April Fastrack

[steverife]

I like the camber adjustment. Would be nice if they allowed one type of camber adjustment such as bolts, plates, etc. It would have made it a lot easier on the STi. Will be great for the Type R. I think this could bring a lot more cars into the mix. May end up phasing them back out after everything is figured out and everyone has "the car" for each class. But, it's making it easier for some odd cars to get a chance. (All of these possible rules would be nice for the regular Stock classes too...still on Hoosiers).

How is it great for the Type R? Even though they already burn through tires faster, they'll be stuck with their -.8 while everyone else in the class can run as much as they want.

[gbwrx]

Sorry, I don't know if the Type R's can use camber plates or not. I was just referring to the ability to get more camber out of those cars...and the fact that it would be easier on tires. Like I said above...I think it would be nice to give every car at least one type of camber adjustment.

[thrdeye]

Yeah I believe type r is wishbone is like a miata up front

sent from typotalk

[gbwrx]

LOL. I know little about most cars. Some about WRX's. And quite a bit less about Miata's. I just like to drive them...all of them.

[steverife]

I hate the idea of "needing" to run some crazy alignment to be competitive, especially since the argument for street tires is better wear. I bought camber plates for the Mustang and thought they were a pain. I looked at camber plate options for the 3 when I was looking at FSP and they were crazy expensive (had to talk to someone to get something built). Personally, I'd rather change tires than have to futz with alignments/engineering design, etc.

With that said, if it does go that way, it needs to be fair for every car.... even though I'm sure people would balk at the A arm folks swapping control arms in stock.

[MARKP]

I hate the idea of "needing" to run some crazy alignment to be competitive, especially since the argument for street tires is better wear. I bought camber plates for the Mustang and thought they were a pain. I looked at camber plate options for the 3 when I was looking at FSP and they were crazy expensive (had to talk to someone to get something built). Personally, I'd rather change tires than have to futz with alignments/engineering design, etc.

I haven't read this thing yet so I will be back to probably gripe later. I do agree with what Steve said.

[thrdeye]

Yeah I was wondering where you were lol.

I do understand the theory. If you can get cars on similar tire sizes and similar suspension settings, a lot of things become more equalized. And I do think that cars are going to be less performance oriented going forward (at least in many aspects, maybe not power wise), so I think this is important.

But there's a lot to take in and think about and I'm going to do my best to gather info and write a letter.

sent from typotalk

[flier129]

Integras use upper-ball joint sliders: https://www.jhpusa.com/store/pc/viewPrd ... tegory=250 Which doesn't seem to fit into this new proposal.

I'm liking these new proposals. I think something like my 94 R would still be the obvious contender for E-Street. AND that's why someone should buy it: http://greenville.craigslist.org/cto/3694124095.html

[MARKP]

Ok, I read both Fastrack and SoloMatters. I'm not happy and the SEB will get my opinion on this.

Here's my initial thoughts. Who the hell asked for this and why is all this a good idea? You are going to delete stock an put limited prep ST in its place? That's essentially the way this reads to me.

You aren't going to equalize cars within a class. Cars always have advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages my car has is camber adjustment. Can you imagine how bad I would have gotten my ass kicked by a 240hp Neon with a limited slip and the ability to dial in the camber I can get? Have you seen what the Minis have done to HS with just a spring rate change and a rear swaybar? To me, this whole proposal just says hey, stock class, FU!

Now, please forget about me. Let's think about how these rules will be exploited and the costs involved. Now we all get to buy wheels, camber plates, lots of tires to test, shocks, swaybars, and we get to spend time and money figuring out how to reprogram everything on our cars. Is this cheaper than what we have now, even with the evil Hoosiers?

On a side note, does anybody realize there are other DOT R tires out there other than Hoosiers? I will name a few for those that may not know. BF Goodrich, Kumho, and Hankook are all available right now at Tire Rack, among other places. All of them are roughly the same price or cheaper than the evil Hoosier and they are also supposed to last longer.

SoloMatters says the idea behind this is to create dual purpose cars. Sounds great! How many local people in our region have dual purpose cars that don't run in Pro Class? I would guess that figure is somewhere around 90%. How many people at the national championships have their dual purpose cars out there in competition. I would say that number is probably around 10%. Does anyone realize that ST was created for people with dual purpose cars? This was a response to member input asking for street tired cars with common modifications.

Let's dig into this a little deeper and take the Brown/Raby Miata as a case study. John, I hope you don't mind me using you as an example. John's car was one of his daily drivers when he started in ST. He drove it to and from events, even out of town. They even got kind of fast in the car that they were driving to places like Peru, IN. The rules have evolved and so has John's car. They have invested a lot of time and money in the car. I haven't seen it on the road unless it is going to a Pellissippi event, in a long while. Do you guys use it as a car to go grab groceries or anything? I guess not, for a number of reasons.

This has happened to almost all of the ST competition that goes to national events. The cars aren't comfortable on the street, some of them don't meet emissions in their state, and people have a lot of time and money invested in the cars and they don't want something to happen to them due to some moron playing with their cell phone while driving.

So now, we want to get rid of stock class, that DOES have some true dual purpose cars that still get driven to and from events, and allow lots more modification to them. Let's take the Neon I competed against last weekend as an example. What happens to his tire wear on the street with camber plates, 2 degrees of camber, and about 1/8" or more toe out? His tires get destroyed. That's about where I'm at on the Celica. It eats street tires due to the alignment. Hmm, maybe not so good for dual purpose anymore, right?

What I'm trying to get at is dual purpose rarely happens. Why write the national rules around it? We can and do deal with this on the local level. We pull the Pro drivers into a separate class. We have the "tire" class for every car that would allow DOT R tires for those that want to run their street tires and still compete for a win. Oh, and we also have all the ST classes. Please keep in mind that every rule you write will be exploited to the nth degree on a national level. We do not need to write national rules for local issues. The local clubs are capable and are given the authority by SCCA to write local rules.

I don't see me running the Celica under this rule set. It will not be cheaper for me and I would guess it would kill the competitiveness of the car anyway. I would also guess this would kill my ability to run much national stuff since I am doing it about as cheaply as I can afford to right now. Maybe I would just go run a kart, if I can do that without killing myself. If the intention of the rule change is to increase participation on the national level, I don't see it increasing my participation.

[gbwrx]

I started all of this. Buwahahaha.

In all honesty tho. I don't think stock should be taken away completely. I personally would just like the option of RT. But, this just prooves my point in another post. Autocross IS changing. And guess what, RT has made a HUGE decision in that. However, with that said. It also proved Pilsons point. That the class would be nothing like it is now.

But, this is funnier than poo to me. Especially after being ridiculed for wanting to run pro with RT (the class that will never be). Hahahaha.

[gbwrx]

I personally have figured out that I can't afford to run any stock class unless I am winning tires. Hoosiers just don't last long enough if they aren't won and free. Other tires arent an option when they are slower. My case may be few and far in between but this would increase the possibility and chances of me running a stock class car again.

[gbwrx]

OMGawd. I just thought. What will we do about Pro Pax class then. Data will be all kinds of effed up. Nothing will be right in the autox world. I may shoot myself just thinking about it. Lol.

[thrdeye]

Mark, from what I have read it sounds to me like there is at least a chance that the neon you're talking about would no longer be in your class anyway.

sent from typotalk

[MARKP]

Ok, so we shuffle the cars around some. That doesn't fix the rest of this.

[MARKP]

IBut, this is funnier than poo to me. Especially after being ridiculed for wanting to run pro with RT (the class that will never be). Hahahaha.

You do realize that your un-prepped stock car would have beaten everyone in Pro by about .5 sec at the last event using any multiplier that was discussed in that thread, right?