX was fast on the Autox and on the drag, and ended up taking the overall win.


Some Drag pics





Below is a Vid of the Awards ceremony showing Jimmy and I receiving our 2nd place Autox plaque. I want to thank my dad, Carlos Mendez, for taking the time to create our aluminum adapters so we could run such wide wheels and do so well.





A pic of our plaques!


Day 4 Heading home with a 3rd place finish, already planning for next year.

3rd Place overall!

We have returned from the challenge this year with great results, we placed 3rd overall out of 55 entrants! I have compiled a list of pics we have found on the internet. Jimmy and I here checking the car before one of the autox runs, with one of the professional drivers that really wanted to drive the car, but we had already chosen another driver.

Autox pictures from one of our runs
We chose Allan Mc Crispin as our driver. He has won a few national autox titles, and was really able to squeese every last bit of power and traction out of the car. Our best time was a 30.776 which put us in 2nd place. We were only .214 of a second behind the first place car ran a 30.562.


Video

Video taken by a spectator of one of our autox runs.




Drag Pictures

We spent the entire day Saturday at the drags, I must have made 30 passes on the car trying to get into the 13's. We were having traction problems in firs gear, and coldnt run more boost than what the stock wastegate allowed. Next year we will be more prepared.



Videos
This is one of our drag runs taken from inside of the car



This isnt a run of our best time of the day, which was a 13.847, but its a nice vid taken by another spectator.



If you have taken any of these pics or video, please let me know and i will give you the credit

light at the end of the tunnel

To start off, I've been designing a retro looking logo/sign for the side of the car and for our t-shirts. I really want our theme and the car to have a vintage look to it this year. We are going as the Condor Speed Shop car. The condor is the national bird of Chile, and idea of a condor came from both Jimmy and I being Chilean. Please comment on any thoughts and feelings you think this logo can invoke once painted on the doors of the car.


First thing we had to do was cut our exhaust off since it was about 1/4 inch off the ground. Now it dumps straight down. (there are jackstands under the car!)



I finally finished our harness bar. Jimmy painted it black, and it looks great.



Getting our first look at the car out of the garage.


Our vintage red interior, paired with the Iron gray color helps bring our Oldschool speed shop theme together.



We did an alignment, and put on the front end



Wiiide body!