Chumpcar team

[ashanson]

Anybody here part of a chumpcar team in the Des Moines area that wants an extra person? I am a decent driver and have experience wrenching on a few types of cars. Or if you just need an extra driver for an event I'm willing to do that as well. Very interested in getting involved in this, wanting more seat time than a few HPDE events a year in my own car.

-Andrew

[sparkles]

I've seriously considered putting together a team, but I can't get enough people that actually ACTUALLY have the means to do it.

[ashanson]

After talking with various friends in Minnesota who are on a couple teams, I think the easiest route would be to buy a chumpcar that is already mostly setup (~3k). I don't have fab skills to make a roll cage or anything, so getting that type of work out of the way seems like a good idea. The amount of time to build one is crazy.

But anyway, I would definitely be in. I figure probably $1k per person in the car investment, $500 in gear I will need, and then the recurring fees per race for tires/brakes/gas which is probably in the $500 range. Not cheap, but hours and hours of seat time, and wheel to wheel which is the best part.

The other tricky thing is finding a place to store it and work on it.

[sparkles]

I can hack all of the money stuff of it. I have a problem currently with the last part.

[allgo]

what is this? never heard of it

[ashanson]

chumpcar.com
Basically it's real road course racing where you can pass wherever you want (unlike HPDE), sometimes there are endurance events, sometimes two day events, etc. And you're limited to a cheap car, there are a bunch of rules on what is allowed for mods and such to keep the competition fair.

[sparkles]

Ever heard of 24 hour of Lemons?

[ashanson]

I may have a car lined up if we can get a couple more people willing to commit. A friend's chumpcar team is moving to a different platform and this could be a good base car to start from. He is the tuner at DB Performance in Minneapolis, so I know the car is setup right, and it's pretty quick, a turbo civic. There are drawbacks, the major one being fuel since they have a small tank and with FI require frequent gas pit stops. I imagine you could only do an 80-90 minute session on a tank, whereas the older 3 series BMW can do a full 2 hours because of the extra fuel capacity. At any rate, it would be an easy/cheap way to get into chumpcar.

As a worst case scenario, we could probably store the car and trailer at my in-laws but that is 40 minutes west of Des Moines. I may even be able to convince my wife to store the car at our house... but it's not super likely.

[snickerlicker]

Ever heard of 24 hour of Lemons?

Yes, 99% of the cars are General Motors. Other 1% are LS Swap vehicles.

[sparkles]

Well, I'm in. I'll a few people that I know that shared some interest a while ago. The problem is finding 4 people that get along that actually have a little bit of money.

[Snoclo]

Yes, 99% of the cars are General Motors. Other 1% are LS Swap vehicles.
Can you say reliability!! That's what I think of from your quote.

[Xboosted23X]

I'm not sure if Yo and Jeremy are still running with the team they were one or not. But I would talk to them about it.

[sparkles]

I think they are all filled up as far as spots go.

[Fiero]

If it comes down to it, I have a 2 car garage in Ames you guys can store it in. I'll have room after I get the engine out of my donor car and scrap it (If someone has a cherry picker that'd be great!). I don't frequent these forums too often, but I'd like to get to know people on here and get involved with stuff that is going on here in Iowa. I'm a student at ISU from Cedar Rapids so I go back and forth often. Unfortunately I don't have money to join the team, but if the only thing holding you guys back is a place to store it, then you can have a stall in my garage.

[The Laser]

Wish I could join a team like this. If someone wanted to donate a car to me, I got a 91 miata that's ripe for chumpcar lol.

[sparkles]

Info?

[The Laser]

Aboot? The miata is all stock. Although reading through the rules, it seems like it would be close to impossible to get it into chumpcar.

[sparkles]

No, it wouldn't, but that's not why I was interested.

[The Laser]

I may have interpreted them wrong, I'm not completely sure. I saw a couple miatas for sale on the CC forum so it's not impossible

[The Laser]

Ok, so a 91 miata has an MPV of $325. Sweetness, room for mods :)