luder_5555

^ I think that an s2k and a miata should be in the same class. A miata with coilovers and really good street tires is good for 1:14.xxx or lower. I don't recall and N/A s2k's running much if any faster than that on street rubber.

As for FWD, I think that the plan would be to let them run in that class nomatter the mods or tires. There is a good group of drivers that are all close enough that it is fun for them. Any of the slower drivers could still run novice.

You know the more I think about it, the more I feel that having a street tire, r-comp, novice, and FWD makes pretty good sense. There are a few cars that could upset the balance, but so far there really hasn't been a better suggestion.

The only real down side is that anyone running an r-comp tire gets thrown into the ubber-class. I guess that this could be solved by having an open class. Just put anyone running under 1:9.999 in the unlimited class. There would not be trophies being given to some of the faster drivers, but I think that being put in the uber-class would be cool enough by itself.

If we did this,

Street would be lead by s2k's, the fastest of the miatas, there is an rx7 that was running mid to low teens on star specs, the odd high end porsche with a brave driver, vettes, and other exotics with drivers brave enough to get the best out of their cars. I remember a 997.2 gt3 that was running very low teens at a lapping day. He would be very difficult to beat on street tires.

R-comp would be taken by lotus's, s2k's, FI miatas with good drivers (I have yet to see a turbo/supercharged miata running below 1:15 besides Bundy), any exotics with good drivers, newer atom drivers, any lighter weight car that is well prepped, well driven and has enough power to be fairly quick on the straight bits. (I don't care what you people say, if you are being beaten by 3-4 seconds on the south end, you are going to have a hell of a time being competitive.)

Open would be much like the top of RWD was in the fall. If Petty shows up, he will win. Unless Bundy or Jared find a whole lot of time somewhere. (While he may not ever admit to it, Bundy may find a bit of time if he sources some wider wheels so that those 275 hoosiers are not so pinched on those 15x9's that were created for the 225/45 rs3's and nt-01's) Open would be and unfortunate classing mishap for those like Jared who are not super modified, but too damn quick for the rest of the people who show up.

FWD would be interesting to watch. It would prolly fall into Hector's hands again if he decides to come. I still don't think that any FWD guys have bested him, but not one FWD guy has asked for a classing change. In fact, there have been many many requests to have the FWD class continue as is. (This according to mike) There are a few newer drivers that have been coming to the winter events that are quite impressive. There is a srt-4 that ran 1:15's or 16's at the last lap attack. Then he ran 1:13.xxx the next week at the stars of motorsports event after shedding 200lbs and corner-balancing the car. He said that he was going to try and shed a bit more weight, up the power, and dial the suspension even more, so he should be fun to watch. (Only down side is that he is getting deployed soon, so may not be around much this summer.)

Novice by Mike's definition would be for newer/newish drivers who do not feel comfortable in any of the other classes. They would be allowed to run novice until that got 2-3 podium spots, or until they were deemed to be too quick. (Race director's discretion) The incentive to NOT run Novice is that points would not carry over, so if you wanted a part in any sort of season points race, you would have to run one of the "competitive" classes.

I am not sold on this classing setup, but I can't think of anything better, and mike hasn't been too excited about anything else. The one thing that he really seems to like that I hate is a consistency based points system. Points would be awarded based on consistent lap times instead of outright speed. I think that this would be very difficult when people are getting caught after 2 laps.

And to answer all of your questions, yes, I have no life, no friends, need a girlfriend, and enjoy this little track way too much. Don't worry, some of my over-zealousness should subside as some of my 3-5 planned big track days take place.
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GEARHEAD

Although I haven't participated in the winter series, the new class rules look really good to me. Isn't Open for racecars, kit cars, cars without doors, windshields, etc? I thought Bundy and I would fall under the R-Comp class.
I'm looking forward to the next series. Need a lapping day to finish off my old R888's and get some new rubber.

WestSideBilly

The only real difference between our proposals is that I don't give wrong wheel drive their own class (which is fine, they can have it), and I split the FI and NA R comp guys. FI is basically open (Jared, Bundy, Petty, Dietz [black Evo], the guy that brought the GT-R, etc). NA you can slide the displacement wherever, under 2.5 though. The large displacement NA class probably won't have a lot of cars, but where else do you put a Z06 or 911 GT3 on R comps? At least on street tires they have to deal with applying power. Is it any better? Dunno. Seems like you'd have pretty good competition in every class (based on the 1.9 split), should take about 2 seconds to figure out where you belong, most of the popular sports cars are in a category they're reasonably competitive in, and the new guys aren't looking at 12 second deficits to the winners.

Simplicity
Competitive groups
Fair for as many people as possible
Something to where newer drivers are not discouraged.


I guess there's an upside to your system, and that would be encouraging a lot of people like me to not bother buying R Comps. Or for that matter, going at all, and just going to lapping days and not having to worry about "competing" with cars that are 5+ seconds/lap faster. Focusing on the splitting the 5 or 6 fastest cars and ignoring the 25 other guys probably isn't going to lead to much participation.

GEARHEAD

Where else do you put the Z06 and GT3 on R-comps? I say in with the rest of the R-comp class. Times were very similar to the non-Petty R-comp cars (EVO 1:09, STi 1:10, S2000 1:09, Z06 1:08, GT-R 1:08, GT3 1:11, Miata 1:08, Exige 1:11). Dietz proved you could put a SuperStock prepared C5 Z06 in the 1:08's. I'm sure the GT3's are capable of sub 1:10 times... I'd like to minimize the number of classes to increase field size/competition. Again, I'll say tires make the difference (much more so here than on longer tracks).

WestSideBilly

You're focusing on the 5 or 6 fastest cars. If all you want is a series for them it's fine, just have one class. A stock-ish Miata on R comps is going to run what, 1:15? Stock-ish S2000 on R-comps is running 1:13? That's a 5+ second gap that's going to require some serious hardware and a lot of seat time to make up.

"Fair for as many people as possible"

If you make everyone with R comps run against prepped/dedicated track cars, they're not going to show up with any regularity, or switch to street tire and turn that into a 20+ car class and leave the 3 or 4 fast cars to piss it out over who stands on top of the podium. And once you've pushed everyone into street tire, the new guys who are just getting into this are going to look at the fastest street tire cars (1:13?) and realize they are 7-10 seconds slower. Again, lots of hardware and seat time, or just say eff it and do lapping days. $85 for 20-30 minutes of seat time, with no chance to win, is not a good value proposition.

GEARHEAD

I agree with most of your post. I am focusing on the fastest group of cars with the intent to put them all in one class so people in other classes have a chance at a podium spot. As it was last summer, the 2 or 3 fast guys on R-comps dominated each class. No one else had a chance. If we put the R-comps together, at least street tire cars have a chance at podium spots.
I think the street tire class will be huge with good competition for the podium. I think your class proposal will result in all the podium spots taken by the same 5-6 fast guys just split up in different classes. Then there will be a big discrepancey between 2nd and 3rd place or 3rd and 4th. Is this better? It is better for the fastest group as they have a better chance of winning and maybe that's best for the series as they seem to show up consistently.

New guys just getting into this running 1:20's should have no expectation of winning and they should say eff it and get some lapping day practice until their times are competitive - isn't that what we all did. We need participation to keep this series going but not at the expense of sending a bunch of backmarkers on the track and giving them trophies. If we are looking for really tight competition, we need either spec classes or several dozen classes like auto-x and there isn't time or enough participants to do either.

"Street tire(any engine) / FI / NA < 1.9 / NA >= 1.9 / novice" = 15 trophies (not including a FWD class) with 25-30 cars. The awards ceremony will take more time than the racing.

luder_5555

I am running low 15's and high 14's on street tires and coilovers. As much as I hate to admit, a better driver would prolly shave a second off my time, and another second or possibly even two on an ok race tire, more on hoosiers. It appears that Jared's prediction of a stock powered miata hitting 1:10 may not have been too far off. I still think that you would hit the point of too much grip for the power on hand before that, but I think that 1:11-1:12 is not beyond possible. That said, I have seen at least a dozen miata's that were setup as well if not better than my car, and none of them have cracked into the 15's yet. The closest is a mazda speed miata making 250hp on 225/45 r888's. Last I saw he ran low 1:16's.

Just looking at the rental karts, you can see how big a factor the driver is. On a good day I am 2-3 seconds off of Jerry or other really good drivers. I don't have much time in the karts, but I consider myself at least a good driver. A newer driver will be 5-10 seconds off of my time in the same kart. What a car can do and what the driver will end up doing are two very different things in most cases.

WestSideBilly

1) I think you're underestimating your driving skills (at least with respect to the Miata).
2) You're right about the trophy thing. There's a balancing point between too much (auto-x) and too few (1 or 2 classes).
3) I'm thinking optimistically that with the right groups (where 5+ cars might have a reasonable chance to win) the 25-30 cars could be 35-40. I don't know what the max # of cars should be, the last one I went to had around 30 and it seemed like it wouldn't be impossible to accommodate a few more.

luder_5555

I think that the self-imposed limit is ~36 cars. The most that you want on track at any time is 6 cars. Any more, and too many people are getting caught too quickly, and some people are not getting 3 hot laps.

As for your compromise between auto-x and 1-2 classes, I talked to mike on sunday for about an hour, and one of the leading ideas was to select ~3 auto-x classes that would accommodate most of the cars, and place all of the cars into the class that they best fit. I.E. ST class (STS and STR), CPS/higher level stock class (vettes, gt3's), and Modified. With this setup most of the cars would fall into ST, the cars that wanted to run R-comps or were just too fast on regular street tires due to the fact that its a $50-60k sports cars/exotic, and the Jared's, Bunby's and atoms could run Mod class. Leave FWD alone because they still want there own class, but give FWD drivers the choice of running ST class or FWD, where ever they feel more competitive. Plus have Novice not as a class, but as a sub-category. If you would have been eligibly for Novice, and don't make podium in your given class, then you get to compete in the running for a novice trophy. It would be a way of saying, "good job, your new, but are on the path to being a class contender." One stipulation would be that a sub 100 tread wear tire would automatically bump you to Mod class. (Hoosiers and Hankooks are too spendy, and too sticky to be legal in the lower two classes) Any tire would be allowed in FWD, as the quick 4-6 drivers there are all within 1-2 seconds of each other, and any slower drivers that feel that FWD is too fast, would probably fit in the ST class, where top times would likely be in the 1:14-1:15 second range.

I told Mike that I would run this Idea past some people on a few forums that have more that a couple drivers, and see what you guys think. Try to remember who runs what, and any cars that would upset the balance. My thinking was that cars like s2k's 350z's, miata's, rx8's, m3's, ect could run ST. Vettes, Porsches, lotus's, lambos, Ferrari's, ect would start out as CSP/exotic. There would possibly have to be a rule stating that if you were in the csp/exotic because you were an exotic that running an r-comp would bump you to Mod. class. (vette, gt3 on streets is good for 1:13 or better, on r-comps ~1:10? so they wouldn't be too far off.)

Thoughts and criticisms are welcome. Time is running thin, so quick responses are better. Mike is planning on announcing the new classes this week so that people have at least two weeks to prepare/buy tires for their classes. (first spring event is 3 weeks from yesterday)

GEARHEAD

Let me know if this is what you are proposing.
Street Tire Class: any tire above 100 Treadwear, limited engine, suspension, and brake modifications per SCCA rules (need to pick one class to base the rules on as each SCCA street tire class is slightly different).
Street Prepared Class: in SCCA, this would be the same cars but with more modifications allowed including R-comps. Sounds like you are proposing another street tire class using more expensive cars?
Modified Class: all FWD or RWD cars on R-comps
FWD Class: all FWD

Personally, I'd stay away from using SCCA classes as they are very restrictive - one small missing interior trim will bump you into a fully modified class. Also, SCCA allows R-comps in every class other than the ST classes including Stock and Street Prepared (CSP).

It looks like the intent in this new proposal is to split up the street tire class. I think the only reasonable way to do that is based on car model. You could use the Super Stock class and ASP class cars as the Fast Street Tire Class and all other Stock class cars as the "Slow" Street Tire Class. This would put the Lotus, GT-R, Z06, GT3, etc in the "fast" class and the non-Z06 Vette, S2000, Boxster, 350Z, Miata, etc in the "slow" class. I would keep all modifications open and just limit tire treadwear.
Something like this:

Super Street Tire: All cars listed as SS, Not Eligible, or Not Listed here: http://cms.scca.com/documents/2011%2...20listings.pdf, Treadwear equal to 140 or higher.
Street Tire: All cars listed AS-HS here: http://cms.scca.com/documents/2011%2...20listings.pdf, Treadwear equal to 140 or higher.
Modified: Must use DOT approved Tires.
FWD: Must use DOT approved Tires.

I don't recall seeing many cars that would fall into the Super Street Tire class - except maybe a Lotus or Atom. Most of the cars in this category were running R-comps. However, using the current rules, I imagine a few cars that were running R-comps last year may switch to street tires to be more competitive in class. I assume this is the driver to split up the street tire class. I still like the idea of an Open class for racecars, kit cars, and limited production cars so the R-compound group has a chance at winning in the Mod class. The Open class would probably be small and may not even fill the podium so I understand the rationale for not using this class.