Nobody

Emailed John Lindsey today...it's official...the OTC is not a go for 2006. The allure to the OTC for me was that it was both a test of endurance and speed and involved public roads as well as road courses.

So here's what I'm thinking.....we form our own OTC. Three tracks in three days and an additional two tracks on back to back days with teams of three. We form our teams and challenge other teams of the same make/model (S2ks, STis, Evos, Vettes, Mustangs, Elises, Boxters, etc.) for A) fastest laps of the day and B) fastest combined team laps for each track. Instead of renting track time and dealing with the nightmare of all that, we run events that are already being run by other groups. If you peruse the racing schedules of the various main clubs (NCRC, Speedventures, Fast Laps, Unlimited Laps, etc.) you can see it's not that difficult to run an entire different series w/in their schedules by stringing together back to back days at different courses w/different clubs and viola....Poor Man's OTC.

Oh, and I'm a big fan of early UFC....what that means is basically the only rules would be: No Eye Gouging and No Biting. Translated: This challenge would be open to production cars w/MSRPs under $60K? and anyone competing has to run on RA-1s or equivalent and drive on public roads from event to event. There WOULD NOT be a 20 page rulebook covering intakes, strut tower bar deductions and/or spring rate restrictions. Maybe some Gumball bonus points could be awarded for teams who can get from one venue to the next in specific amounts of time.

The only issue I forsee other than me being the only one interested is if Richard, Rob and Ry all decide to be on the same team and I end up as the backup driver checking tire pressures.

Anyone think it's an idea worth pursuing?

rlaifatt

When you say teams of three, do you mean three cars per team, or three drivers per car?

Nobody

I think three cars per team is better. Leads to more diversity (and more of a challenge), vs., three drivers driving one really wicked car.

rlaifatt

It's a little confusing because you said we could challenge other teams of the same make/model. I think we could easily have six S2000s or more, so would there be two or more teams of S2000s? Seems it would be more competition if each car competes on it's own but also as part of the group of make/model against other make/models. Hmmm... now I'm more confused But I'm all for it .

Nobody

2, 3, 4 teams of S2000s is ok by me....It's open for discussion...even mixed teams of Evo, S2000, Vette's.?

At this point anything to get more people off the sofa, onto the track and into competition. I think a lot of us on this board are fast enough and have the skills to be competitive in SCCA or NASA, BUT--you're f'd if you want to race an S2000 against E46s and 450hp Evos. Additionally, it's god damned expensive and takes way too much time if you have to work for a living.

The OTC, as I saw it, was a legitimate way to build up a resume and possibly pull sponsors while having fun racing what's sitting out in your garage.

For arguments sake I forsee it like this:

Infineon March 30th
Thunderhill March 31st
Buttonwillow Apr. 1st

Top driver at each event gets 5 points and top team gets 5 points
Second place gets 4, Third gets 3, Fourth gets 2 and Fifth gets 1. Simple.

Than later in the year do another two or three day event at a couple different tracks, tally up the score and viola....Track Challenge winner of 2006.

cthree

Some ideas to mull over...

- Make the classes requirements realistic. The T class in OTC was far too open and required complete disassembly of ones car and major expense to have any hope. It was basically a race car on street tires class. Why not follow the SCCA Solo2 rules which are well known and what many have spec'd their cars for.

- Assess some sort of handicapping like SCCA/SWC either in terms of weight or time based on success. You get first place you carry rewards weight or a time penalty to the next event. Weight is more complicated than time. Say add 1s for first, .5s for second, .25s for third.

- Set a minimum number of laps higher than 3 per leg. Make it 10 laps minuimum to qualify. It will reward consistancy and offer the endurance factor.

- One driver per car?

- I like the team element. Maybe score the top 5 times of each driver in the team so that every driver contributes and so it doesn't turn into one driver/car carries the whole team.

- Maximum 6 tires for the whole event.

- All cars on each team must weigh the same +/- 5% of the heaviest car.

- Have a practice/shakedown test day for people to get registered, weighed and teched the day before.

If I can go out and do the event without having to do major work on my car or spend major sums of cash on parts I'd do it. I can buy 6 tires, a set of brake pads and pay for 4 events if I think it's fair and fun.

I think this could work. The problem with OTC was IMHO the cost of entry. I had to buy 3 sets of tires, gut my interior, pay $1800 entry fee + expenses and spend $8000 in performance parts to only come in 4th. We were pretty close all around an I think we were classed pretty well but I was in the cheapest class I could enter (T3).

The idea of OTC was take your normal car and go compete but that was totally unrealistic. It would be like taking an AS car and trying to go against an ASP car in auto-x. You could but why?

I would fully support a realistic plan and try to help get sponsors and promote it through the s2ki site and membership base. I'd even send out a mass emailing to inform people of the event.

cthree

To add, I think the spilt event is an interesting idea but would be more difficult to accomplish. A single event 3 days +1 practice makes the most sense for participants and sponsors and organizers IMO

cthree

That's what he's saying. 3 cars per team means multiple teams of 3 cars. I don't think you should limit the teams to a single make and model. They should be based on SCCA solo2 classification, All AS or BS or BSP or whatever.

maxrev

No OTC for 2006!

I think events need media coverage to get any decent sponsorships.

How about team S2000 25hr T-Hill entry?

JackOlsen

The OTC is a great idea that never got enough of a push, partly because (in my opinion) the organizers never got a good sense of the bigger picture of what the event could be.

Broadly speaking, there are two segments of auto enthusiasts. One is guys with dedicated race cars, usually built to the specific rules of the club they race with. There's a certain amount of fluidity between marque-specific club racing, SCCA, and all the way up to Grand-Am, ALMS, World Challenge and the like. Currently, these guys are really well served by the groups and events that are out there. There are a lot of groups they can race with. It's just a matter of picking the right one.

The other group is the guys with street-legal and street-driven cars. They're probably a much larger group, but they're seriously under-served compared to the club racers. They get DE's and open track days. But even when the occasional time trial is put together, the organizers tend to shape it in the shadow of established marque-specific club guidelines -- working on an implicit assumption that their participants are testing the waters to see if they want to move up to club racing with a dedicated car.

I think the OTC concept works best when it sees itself as something other than a poor man's mini season of club racing, or a venue for guys who (for whatever reason) are taking off a season of club racing, or just built a car to test for club racing, or whatever. I think it's at its best when it's targetting guys who don't want to give up the idea of a car you can drive to the track, race, and then drive back home -- or a car you can modify in a way that makes sense to you instead of conforming to the rules of some jackass committee from some jackass club.

I think the idea of a week-long event where the participants drive the same cars between events that they drive in the events themselves is something that people outside of club racing can relate to. Magazine readers will 'get' this much more than they get weird SCCA classes filled with cars they've never seen. 'Racing your car' -- it's the idea that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when you sit in your first performance car and imagine it doing something more than just getting you to work every day.

Speedventures is the kind of group that is perfect for running this type of event. NASA, being a club racing group that sees the world through those glasses, is not (again, in my humble opinion).

I think the OTC could really kick ass as an event dedicated to the idea of finding the fastest car and driver combinations from the real world of cars, not the 'looks like a car' world of dedicated track racing or the 'if you knew the rules, you'd know how good this guy is' world of club and SCCA events.

Guys buy cars, they build cars, and they bring them to the the track. The Open Track Challenge is a concept that could serve this group by providing a competitive forum where all of the internet BS could stop as soon as the proverbial green flag drops. I agree it should have simple rules. It could thrive with an easy-to-get concept. I participated in all three OTC's, flawed as they might have been, and I still think it's a great idea.

Although, as a side note, I'd scrap the idea of 'teams.' Matching up teams invites rules made to level the playing field or strategies of assembling a team that have nothing to do with driving a car. I think the OTC should be a straight, simple competition -- with classes, to give more guys a shot at taking home a trophy -- but primarily about a guy and the car he's driving and whether he's faster than other guys in similar cars.

Also, I think March is way too soon, if you want to have the event able to build any momentum. I'd shoot for the fall.