Of Course It's Insane!

[Go4fun]

We are Americans! Insanity is our specilaty. It's expected of us! So what could be more nuts than 'Stadium Trucks meet Stock Cars meet Mad Max'?

So I came up with this for The Year 2013 Challenge in my facebook group.

It's based on racing stock(?) appearing cars on tracks made up from dear trails, tractor paths, through hill and over dale.   Your going to find stumps, rocks, (boulders?), fallen trees and other things on the 'track'.  So far I've made up three classes: Street Stock, Modified Stock and Max. ("Maximum Destruction" maybe?)  
Joey's Modified Stock 1964 Ford Galaxie.

My Street Stock 2006 Camaro (Snap Tite!)

It's all in good fun and you know the EPA, FIA, Insurance companies, Green Peace and probably the United Nations would never let this happen for real.
So if you hear I was taken by black clad men in full body armor who landed in mysteriously quiet black unmarked helicopters and 'No one knows nothin', it was a really good idea.

[Father Ennis]

Silly Englishman !!!  I know guys who use their's to go deer hunting ,in the off season.  In fact,if I put on those "mudder tires" on my big Dodge and tweak my suspension for it, I could do that myself.   My only real problem,is that AAA won't come out and pull me out or truck me back home, if I'm doing that and I break something important to it's running ....  Oh and it's great fun,too !!!     

[Mossie]

Ah, reminds me of driving in Florida, being overtook and undertook at the same by two huge trucks with the supension jacked up to crazy levels.  Perfect for intimidating first-time tourists in their rental cars!

Like the Mod street epecially, looking forward to Max.

[PR19_Kit]

On the opposite tack, we shipped an MG Maestro Turbo out to Minneapolis so Austin-Rover, as they were back then, could commission the massive 12 channel road simulator that they'd ordered. A-R had the original road response data from the Maestro taken in the UK and wanted to see how the rig managed the same data file. Before and after the work I drove the thing around Twin Cities with the US equivalent of trade plates, which was a piece of paper taped into the rear window!

On the cloverleaf  junctions that abound along I494 and I694 (think M6 and M42 around Brim and Coventry...) the Maestro was AWESOME! I could hold the 55 mph speed limit (and more....) on the tightly curved ramps with no problems and a few times I passed the other traffic on the inside and the outside lane as appropriate at the time. With the turbo engine it would blow the doors off almost anything on the road, unless they were pukka NASCAR or IMSA type road machines. A buddie's Buick GS was not catchable sadly, but I did try!

One time in St Paul a Police cruiser pulled me over and the cop came back, looked at the empty passenger seat, swapped sides to my side and said 'Sir, whatever that thing is, and wherever it came from, it for sure CANNOT be legal! But I want one!' 

He'd just stopped me to see what  it was....... 

[eatthis]

On the opposite tack, we shipped an MG Maestro Turbo out to Minneapolis so Austin-Rover, as they were back then, could commission the massive 12 channel road simulator that they'd ordered. A-R had the original road response data from the Maestro taken in the UK and wanted to see how the rig managed the same data file. Before and after the work I drove the thing around Twin Cities with the US equivalent of trade plates, which was a piece of paper taped into the rear window!

On the cloverleaf  junctions that abound along I494 and I694 (think M6 and M42 around Brim and Coventry...) the Maestro was AWESOME! I could hold the 55 mph speed limit (and more....) on the tightly curved ramps with no problems and a few times I passed the other traffic on the inside and the outside lane as appropriate at the time. With the turbo engine it would blow the doors off almost anything on the road, unless they were pukka NASCAR or IMSA type road machines. A buddie's Buick GS was not catchable sadly, but I did try!

One time in St Paul a Police cruiser pulled me over and the cop came back, looked at the empty passenger seat, swapped sides to my side and said 'Sir, whatever that thing is, and wherever it came from, it for sure CANNOT be legal! But I want one!' 

He'd just stopped me to see what  it was....... 

the meastro was a lump of turd with a bit of power

[Rheged]

The Maestro was erratic  in build quality,  but the basic design was sound enough. A former colleague had an MG turbo that had been well screwed together and went, in his words, "like a tom-cat with a two yard start on the vet".  I found it  quite reasonable to drive......but at the time I was trundling about in a clapped out Ford Escort estate with more miles on the clock than the starship Enterprise.

My favourite Maestro anecdote is about  the motoring journalist who managed to  take a top of the range model with the "talking dashboard"  end over end into a ditch.  As he hung upside down in the seat belt waiting for rescue , all he could hear was a female  voice repeating "LOW OIL PRESSURE".

If you really want  automotive insanity, my mother suggests the early 1960's Vauxhall Cresta PA she once drove.  It was "the size of a small aircraft carrier and had no knowledge of the  concept of cornering"

[Mossie]

If you really want  automotive insanity,

Renault 5 Turbo???

[Go4fun]

The Insane part is these are autos not trucks. And in the Street Stock class the rules say "...any tire that will fit the stock production rim not over a 33 inch..." blah, blah, blah. I figure keep this class as stock as possible except for safety concerns and it will be cheap enough.
I've seen many cars 'lifted' onto big 4x4 truck chassis from a Chevrolet Vega on a JeepCJ 5 chassis to an full-sized Oldsmobile station wagon (estate) onto a truck chassis.
"Give a man a fishing pole and he will drown worms. Give him some tools, something to drink and a couple of junk cars and you'll entertain his brain for a year or more"! Billy Bob Shakispear

[PR19_Kit]

the meastro was a lump of turd with a bit of power

I knew someone would come up with something like that.........

All it proves is that you never drove one for any length of time and DEFINITELY not a Turbo! I had a non-Turbo MG for 2.5 years and it was brilliant, just a tad too small for what I needed but it sure got me there fast. The Turbos were insane, and suffered torque steer while standing still in the garage!

But having got past that hurdle it would blow the doors off anything in a similar size/price category, it's biggest plus point was the opposition just didn't see you as a threat until you'd vanished into the distance. A greatly underated car.

[Go4fun]

"Can't we all just get along"? Rodney King of the L.A. riots fame. 
'The Turbo XYZ 1.53i is a crud bucket!" versus 'My Turbo XYZ 1.53i did have it's flaws but I loved it for it's warp particle accelerator!' can go all day.
If you want to build some car from 'across the pond' to run in our WhiffWorld series, build it! MAX will be a sort 'Open' class as long as it sort-of-kinda resembles the car you started with. A chopped and channeled Vaxhall with the driver in the center of the rear seat and a Merlin in-line 8 aircraft engine? BRING IT!  Just no whirrly thing-ma-bobs (I think they are called prepeelers) sticking out please!  Heck, a 1:35 London taxi on 1:24 Big foot axels sounds about right to me! 

[Captain Canada]

Love the Galaxy, and great story about the Maestro !

[Go4fun]

Yeah Captain Canada. Joey started this whole iea with his build. I'm still looking for tires for the Camaro. It's pretty much "Anything that fits on the stock size rim" in the rules. I found  ONE tire   that fits for the front in my stash but am still looking for rear tires.  

[Go4fun]

It was an ugly blue/black with a silver stripe down one side of the hood before. But you get the idea where I'm headed.

[Captain Canada]

-think dollar store : they have so many cheap Chinese crap off-scale toys that there is bound to be at least one 4-wheeled ATV or 4x4 or F-1 car to find one to fit !

[Go4fun]

I went through the dollar store and found NO toy vehicles of any kind.   I looked at Target' (Prononced Tar-jay!  ), and found two sizes. TOO large and TOO small!