How A $500 Craigslist Car Beat $400K Rally Racers

[Sailqueen]

What an awesome grass roots story of a guy with a dream and some spare credit cards!

Well worth the read.........

Professional motorsport is a cold, hard place. If you want to run
with the big dogs, you can't just build a car in your mom's garage and
show up, right? Wrong. One guy did just that. Here's his amazing story.

This is the multifaceted tale of Bill Caswell, a man who bought a
$500 crapcan off Craigslist to run against the $400,000-plus rally cars
in a World Rally Championship race earlier this month. It is a tale of a
guy who had a welder, a bunch of credit cards, and a lot of free time
but no real backing or funds. It is a story of a dude who taught himself
how to build an FIA-legal roll cage, with no prior experience, because
he wanted to spend the fabrication fee on race tires instead. It's the
story of an enthusiast who drove a rustbucket to a third-place finish in
an FIA-sanctioned race.

It goes on...... and on and on....

Have four hours to sleep, most sleep have had in a week. Car is
perfect. Fuel pump fixed by the side of the road. Fixed rear sway bar.
Changed to fresh tires. Fabricated new hood tie downs with a borrowed
welder — had to borrow a larger generator to run it, too — b/c mine
cracked off. Trans brace was held on with only one nut left and loose
and halfway undone. Got lucky.

Also, after fixing fuel pump, we show up at the next stage late. The
officials are like, "The fans think the stage is over, people are now
walking down the stage, there are pickups in the middle of the road, you
can't run it." I had to drive 15 mph, while being timed, through a
stage we normally would have gone 100 mph through. If that
wasn't enough, [redacted]ing Kimi Raikkonen launched his car off the
side of the cliff. A flatbed wrecker was pulling his car out of
a ditch and blocking the road. When the tow truck finally moved, we
finished the stage.

Enjoy the story, it is funny and amazing!

http://jalopnik.com/5497042/how-a-500-dollar-craigslist-car-beat-400k-rally-racers

[Rus-Evo]

Nice. What car was it?

[f1-cobra]

1991 BMW 318i





I bet he had a lot of fun.

[Rus-Evo]

Is that 4wd?

[Rus-Evo]

He must be a hell of a mechanic and a hell of a driver nonetheless!!

I often wondered if I could compete in a Galant VR4 or Legacy GT!!

[WebHead]

You could, I have seen such cars in the Aussie championship. But I can't imagine sponsors paying much to be on any of those cars, so you'd be mostly self funded. (unless you have a rich daddy?)

[Joey Zyla]

In the WRC? What year was this?