kenlola

Don't forget the 04. From what I've seen this year the 04 is about equal to the 00-03 cars. Has anyone else seen anything (autocross results) to indicate the 04 is faster then the earlier cars. On some tracks the earlier cars are faster due to gearing. So don't forget to include the 04 in any petition or letters to the SEB. Us 04 guy don't want to stay in A stock. Locally there are very few A stock guys that are competitive. And the B stock guys are having a blast racing against several S2000's and I'm stuck with 1 or 2 STI's which are not competitive, and then face getting killed at Nationals by C4's and Boxter S's.

PedalFaster

As someone who's been on the receiving end of one of those online petitions, I wouldn't bother. Spend that time writing a letter to the SEB instead.

Steve

NotAMurasama

Steve,

I concur - this is a great thread. I have a B-Stock 00' S2000. I'm competitive in my local region, with fairly lack-luster competition. I've competed almost exclusively in local region competitions, where I generally win and usually place top 5 or better pax (usual fields of 50 or so), despite being totally stock other than Hoosier S04's. The one divisional I've competed in, I performed very lackluster in class, largely due to a very bad first day, and mediocre second day.

Locally, I have very little in-class competition - a very good Turbo MR-2, and mostly non-competitive Boxsters, 944 S2s, and occasionally, a couple of S2000's. The best competition I regularly get is the cross class competition with Ken (kenlola) in his '04. We're usually within .2 to .5 seconds of each other with Ken usually, although not always, winning. As my car is stock, and Ken's is getting his fairly well sorted, I'd guess our cars would be fairly even if equally prepared (Ken: speak up if you agree/disagree with my assessment). The only other A-stocker I've been beaten by locally since I've been on Hoosier's was Danny Shields, but, as discussed elsewhere, he's in a different league than the rest of us. I haven't seen a C4 Vette compete in AS locally.

For what it's worth, I'd like to see a new class in-between AS and BS with all model year S2000's, the Boxster, Z4, the older M-Roadster/coupe, and possibly a few others (350Z, RX-8?). This would encourage more of the less competitive BS cars (944's, T-MR2's, older 911's, G35's, etc...) to come out.

I'll compete regardless, probably in my S, as I'm in it mainly for the fun and the comaraderie.

Terry

Nickfromny

Thanks GANG. You & the rest of the s2k community have made ownership and entry into the SCCA great. After competing at the national & international levels in ski racing, sailing, and insurance sales I thought my newbie insights could help. All of the entries mentioned suffer from obscure rules that inhibit growth & participation. Most insiders want it that way. Remember I am an insider in the other sports/profession. We like the exclusive club and being able to limit others participation. We cough up new rules like it was flu season at a nursing home. Can SCCA auto cross be put in the same catorgy, I hope not.

speed_bump

Why are they talking about moving the S2000? Is it because it dominates the class? If so that is bogus since the didn't move the Porsche 968 which seemed to own it before the S2000.

PedalFaster

That's a specious argument.

Firstly, the 968 never dominated the old AS like the S2000 is dominating BS. In the late nineties, you could have a good shot at winning Nationals in a 968, Toyota MR2 Turbo, BMW M3, or BMW Z3 (or a Boxster, although no one realized it at the time). Today, the S2000 thoroughly thrashes the rest of BS -- I'd have to check the results archives (if they're ever restored), but I believe David Hedderick's win at this year's Houston Tour may have been the first national-level B Stock win in a non-S2000 car since the class restructure in 2002.

Secondly, back when the 968 was on top of A Stock, the next class up was Super Stock, populated by twin-turbo RX-7s and C5 Corvettes. There was nowhere to move the 968; it would not have been even remotely close to competitive in SS. Conversely, today AS and BS are very close together, with BS beating AS as often as not; a SAC member has explicitly called this out as cause for concern on this forum. Because of this, any of the class-leading BS cars could go to AS and still fare respectably, something which was not true in the 968's day.

Steve

speed_bump

That's cool. Ijust never saw a 968 ose in 3 years at the limited events i attended and freely admit I didn't know about SS being the only place for it to go.

msm_s2k

I'll continue to participate even if the car is moved to AS. When I bought the car used, it was already in ASP due to aftermarket wheels and CAI. I just went wild with the motor, so once the car is back up and running it will be in SM2. A blast to drive, hopefully regionally competitive ... and I'm not concerned about national.

If the vote was where do I think the car belongs? BS For our region, the S2K is not likely to be competitive against some excellent C4 cars/drivers.

Hyper-X

BSP is bad news for us. We have Datsun 240Z's running 280ZX motors out here and currently there's never been anyone who can beat 1 of them regardless of the class and the driver's been dominating Solo-2 for over 3 years (both PAX and OA). It's one of those "we know who's gonna take 1st and everyone else fights over the scraps" issue. The last time I've seen anyone beat our local champ in his 240Z was a person named Keith Greer in a Red Devil F440 driving in FM class. If that's what's going to take to beat our local champ, I'll probably quit altogether. Sometimes, this update/backdate clause really sucks, giving certain cars a major performance advantage, versus something trivial like a reinforced A-arm bracket.

Our course favors cars with very high torque/HP numbers and a very light chassis. Even if I had say.. 280HP from "magical bolt-ons", I could never match his power to weight ratio.

payneinthe

Replace Datsun with C4 and you've just described Tom Berry. The only difference is CalClub is not very short on national champions and other assorted alien species.