The price sounded fair: “Free but I wouldn't turn down a bottle of a good whiskey.”
Stampie, a longtime GRM forum member, had landed a Bradley GT kit car body. But it was time for a new owner, so he offered it to the rest of the GRM community.
gumby, another cornerstone member of the group, took advantage of the offer.
The goal: the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge presented by CRC Industries and TITAN Fuel Tanks, held October 22-23, 2021, at Central Florida’s Gainesville Raceway.
But how to turn a bare body into a contender?
gumby explains:
I tend to follow the "simplify and add lightness" mentality, but when factoring for the budget aspect our starting points aren't always ideal. There is another quote lost to the annals of racing history something to the effect of, "a race car chassis should be sturdy and simple; and so should the driver." I have no idea where I heard that and surely butchered the paraphrasing, but mix in "cheap" and these objectives play heavily into my program. A proven inexpensive route to working suspension involves grabbing and modifying production based stuff vs. designing 100% from scratch. My autoX Ranger and Datsaniti are solid proofs of concept, even the LMP 360 is using production uprights.
An unlikely donor supplies those necessary production car parts: a 2004 Mercury Grand Marquis–basically, a fancy Crown Vic.
The build itself filled some 20 pages of the GRM forum. Not only did the car make the event–hopes and dreams can only go so far–but the final creation took top honors at the $2000 Challenge while also posting the event’s fastest autocross time.