why can't we....

[Mr. NoSkills]

have a series like the east and west coasts do?
the honda challenge!
in the last few months going through rule books and shit and working on the civic, i've noticed that all of this work would be so much more worthwhile if i was going into a series like the WCHC/ECHC.
For those of you that don't know, it's run by NASA, and is a honda only series with 5 levels, h1-h5, each one giving more and more room for mods.
Is it just our location?
How could you get something like this started? I've tried to get in touch with NASA about something in our region, but i never get a response.

[Mark_H]

Good question, keep us posted if you ever get in touch with them.
M

[Mr. NoSkills]

Ok guys, got a response from Ryan Flaherty, the NASA national chairman.

"There are two guys in the Texas region leading the charge and have been put
in charge of leading the group. You can contact him at info@texashc.com and
his name is Trevor. We used to have a Colorado region of NASA but they never
ran more than 2 events and never followed the NASA guidelines and
procedures. We are always ready to get a region started but it has to be the
right time and have the right person lead the charge to make it happen. If
you know of a person or group who would like to do that please let me know"

So what I'd like to do now, is perhaps get a little e-mail group going of people who would be interested in joining NASA if we had our own region, and who would be interested in being more involved with getting this stuff setup.
I have no background with this stuff which is why I haven't told him I'd do it, so I'm looking for someone with a history, or at least some idea of what they are doing that might want to take this a step ahead.
But the idea of the list is more or less to not only show that there is some interest out here, but also to keep those that are interested updated. I know there's been a lot of talk about how SCCA is running our region (or lack there of?) and everyone I've talked to out of cali loves NASA.
It's not only a honda thing, they have tons of classes, just like scca, including spec miata. check out www.nasaproracing.com for more info.

I'd be interested to hear back from you guys on this, so post away.

[Weston]

I'd be very interested, and I'm expecting that most of my group and our sponsor would be too.

BTW, there are plenty of SCCA events in Colorado. But the Club Racing events are like a $300 entry fee!

[Mr. NoSkills]

well the main reason i first got in contact with them was because of the honda challenge, scca doesn't have anything like that. if you want to swap motors in scca, you better get ready for the big boys.
i've been lurking on the scca boards for a long time now as well and a lot of drivers over there seem to be not so happy with the way scca has been running things this season so .... =)

[djet820]

this sounds fun.

[phil]

it would definitely be interesting. maybe it's time to look into something like that by me...

[Weston]

Yeah, the SCCA classing could use some work. I've noticed that some other clubs use points to classify cars... each car (or type of car, such as FWD with <2.0L displacement, etc) in stock form has a number of points. Mods add points to that; how many depends on the mod. Then cars with similar numbers of points are grouped together. SCCA classes can have an assortment of different cars too, but there are a ton of little technicalities that could throw you into a much higher class for no good reason.

By SCCA rules, if I were to race my 1990 Prelude 2.0 Si with a B18B head swap, I'd be in a pretty much open class, against heavily modified turbo Supras and such. It seems kind off silly to put a 2.0L Honda with upgraded cams against 400+ HP RWD beasts.

[Mr. NoSkills]

Originally posted by Weston
Yeah, the SCCA classing could use some work. I've noticed that some other clubs use points to classify cars... each car (or type of car, such as FWD with <2.0L displacement, etc) in stock form has a number of points. Mods add points to that; how many depends on the mod. Then cars with similar numbers of points are grouped together. SCCA classes can have an assortment of different cars too, but there are a ton of little technicalities that could throw you into a much higher class for no good reason.

By SCCA rules, if I were to race my 1990 Prelude 2.0 Si with a B18B head swap, I'd be in a pretty much open class, against heavily modified turbo Supras and such. It seems kind off silly to put a 2.0L Honda with upgraded cams against 400+ HP RWD beasts.

yeah, honestly.
i mean in club racing you can go out and pretty much race ITE if your a hybrid and worry about all the old race cars, or carb it and run a GT class, thats' about it unless you wanna run a stock motor.
there were also a lot of complaints about the double points days that were just thrown in and messed up the whole points race, but all scca told the drivers was pretty much just to deal with it.
still working on this though, i'll post an update if there ever is one hehe.

[Mr. NoSkills]

ok guys, things are moving along (even if it's at a snails pace).
now here is what i need. the following quote is right from Ryan Flaherty at NASA, this is who i'm looking for to help keep this ball moving:
"the person (or team) has to have experience in running events and have a pre established relationship with the local tracks that will allow them to get a schedule of at least 4 events per year"

if you can't tell so far the plan is to do this with a team operation, not just one person going at it alone. if that quote fits you, or you think you can help somewhat with that please please e-mail me at eujon@introspeed.com. we need to be able to prove to them we have the ability to to organize some races, even if it is just like 4-6 races (you've gotta start somewhere right?).
if you have any questions please ask away or take a look at the NASA website.
TIA

[Mr. NoSkills]

also, so you can get a better idea of what honda-challenge is, here are some links you might wanna check out.

Honda Challenge Car Classes (http://www.honda-challenge.com/drivers/classes.html)

2003 rules in .PDF format. (http://www.hondachallenge.com/honda_challenge_rules.pdf)

Official honda challenge site (http://www.hondachallenge.com/)

I would also like to add that the east coast and west coast are only running like 6-9 races a year for this series, so in all honesty I don't think it would be too hard to get the track time as long as we planned ahead. Also it would help in keeping the price down a little, instead of having a race every single weekend.

TIA

[stu]

I can help by making sure to participate.

[ALLMRT]

im down lets smoke our hondas if we got them let me know i have seroius ride to play! lets do this

[Weston]

lol, the Integra LS is in H4. Talk about an easy win. Hehehe, the joys of having an under-rated engine. :D

[Mr. NoSkills]

Originally posted by Weston
lol, the Integra LS is in H4. Talk about an easy win. Hehehe, the joys of having an under-rated engine. :D

haha, i don't know man, out on the east coast the crx's seem to be the cars to beat :)
of course, that might just be because there are more of them.
but then again, they don't call it a pigtegra for the hell of it haha.
:p

I've sent out an e-mail to a few others who have recently started up a HC series in their region to see if they can offer up some more advice as to help this move along as well as posting a link to this thread over at coloradoracing.net.
Also, word of mouth is a great thing. For those of you in "the circle" now, I'd appreciate it if you would pass the word along about this. I think the more interest we can show the more willing they'll be to work with us.
Thanks again guys.


*edit*
jesus, call me the edit master for the night...
anyways, i'd like to point out that anyone who has a background in something like marketing/business might be of help as well. if this does get going we will need people who are able to contact track owners/potential racers/shops/sponsers/etc to help out. i think someone with some "training" in that are might be a big help. you know, bring in the "big catch" haha.
one of my friends helping with this is actually a business major at cu denver, so for right now he's the guy helping me out with all that type of shit, but anyone else who has free time and is willing to work for free shoot me an e-mail :guns: