2011/12 Season Rule Updates?

[Loren]

We've got a good month or so to discuss anything we might want to change for next season. I don't think we changed anything at all for this season, so a few minor tweaks may be in order.

Things that come to mind:
Adding some alignment specs to "stock" classes. I think we've sort of agreed that "reasonable/streetable" performance alignment specs are acceptable, even if they are obtained by "illegal" means. Rather than just turning a blind eye to it, I'd rather specify what we're willing to allow.

Re-lettering the classes. This might not bother anybody else. It doesn't bother me much, but "E1, E2, E3" seems kinda goofy to me. Maybe leave the stock classes at F-J and make E1-3 into "C, D, E"; make the current "race tire" B, C classes into A, B; leave "R" as "R" and make the current "A" into "M". Let me show that more clearly:

R = "Race Cars"
M = "Mod Race Tire" (was A)
A = "Prod Race Tire > 3L" (was B)
B = "Prod Race Tire < 3L" (was C)
C = "E1"
D = "E2"
E = "E3"
F-J = Unchanged Prod Street Tire classes

Discuss... and any other ideas are welcome. Our classing system has been working pretty well without many changes for about the past 3 years, so we won't make major changes. Clarifications where required are more likely to be approved, but we do like to keep things as simple as possible.

[Jamie]

Adding some alignment specs to "stock" classes. I think we've sort of agreed that "reasonable/streetable" performance alignment specs are acceptable, even if they are obtained by "illegal" means. Rather than just turning a blind eye to it, I'd rather specify what we're willing to allow.

How do you propose to police alignment? And assuming you're not using the factory specs, how much work goes into setting the boundaries? Sounds like more work than it's worth -- since we don't allow spring (and thus camber-changing ride-height) changes or changes to attachment points, what's "illegal", and how much difference does it make?

[Loren]

Makes a huge difference. Some cars (Miatas) can achieve -1.5 to -2.0 degrees of camber without any modification at all. Other cars (most Mac Strut cars) require some level of modification to get past -1.0 degrees.

Police it? Do we take ANYTHING that seriously around here? How are we policing all of the modded ECU's that we don't know about? An experience eye can look at a car and tell pretty closely how much camber a car has. All I'm suggesting is something like an allowance of 2 degrees of camber for any car. It just levels the playing field a little bit.

If we absolutely NEED to police it, I would leave the burden of proof on the "protestor". If you think your competition has more camber than is allowed, you bring the required tools to check it. (a level and a ruler will suffice)

My proposed rule would be something like: "Camber is limited to 2.0 degrees negative for all cars. Minor modifications that would not otherwise be permitted, such as grinding mounting holes, use of cam bolts or offset bushings is allowed ONLY for the purpose of achieving camber. Questionable camber will be checked on-site using hand tools (a level and ruler/tape or a portable camber gauge) provided by the competitor posing the question. An extra 0.1 degrees will be permitted to account for measurement inaccuracy. Any vehicle found with more than 2.1 degrees will be bumped to the appropriate modified class until the camber is corrected."

[Jeremy]

1. SCCA stopped publishing nice car class lists like we originally used to create the classes. So as new cars trickle in we might have some minor inconveniences. I think we have a good baseline list of cars though and any new cars can be classed on the fly. Not aware of any changes in class structure except for the couple that we announced last year, but those turned out to be mostly a non-issue. I'll have to try and remember to ask some of my SCCA peoples to give me a run down on any changes from this year.

2. I don't like your camber proposal. I'd say no "illegal" camber changes allowed for production classes. Including the Hyundai Genesis trunk kit that was previously allowed. Take that crap to the modified classes.

3. Class G is huge. (it's mostly full of 1 and done drivers) wtf?

4. While the class letters are stupid, everyone knows them now. Changing wouldn't be good. Pretty sure I suggested overhauling the letters when we first changed it, but that was shot down for the same reason.

5. Increasing the number of dropped events for a championship title. just kidding. Brian is having a heart attack right now. I remember how pissed he was about that before.

[Loren]

1. SCCA stopped publishing nice car class lists like we originally used to create the classes. So as new cars trickle in we might have some minor inconveniences. I think we have a good baseline list of cars though and any new cars can be classed on the fly. Not aware of any changes in class structure except for the couple that we announced last year, but those turned out to be mostly a non-issue. I'll have to try and remember to ask some of my SCCA peoples to give me a run down on any changes from this year.

We only need to reconcile once per year, no biggie. I would suggest that with the next update, we put a note on the Elise in its stock class that "140 TW tires required". Might eliminate some confusion on that issue.

2. I don't like your camber proposal. I'd say no "illegal" camber changes allowed for production classes. Including the Hyundai Genesis trunk kit that was previously allowed. Take that crap to the modified classes.

Idunno. As things are, it's become quite difficult to compete in our "mod street tire" classes without some significant power mods. For the driver who doesn't want to do that, and doesn't want to give up their nice stock-sprung ride, but just wants a decent alignment that will allow them to compete in their class (or just get more life out of their tires!), I think it's a good deal. It's not like a lot of people aren't doing it anyway. Anybody else have an opinion on this?

3. Class G is huge. (it's mostly full of 1 and done drivers) wtf?

Not sure we can do anything worthwhile about that. G = CS + FS. I'm betting it's mostly CS that shows up. We don't have a better place to put the FS cars, and there's non good way to split the CS cars to multiple classes. Open to ideas if you really thing this is a problem that needs solving, but I'm not seeing a problem... or a solution.

4. While the class letters are stupid, everyone knows them now. Changing wouldn't be good. Pretty sure I suggested overhauling the letters when we first changed it, but that was shot down for the same reason.

When we initially split class E, it was "experimental" and it didn't make sense to rearrange all the class letters at that time because we could have ended up making more changes. Now, it's 3 years later and the classes are all pretty well established. (the experiment was successful enough) This would be a change that would be "permanent" for a good long while.

5. Increasing the number of dropped events for a championship title. just kidding. Brian is having a heart attack right now. I remember how pissed he was about that before.

Yeah, there was enough fuss about that before. We had a hard enough time agreeing on 2 drops. I'm gonna vote for letting that one be. Might be open to changing the 9/6/4/3/1 points system if anyone wants to make a suggestion there. I have a minor issue with giving 9 points for a class win when there's no competition, seems kinda bogus. I mean, a win against 5 competitors should count for more than a "win" against nobody, right? But, I'm not interested enough to come up with an alternate plan.

[treekiller]

I'd like to see a "novice" and/or "pro" level.. Novice as just a place for the first timers to feel comfortable and give them something... a little trinket means a lot to a first timer, and let them "win" their way into their respective open class.

Pro.. I mean I don't take class points seriously. Heck I don't take events seriously (unless there is money on the line)

I'd really like to Index our classes... I can do the math one day... I'll just write a spreadsheet. I mean it'll never be perfect since we are dealing with such a small sample base... but for a "pro" or "novice" class it will be damn close. personally if we factor the classes, I'd be all for a $5/ea. "pro" kitty to be given to 1-2-3

Does our software accept "pax" if so I'll buzz through a Fhax Index in no time.. It's only 12 numbers and one of them is 1.000 right :-)

Even call it Non-comp.. just a place for those that don't want to mess up points for people that take FAST events seriously.

as for open classes.. keep the list short and sweet 12 is about the max number of classes you'd want for a 60-70 person event... otherwise you get into the "me classes" and that dog don't hunt..

[Native]

We've changed class designations before and folks have survived. I agree that the mix of numbers and letters for E is incongruent with the rest...we could clean that up. OTOH, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? E is a modified street tire class - 1 is the fastest ones, 2 is the faster ones, and 3 is the less faster ones. Not confusing at all.

As for camber, I'd like to throw out that it'll be an empty unenforced rule and therefore useless. There's "cheating" going on right now in at least one class that I know of, and the competitors in that class don't care. Nobody is gonna break out a ruler to measure someone else's camber. 95% of us just aren't that competitive.

If anything, let 'em put any alignment they can on the car with stock components. If you add camber plates, slot holes, eccentric bushings, Hyundai trunk crap , let that fall under the modified suspension rule we already have.

We had a hard enough time agreeing on 2 drops

We only do one drop.

I disagree with indexes, paxes, and anything that'll complicate scoring/finishing for the masses. People have enough trouble classing themselves with our current structure. I don't think making figuring out your finish position any more difficult will do anything to enhance the club. Let our classing system make sense, and go by raw finish times.

Class G - one hit wonders always fill up that points table in G and sometimes some of the other 4 cylinder economy car classes - that's what everybody drives, for the most part...One season it was one of the mod street tire classes - tons of folks with only 1 event...it happens.

[Jeremy]

How about live timing? Some other club has been doing it this year. Looks pretty painless.

I agree with Steve, there really is nothing broken right now. I would like to have a novice class though.

[Loren]

I just don't like having a rule in place that we know a lot of people are going to break. A camber allowance clears that up.

Other than that, I agree, we really have no other issues with rules that I know of. I'd still like to re-name the classes. We'll let more discussion happen and then maybe put it up for a vote.

A novice class... you mean like one "All Novice" non-indexed Novice class? 4 events and you're out?

Live timing has nothing at all to do with this topic. Start a new one if you want to discuss it. (I'm not against the idea)

[Jeremy]

A novice class... you mean like one "All Novice" non-indexed Novice class? 4 events and you're out?

Yeah, it's been discussed before, but was rejected because it wasn't deemed unnecessary and creates a more work for the person doing work assignments, because you would now have to distribute the novices between all run groups evenly for safety reasons.

Live timing has nothing at all to do with this topic. Start a new one if you want to discuss it. (I'm not against the idea)

I would like to make a new rule that we allow live timing at events.

[Loren]

Yeah, that's a good point. We can't run all the novices in one run group.

If we really wanted to do it, we could split them into three groups somehow for the purpose of run/work assignment. One class for timing, 3 groups for run/work. Either Novice A,B,C and let them know their class, or just do it by number. Assign them a fixed set of numbers, like 900's... 910's are group 1, 920's are group 2, 930's are group 3.

I'm sort of on the fence about it. I don't think most novices care that much. They don't expect to win anything just starting out. As it is, novices are identified in the results, so a novice can compare his times to other novices if he wants to, just without a formal "class" arrangement.

Live timing is hereby allowed.

[shakedown067]

Want if the novice award was just per month. Ron, or who ever is tallying up the results, figures the novice that improved the most over the day. At the next event, the novice award is handed out as a sticker like the rest.

[Jeremy]

I don't think most novices care that much.

I don't know, I remember my first race and how jazzed I was to get a trophy in novice, made me think I might actually be decent at driving. At the time there were 4 past and future National Champions (or runners-up) in my open class. I got slaughtered for the rest of that year after I got kicked out of novice class.

Also at SCCA events where they have a novice class, the winners do look pretty happy, and they always opt to take the trophy instead of the punch card for event credit.

[Jeremy]

Want if the novice award was just per month. Ron, or who ever is tallying up the results, figures the novice that improved the most over the day. At the next event, the novice award is handed out as a sticker like the rest.

Chris did something like that last year. It was kind of uneventful. I guess that's why it's not done any longer.

[Loren]

I'm of the "it ain't broke don't fix it" opinion. We have a strong novice program, an endless supply of novices, and a good number of them tend to stick around. What problem are we trying to address here?

[Jeremy]

I'm of the "it ain't broke don't fix it" opinion. We have a strong novice program, an endless supply of novices, and a good number of them tend to stick around. What problem are we trying to address here?

Treekiller brought it up, I was just seconding the idea. But the problem is you beating up on novices in class J. Does that make you feel tough?

[treekiller]

That's why I said a pro class or a novice class. If you have 10+ years experience you should not be competing against people that are just starting. It's pretty discouraging for them.. I remember starting out and I couldn't WAIT to "graduate" from Novice.. but that was with SCCA with an established index and it was no big deal.

I know there is no problem.. and if you follow that logic, we'd still be using the original timer and Dry erase board. It worked, right?

What do I have to prove at a fast event? I'm not going to prep a car to the limits of a ruleset for a meaningless Sticker. or "class championship" Can I, sure.. Do Ihave the desire to.. no. now if the pro class gave me a chance of winning my entry fee back.. then I'd prep, develop, and dominate. if I knew I was competing for the "PRO championship" against formidable opposition. I would bet I'd be showing up every event.

As of right now I have no motivation to go to a fast event except to goof off.

Jeff

[Native]

As of right now I have no motivation to go to a fast event except to goof off.

And as long as you do it safely that's perfectly fine.

[Jamie]

I look at it this way: when we created FAST, we opted for a casual approach to classing, accepting we drew some pretty big circles around classes and relying on driver skill to rescue underdogs (or not!). If we're going to get into details of trying to equalize machinery, let's stop messing with our own system and adopt one -- SCCA or NASA -- that someone else puts in the effort to maintain, and is recognized across a wider area.

We chose not to separate novices for the same reason -- figured they learn more rubbing shoulders with the more experienced drivers than if they were separated out -- even figuratively -- by themselves. Plus it saved us from creating detailed rules on who was really a novice, and whne they were no longer a novice...it was really just a means for us to ID people who might need a little extra help, and they could shed the title as slowly or quickly as they liked.

If we decided to get more serious about competition, I think we'd also have to change the events to attract a deeper field of talent -- right now, we're a small pond, which is OK for the level of effort we're putting in. I'm not sure we really want to do that, however.

[Native]

58, 70, 53, 66, 72, 56, 54, 61, 53, 69

OTOH, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?