What's a race car?

[Jeremy]

I still don't get it. How does stripping, caging, and a fuel cell magically transform a car into a race car?

So if I bring an ASP Corvette out, that's fine in modified?


But take the interior out of a yugo and it's a race car?


And what do either of these cars have in common with Howard's car?

Pax Numbers
Howard's car BM 0.960 x 60 sec course = 57.6
Scott's car EM 0.928 x 60 sec course = 55.68
Charles's car SM (Race car) 0.866 x 60 sec course = 51.96
Rob's new Mustang CP (Race car) 0.860 x 60 sec course = 51.6
SSP whatever (Mod class 1 legal) 0.865 x 60 sec course = 51.9
ASP Vette (Mod class 1 legal) 0.863 x 60 sec course = 51.78
BSP S2000 (Mod class 1 legal) 0.859 x 60 sec course = 51.54
CSP Miata (Mod class 2 legal) 0.857 x 60 sec course = 51.42

How does it make sense to put Charles car in R1 as opposed to M1? Especially if we are driving on street tires. So I have to drive about 9 seconds faster than Howard to keep up. (6.x for pax and 2 secs for street tires)

Please tell me Charles's car fits better with Howard's car vs. something like Chris Meier's car with a blower.


edit: Corrected Scott's car.

[Loren]

Why are you trying to stir up trouble?

Do you think we need MORE classes or something?

You have it right. Any legitimate SP car will fit in one of our "Modified" classes as long as it's on street tires.

And anything (even a Yugo) with stripped interior should go to our single "Race Car" class.

Why? Because as I mentioned in another thread, FAST is "about" the street cars. They are our bread and butter, they are what we were founded on, and it's what 80% of our members drive. If you choose to buy or build such a beast, and run it in FAST, you KNEW what you were getting into before you started.

And it's really not that much different from SCCA, the lines are just drawn a little blurrier. But, if you show up with a legitimate "SP" Corvette, you run in ASP. Pull one too many interior parts out of it, and you're going to "Prepared" or "Modified". Same with the Yugo. Want to run it in SP? It's got to have interior!

Our rules are already A LOT more relaxed than other clubs, but we do have to draw some lines somewhere. In our "stock" classes, it's primarily springs and fuel-related mods that define "the line". For "modified", since we allow damn near anything else... we draw the line at keeping an interior and the general appearance of "a street car" rather than "a race car". It's sort of like judges and pornography... we know "a race car" when we see it.

If Charles has a reasonably complete interior in his car, he can probably run in M1. Again, I've never looked that closely at it.

[impalanut]

Clearly you don't understand the PAX. You would never have to drive faster than me unless you ran A Mod. If you run HS you run 10 secs slower than me and still win. If you run SM you run 6 seconds slower than me and you win. Besides, I thought you could straight time me no matter what I drive

[impalanut]

Also, Scott's car is EM. The interesting thing is that no matter if you run any other class you listed, the pax times are amazingly close even for SM vs CSP.

[Jeremy]

You have it right. Any legitimate SP car will fit in one of our "Modified" classes as long as it's on street tires.
And anything (even a Yugo) with stripped interior should go to our single "Race Car" class.

I guess it's pointless to discuss this any further then. Sounds like someone, maybe not you, has a personal problem with stripped interiors or safety items like roll cages and fuel cells, even though they have no performance benefit and would even make the car heavier.

Why? Because as I mentioned in another thread, FAST is "about" the street cars. They are our bread and butter, they are what we were founded on, and it's what 80% of our members drive.

What percentage of our members drive in the stock class with aftermarket camber plates? I would guess it's less than the people who would be kicked out of modified if someone wanted to scrutinize cars that are already running there.

[Jeremy]

Clearly you don't understand the PAX. You would never have to drive faster than me unless you ran A Mod. If you run HS you run 10 secs slower than me and still win. If you run SM you run 6 seconds slower than me and you win.

I meant I would have to outdrive you by a theoretical 9 second penalty to beat you straight up. My car on street tires is like giving you a 9 second head start.

Besides, I thought you could straight time me no matter what I drive

Haha. I changed my mind after that last event. I'll stick to chasing Scott.

[Jeremy]

Also, Scott's car is EM. The interesting thing is that no matter if you run any other class you listed, the pax times are amazingly close even for SM vs CSP.

Oops. Fixed that. Makes Scott's car even faster now.

[Rosko]

IMHO, FAST is an excellent local autocross club. Most aspects of national competition are irrelevant.

If Charles' car is within the limit of the rules, Jeremy, then cool. No problemo. I think Loren argues for the spirit of the rules, which is admirable.

However, the only people affected by you are the people in your class. Here are 2 possible options:

1) Run in whatever class you want. Wait and see if one of the competitors in your class complains about it. I will speculate and say that nobody would, but if they do, goto JUDGEMENT below.

2) At the next event, ask everyone in your class if they think Charles' car doesn't belong. Encourage them to be forthright in their opinion. If somebody thinks it's misclassed, goto JUDGEMENT.

JUDGEMENT: Find 3 long-standing FAST movers and shakers who understand the rules thoroughly, and take a vote amongst them. It's 3 people, so there will be no tie. I'm talking about people like Jamie, Loren, Steve, Drew, Howard, etc.

I'm all for keeping it simple. In fact, I think what I wrote above is too complicated But I guess even a relaxed org like FAST needs to have some method for arbitration.

[Jeremy]

None of that is necessary though. Modifications are unlimited, end of story.

I am not trying to start trouble, but trying to prevent it. Say some guy shows up with a stripped car and we tell him you have to go race against Howard.
Then he walks the grid and notices other cars in varying states of interior strippage. Now we have to organize a concours of judges to decide whether or not someone's car "feels" like a racecar.

Now add in the fact that a rollcage would mostly make a car slower and FAST prides itself in being relaxed. The rules don't make any sense. Why alienate people who want to build a car and make it safe? When the same car minus the safety equipment is perfectly legal. It's not based on any kind of logic. Not sure what it's based on.

I understand what you are saying though. You don't want a swiss cheesed car showing up in modified. Well why don't you wait until one shows up? Instead of punishing people who want to build a car now? And really what is so wrong against driving against a swiss cheesed car? Take it as a challenge to try and beat the person by outdriving them.

[Gerry]

... Why alienate people who want to build a car and make it safe? When the same car minus the safety equipment is perfectly legal. It's not based on any kind of logic. Not sure what it's based on. ...

Not arguing or anything, but I'm asking for understanding of this rule. How is safety equipment an advantage? I'm perfectly accepting of these rules, but I never quite understood why a roll cage makes a difference. Just for the sake of learning, could someone explain it? I want to be clear, I'm not QUESTIONING the rule, I'm just trying to learn.

But changes in this rule could potentially open up a can of worms. One could argue that racing seats are safety equipment, then we could see them in stock classes, yadda yadda.

[Jeremy]

It's not safety equipment specifically. It's just that is how they are defining a car that they don't want running in the Mod classes..

From the rules page.
"Even though modifications in the “Modified” classes are largely unlimited, we would prefer to see a car that has clearly been stripped, caged, and otherwise turned into what most people would consider to be a “race car” in the Race Car class."

The fuel cell bit came from Rob's build thread which was recently bumped. "A stripped interior AND a fuel cell AND a cage AND arriving on a trailer kinda makes a car a "race car"."

So Rob has to race against Howard and Scott. How would you like to begin every race knowing that your car is at the minimum 5 seconds slower than other people in your class? How is that "F"un?

[Loren]

Okay, envision our mod classes with stripped cars winning, or even just finishing well in them. Now, what is the newb to think when he shows up in his STREET car that is already not eligible for our stock classes? "Damn, I have to strip my interior to be competitive in this club?" To me, that's not being friendly to true daily-driven street cars. (and before you say "anybody could run a stripped interior on the street"... I don't see YOU doing it)

Our "unlimited mods" are already a bit harsh as of late. All the fresh early-Miata guys (90-97) know that it's going to be nearly impossible for them to compete in the M2 class without adding a turbo... and when they do that, they get bumped to M1, anyway!

What you're saying is to allow "race cars" on street tires in our Mod class. Even if the difference is only 100 pounds or a certain amount of chassis stiffness gained from a welded-in cage... those are advantages that the typical driver of a daily-driven street car can't (or won't) achieve.

I'm not going to support the idea of broadening the scope of our mod classes (which are already drawn with a REALLY wide stroke) because people like you, Charles and Rob, who were fully aware of the rules BEFORE starting to build your cars, want to dominate the street tire class with them. If you want to build a car to compete in FAST, build it to the rules. Keep your interior. Don't build "a race car".

Better yet, DON'T build a car to compete in FAST. Just "run what ya brung". And if you want to mod it to broaden the smile on your face or try to keep up with the competition a little bit, look at the rules first and mod accordingly.

I'm not even sure why we're having this discussion. Would you petition the SCCA classing committee to make an allowance for an C-Prepared car to be eligible to run in E-Street-Prepared? (and if you did, would there be a chance in hell that they'd say "yes"?)

[blacksheep-1]

Ok let me attempt to tread lightly here, The mustang I'm building is (at least now) pretty much a "race car" in all respects. Although I originally wanted to run it in the modified class, I clearly stepped over the line, not exactly sure when that was, but it is definitely a renegade. We don't (as I recall) have a "stock" class, we have production, which is a common sense way of saying yes, you can do some things but don't get too crazy (the horsey car is about as wild as you can get and still be "production"..barely) because let's face it we are all car enthusiasts and we end up modifying our cars at some point, You can bolt in subframe connectors in "production" for crying out loud, that's pretty far away from stock, same with bolt in cages. The horsey car comes on a trailer because it doesn't have insurance or registration and because if I blow it up, I can still get home. That car competed in the Grassroots 2010 challenge and is a real low, lowbuck car (much to the chagrin of a certain Porsche club). Modified is a little crazier but it's no worse than the "production" class, and again, it let's the enthusiast, who may be a little more hard core. do more stuff to their car, it's not unreasonable, most of the cars I've seen in that class are missing parts because they broke, or fell off, and since they have nothing to do with performance, the owners just let it go. Same with beating the fenders out for larger tires. There's no replacement body panels or any thing like that (BTW those carbon fiber aftermarket panels are actually heavier than the aluminum they replace). A welded "cage" although considered safety equipment. greatly stiffens a car's frame and gives it a large performance advantage over a car that has a bolt in cage. I think the rule works, once a welder touches your car, it now becomes modified, bolt on stuff that people can do in their driveway is OK....makes sense to me. I'm against making more classes or making tech more difficult, if you wanted to run something in the race car class, you might divide it up into something that actually started out as a registered car and everything else..or something like that, but at each track different cars have different strengths so I'm not sure more classes are the answer.

I just like building my own stuff.

Do these fenders look "Stock"?

So Rob has to race against Howard and Scott. How would you like to begin every race knowing that your car is at the minimum 5 seconds slower than other people in your class? How is that "F"un?

True, but because my heart is pure, I have the strength of 10

[Loren]

Well said, Rob. You clearly "get it".

"Stock" is the name we decided to call our "least modified" set of classes just for simplicity. "Production", "Stock", whatever you want to call it, it's not "as-delivered" stock. Not even SCCA Stock classes are.

[blacksheep-1]

Well I just screwed up and deleted most of the post..............

thanks

[Loren]

Well I just screwed up and deleted most of the post...

You lucked out. I was able to hit the "back" button a couple times and get your original post. Copied and pasted that long paragraph back into your post.

But the point is..or was

Production: for bolt on stuff that most guys can do in their driveway

Modified: When the welder comes out

Race car: somewhat subjective but looks a lot like a"race car"

That's a fair synopsis. Production (we're calling it "Stock"... big discussion and poll about it last year), is a bit more limited than that, but that's a fair way to look at it.

[puncturina]

So Rob has to race against Howard and Scott. How would you like to begin every race knowing that your car is at the minimum 5 seconds slower than other people in your class? How is that "F"un?

How about --

... How would you like to begin every race knowing that yourcar driver is at the minimum 5 seconds slower than other people in your class? How is that "F"un?

[impalanut]

No matter how you set up the classes there will always be a range of capabilities within each class. A car built to the max for a class will likely be faster than a car that just barely got moved up from the less altered class. This will be true in FAST as well as SCCA or other group. If you want to be competitive you will have to try to max out for the class. When I changed from my CRX to the Legrand I went from a very competitive car where I had the capability to run with the best to a car that couldn't touch them. Last year I got beaten by the winning car by an average of 12 seconds over two days. This year with some improvement in my driving and some changes to the car, I am getting closer. It will probably take another year and some more changes to really be competitive.
Most of the new drivers will likely be in the production classes and shouldn't be affected by these type of decisions. Once you start modifying your car you should be ready to spend the time and money to make it competitive, or just have the car just the way you want it and accept that others may be building a more capable car. Trying to keep the more modified cars easy for new drivers would be difficult and doesn't seem to make much sense. Most novices that would bring a higher modified car likely have experience in other types of racing and likely would understand the reasoning behind the rules for modified cars. I agree that most safety items, except a welded in cage, likely won't affect performance. I have seen cars with cages that retain their interiors, they would likely be able to stay in modified the way we define it.

[Jamie]

How about --

... How would you like to begin every race knowing that yourcar driver is at the minimum 5 seconds slower than other people in your class? How is that "F"un?

There's where you're working at a gender disadvantage, Eva, because every red-blooded male driver over the age of 14 1/2 knows they're Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Mario Andretti, and Ayrton Senna rolled up into one...it can't possibly be anything but the car! Go ask Doug -- he'll explain it to you.

And if anyone asks, "Who are those guys you mentioned?", you're no longer a club member.

[Jeremy]

All the fresh early-Miata guys (90-97) know that it's going to be nearly impossible for them to compete in the M2 class without adding a turbo

What? You are saying a CSP miata is not competitive in M2? I would say it's an overdog in that class. Maybe if someone in an NA put a fraction of the money and thought into their car as Chris Meier it would be a different story.

I guess I am done here. We'll be modifying the 240 in the coming months. I will let the panel of judges know so they can assemble and let us know when our car becomes a race car so I don't hurt anyone's feelings in the unlimited mods class by having too many mods.