Back in the 80's, I was heavily involved in autocrossing, to the point where my entire yearly schedule revolved around autocross dates. I was an active member of a sports car club (remember them?) based in Fall River, Massachusetts. There was another club that ran it's events at the University of Rhode Island in southern Rhode Island. Members of both clubs often ran each other's events.
About that time, the people at Chrysler had a product that was largely ignored by the market place. And for good reason! It was a POS that no self respecting car guy would have anything to do with. It was called the Dodge Rampage.
And so, some geniuses at Dodge decide to unload a bunch of Rampages by giving them away! That should tell you how slow sales were. And the method chosen for the give away was to hold a series of autocrosses and award a Rampage to the winner in each state. Details for the contest were announced in full page ads in Road & Track.
As it happens, I was an avid Road & Track reader. And an autocrosser. And I lived in the smallest state in the Union, giving me a clearly unfair advantage over contestants from places like California and Texas. Not sure if Alaska was even a state back then! So I decided to enter.
This required filling out an official entry form at one of the three participating Dodge dealers in Rhode Island. I went to all three. One dealer informed me that there WAS no such contest! And if there was, they knew nothing about it. When I produced a copy of the ad, they went scurrying about and found a package from Dodge lying around, unopened, in the parts department. I got the job of setting up the showroom display. Then I duly deposited my entry form in it and left.
Apparently, no one else submitted an entry at that particular dealership, because about a month later, they called me up and said I was the official winner from their store and oh by the way, could I be ready to compete in the statewide autocross at URI in 2 days? I allowed as how I would be happy to attend!
And so I showed up, with my helmet and driving gloves. The first thing I noticed is that the URI club (which had been contracted by Dodge to run the event) had laid out a course that was exactly the same as the one I had competed on just a few weeks earlier. Then I found out my two fellow contestants consisted of a young girl and a retired carpenter with three finger tips missing from his left hand.
Neither had ever driven competitively before or had any idea what an autocross was all about. They were startled by the idea that anyone would need a helmet for this. I started to feel pretty confident at this point.
Each of the three dealerships brought a Rampage from stock. Each was equipped with the ubiquitous Chrysler 2.2 liter 4 banger and 3 speed automatic transmission. We each got three runs apiece. I flogged the poor little Rampage around the course, making the wimply stock tires squeal in protest. I heard the GM from my store bitching loudly to the Dodge factory rep on hand that they were going to need to replace the tires and who was going to pay for THAT!?!?!
At the end of the day, I was crowned the official champion for Rhode Island, having bettered my nearest opponents time by more than 20 seconds.
Of course, I had no desire to actually own a Rampage. I wanted the cash. So I negotiated a deal with "my" store. They cut me a check and all was right with the world. The following February, I got a 1099 from Chrysler stating the value of my prize for tax purposes. 2 weeks after that, I got ANOTHER 1099 from Chrysler that was several thousand dollars more and instructing me to destroy the first one, that the person who prepared it had been fired and that the second one was the one I should use for tax purposes. I of course ignored this and reported the lower amount. It's been over 30 years now and I haven't heard anything from the IRS, so I guess I am safe!
But that was one long strange adventure in the life of this car guy!
