Editor | David S. Wallens |
---|---|
Categories | Automobiles, motorsports, do it yourself |
Frequency | 8 per year |
Circulation | 60,000+ [1] |
Publisher | Tom Suddard |
Founder | Tim Suddard, Marjorie Suddard |
Founded | 1984 |
Country | United States |
Based in | Ormond Beach, Florida |
Language | American English |
Website | grassrootsmotorsports.com |
ISSN | 1047-0298 |
Grassroots Motorsports (GRM) is an American print and digital periodical devoted to hardcore sports cars, driving skill improvement, technical advice, and amateur motorsports such as road racing, autocross and rallying. It was established in 1984 and is published eight times a year. [2] The magazine's parent company, Motorsport Marketing Inc., is based in Holly Hill, Florida and also publishes Classic Motorsports magazine. The company also publishes various event guides and other print materials for select clients.
Motorsport Marketing is also an event company, hosting or sponsoring large annual events under the banner of one or both magazines. Some of its past and present Grassroots-centric events include the Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car Challenge presented by Grassroots Motorsports, GRM Speedfest at the Classic Motorsports Mitty, the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge and the GRM Experience at the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Staff members are also present at most large national and regional automotive enthusiast events involving modern or vintage sports cars.
Grassroots Motorsports was originally called "Auto-X" and started in 1984 in Deland, Florida by publisher Tim Suddard and his wife, Margie. The name was changed to Grassroots Motorsports a few years later.
Grassroots Motorsports magazine's "Project Cars" section focuses on a wide variety of staff-owned road and track cars. It presents in-depth technical information from a very hands-on, do-it-yourself point of view.
Past GRM project cars include a Mazda MX-5 24 Hours of LeMons racer and autocrosser, a MINI Cooper S race car, a BMW M235i track day car, a Volkswagen New Beetle multi-purpose car, and a LeGrand Mk. 18 race car built for autocross.
One of the most famous project cars in the magazine's history is the Ro-Spit, a 200-plus-horsepower, rotary-powered Triumph Spitfire. [3]
The regular subscription price for one year (eight printed issues) of Grassroots Motorsports is $29.99. [4] The company occasionally holds sales, sometimes offering subscriptions during the holidays for as little as $19.99 per year. [5]
The magazine is also available as an e-publication that can be viewed on personal computers and mobile devices. It includes all the same content as the print version but is enhanced with hyperlinks to relevant information mentioned in its pages. Digital subscriptions come at a slightly lower cost than print: One year, for example, is $19.99. [6]
The magazine holds an annual competition referred to generally as the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge. When referring to a specific running of the event, the name changes to reflect the year it was held (i.e., $2015 Challenge in 2015). The main goal of the Challenge is to demonstrate that fun, capable and attractive cars do not have to be expensive. The total budget for entries cannot cost more than the year in American dollars (i.e., $2015 in 2015), hence the name. The competition consists of an autocross competition, a quarter-mile (0.4 km) dragstrip time trial and a concours d'elegance. [7]
A special points system determines the final rank of each entry based on its performance in each segment of the competition. [8] Along with first-, second- and third-place trophies, other awards are distributed to deserving competitors, including "Most Spectacular Failure," "Challengers' Choice," and "Editors' Choice."
The first Challenge event was held in 1999, before the staff instituted the "year as the budget" naming convention; the budget cap for cars in that event was $1500. According to the magazine's longtime art director, J.G. Pasterjak, the $1500 Challenge was intended to feature staff-built cars as a way to create editorial content for the magazine: "Well, originally it was supposed to be just a staff thing. Then readers got wind of it and wanted to come."
The second Challenge event was held in 2001 with the budget cap set at $2001. The event then became annual, with the budget cap increasing by one dollar each year—the idea being to account for inflation.
The $2015 Challenge overall winner was Andrew Nelson and his V8-powered Volkswagen Beetle. Nelson and his family have been attending the event with their homebuilt creations for the past 11 years.
In 2007, Grassroots Motorsports added another competition to its lineup with the Ultimate Track Car Challenge. The goal of the UTCC is to discover the fastest track car in a field governed by minimal classifications. After that, it became an annual event held every summer at Virginia International Raceway.
Thirty-six cars competed at the Virginia International Raceway North Course in 2007. The overall winner was a Dodge Viper Competition coupe with pro driver Tommy Archer at the wheel. [9] In 2008, the event moved to Buttonwillow Raceway Park, and Bart Carter took first place overall in his Radical SR8. [10] In 2009, the event was held at the Virginia International Raceway Full Course; Marc Goossens beat out a field of more than 50 cars to take the overall win in his Riley Technologies Track Day Car.
As of 2023, the UTCC's date and location have changed; it will occur each year in October at NCM Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, KY as part of the SCCA Time Trials Nationals.
The Grassroots Motorsports online forum is a section of the magazine's official website. Discussion is allowed on almost any topic, automotive or not. Forum members use the boards to ask car-related questions, post build threads to track their progress on a project car, organize user gatherings, and share information about events. Magazine staff moderate and actively participate.
Users must complete an online registration and create a username to post to the forum. Users gain "Dork" status as their post count rises. Users with several thousand posts are not rare, and it typically takes them less than a year to build reach several thousand posts.
Status | Post Count |
---|---|
New Reader | 0 |
Reader | 100 |
Half Dork | 500 |
Dork | 1000 |
Super Dork | 2000 |
Ultra Dork | 3000 |
Uber Dork | 4000 |
Power Dork | 5000 |
UltimaDork | 7000 |
MegaDork | 10,000 |
Two of the most popular threads in the history of the forum have unlikely titles: "Ignore" and "Can we please stop hotlinking pics?" They have reached 300+ pages of posts by regular and new users alike. As of March 2016, the "hotlinking" thread had 76527 posts spanning 3062 pages.
Several initialisms are frequently used in place of common phrases:
Several words are automatically filtered to keep the forum family-friendly and relatively spam-free. They are replaced with unorthodox alternatives as follows:
Forum members have also developed the following slang terms/phrases:
The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) is a non-profit American automobile club and sanctioning body supporting Autocross, Rallycross, HPDE, Time Trial, Road Racing, and Hill Climbs in the United States. Formed in 1944, it runs many programs for both amateur and professional racers.
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes publicly visible.
Autocross is a form of motorsport in which competitors are timed to complete a short course using automobiles on a dirt or grass surface, excepting where sealed surfaces are used in United States. Rules vary according to the governing or sanctioning body, such as the length of the course, the amount of permitted attempts, or whether competitors start the course individually at intervals or at the same time as others. In this latter form, Autocross differs from other forms of motor racing by using a system of heats or alternative timing methods for the classification rather than racing for position and declaring the first across the finish line as the winner.
Memphis International Raceway was an auto racing park located near the Loosahatchie River in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, approximately ten miles south of Millington, and a few miles north of the city of Memphis.
Rallycross is a form of sprint style motorsport, held on a closed mixed-surface racing circuit, with modified production or specially built touring cars. It is mainly popular in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Great Britain. An inexpensive, entry level type of rallycross is the Swedish folkrace or its Norwegian counterpart, the so-called bilcross. The folkrace is most popular in Finland where it was founded back in the late 1960s. In Europe, rallycross can also refer to racing 1:8 scale off-road radio-controlled buggies.
The Geo Storm is a sport compact car manufactured by Isuzu that was sold in the United States by Geo from 1990 until 1993. The same vehicles, with minor variations, were sold by Geo in Canada in the 1992 and 1993 model years only. The Storm was intended to be a budget car with the look and feel of a sports car. It was sold in two-door liftback and hatchback forms.
Sebring International Raceway is a road course auto racing facility in the southeastern United States, located near Sebring, Florida.
Gateway Motorsports Park is a motorsport racing facility in Madison, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, close to the Gateway Arch. It features a 1.250 mi (2.012 km) oval that hosts the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series, and the NTT IndyCar Series, a 2.000 mi (3.219 km) infield road course used by SpeedTour TransAm, SCCA, and Porsche Club of America, a quarter-mile NHRA-sanctioned drag strip that hosts the annual NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Midwest Nationals event, and the Kartplex, a state-of-the-art karting facility.
Rockingham Speedway, formerly North Carolina Motor Speedway and later North Carolina Speedway is a racetrack located near Rockingham, North Carolina. It is also known as The Rock and hosts NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races. It previously hosted NASCAR Cup Series, ARCA Menards Series, CARS Tour, and UARA-Stars races.
Pikes Peak International Raceway (PPIR) is a racetrack in the Colorado Springs area within the city limits of Fountain, Colorado, that by October 12, 1997, was "the fastest 1-mile paved oval anywhere". The speedway hosted races in several series including the Indy Racing League and two NASCAR series until operations were suspended from August 2005. A wide variety of amateur racing groups use PPIR for racing and training as the circuit is now closed to sanctioned professional auto racing due to the purchase of the track by PPIR LLC from NASCAR/ISC in 2008 after the track was put up for sale in 2006. The sale included a clause that prohibited sanctioned professional auto racing, as well as the need for additional safety upgrades at a cost of $1 million+ for professional racing series that the new ownership had no interest in implementing with the clause in place.
The National Auto Sport Association (NASA) is an American motorsports organization promoting road racing and high-performance driver education.
Garry Rogers Motorsport is an Australian motor racing team. It is owned by retired racing driver Garry Rogers who began the team to further his own racing efforts. Based in Melbourne, originally out of a Nissan dealership owned by Rogers, the team has competed in a variety of touring car series in Australia ranging from relatively modest Nissan production cars to Chevrolet NASCAR race cars to building the GT specification Holden Monaro 427C. The team won the Bathurst 1000 in 2000 and also won both of the Bathurst 24 Hour races which were held in 2002 and 2003. In 2013 the team celebrated its 50th year in racing since Rogers made his debut.
The 944 Cup is a grassroots motorsports road racing series dedicated to the front-engine water-cooled Porsche 944. The race series was created as a standalone series which began operating as such within numerous sanctioning bodies. The series was founded by the current National Director, Dave Derecola, and his son Chris Derecola, who continue to own and operate the series. The series currently races within the Porsche Club of America, under the direction of the National Director as a guest series.
Summit Racing Equipment is an automotive parts retailer with four retail stores and distribution centers located in Tallmadge, Ohio; Sparks, Nevada; McDonough, Georgia; and Arlington, Texas. Summit Racing Equipment is also involved in motorsports and other events as a sponsor.
Refer here for more info - updated 2022 website https://www.RutgersFormulaRacing.com/
Wreck Racing is a Georgia Tech automotive competition team, based in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. The team is composed of undergraduate and graduate students from the various schools within Georgia Tech and is based in the Student Competition Center on the North edge of Tech's Atlanta campus. The team's main focus is in the design, fabrication, testing, and racing of production-based sports cars. Wreck Racing primarily competes in the Grassroots Motorsports Annual Challenge, but also has competed in local SCCA and BMWCCA events.
The Formula Lites series was a single-seater formula racing class launched for 2015. The series was sanctioned by SCCA Pro Racing.
GRIDLIFE is a motorsports sanctioning body that hosts a series of music and motorsports festivals at racetracks across the United States. Racetrack venues that currently host Gridlife festivals include Carolina Motorsports Park, Watkins Glen International, GingerMan Raceway, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lime Rock Park, and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Non-festival events are held at Autobahn Country Club, Road America, Heartland Motorsports Park, New Jersey Motorsports Park & more. GRIDLIFE events feature daytime events such as road racing, time attack, drifting, car shows and concerts with contemporary EDM, Hip Hop and Alternative music in the evenings.
The ChampCar Endurance Series is a budget class endurance race held on paved road race courses across North America, formerly known as the ChumpCar World Series, run by ChumpCar International Inc. Founded in 2009, the group changed its name in 2017, with registered trademark granted by the USPTO on August 28, 2018. ChumpCar was a parody of the now defunct Champ Car World Series, an open wheel professional racing series that has since merged into the IndyCar Series. The initial concept was an endurance racing series for cars of $500 in value or less similar to the 24 Hours of LeMons endurance racing series. The series has a different overall philosophy, however, placing more emphasis on racing and less on decorations, costumes, and themes. ChumpCar's slogan is "Real Racing, Real Tracks, Real Cheap Cars", and its stated mission, as stated on its website, is "It's all about racing. It's all about tearing down those high-dollar roadblocks that, in the past, have restricted people with a passion for cars and racing from getting fully engaged and involved in motorsports. It's about enjoyment, friends and bringing road racing back to where it was fifty years ago - when racing was fun, cheap and nobody cared whether you had Snap-On tools or a mix-match of hand-me-downs in your toolbox." Competitors generally refer to themselves as "Chumps".
The 2020 TCR Australia Series was to be an Australian motor racing competition for TCR cars. It was planned to be the second TCR Australia Series and was to be run as part of the renamed Motorsport Australia Championships. The Series was sanctioned by Motorsport Australia as a National Series with the Australian Racing Group appointed as the Category Manager.