Classing for 2014 Season

[nc4me]

I don't see why we would combine S3 and S4 when the time gap between those classes is greater than the gap from S3 and S2. I think we should combine S3 and S2 if anything.

[Loren]

Size of classes is also a factor. S2 is already huge.

Sent from my phone with Tapatalk. Expect even more errors than usual!

[twistedwankel]

I think we should combine S3 and S2 if anything.

That's the way it was two years ago before S2 (CS)grew so big on it's own. It's not uncommon for S3 to have 5 or more competitors, most of whom are running on 300-400 tires for fun in very old cars. One must look at each event's numbers and see that most of the people don't seriously get into the t-shirt competition and do that minimum of 5 events. They are strictly occassional fun racers who enjoyed getting an occassional sticker.

Right now there are only a few classes struggling with 3 or less competitors and very few newbies. BUT they show up almost every month and dominate the top 10 event speeds. The only class that has waned the last few months is Brian's fault Matt is fast so he could run in a higher group next season no problem and woe to those other guys with long faces when he beats them up with his "slow" car.

Limit stock class wheel widths and everyone will slow down bigtime. I still like Loren's narrow hard tire ideas but everyone seems to like the look and feel of big tender expensive meats from "MeatBay".

I plan on running the 4+ events at SCCA in Brooksville in 2013 so I'll keep my S2 car bone stock for another year. And in 2014 they are ALL running 140 tires so I might actually be competitive there for once as I use up my last ever set of 140 tires.

Looks like my FAST car will be in S3 (FS). With minor bolt ons I'm sure it can be competitive with S2 (STR STX cars)

[jev61]

Looks like my FAST car will be in S3 (FS). With minor bolt ons I'm sure it can be competitive with S2 (STR STX cars)

I look forward to whale hunting season.

[twistedwankel]

Looks like my FAST car will be in S3 (FS). With minor bolt ons I'm sure it can be competitive with S2 (STR STX cars)

I look forward to whale hunting season.

Ahab lost a leg and his mind doing that

[Jamie]

Looks like my FAST car will be in S3 (FS). With minor bolt ons I'm sure it can be competitive with S2 (STR STX cars)

I look forward to whale hunting season.

Ahab lost a leg and his mind doing that

I know where Joe works...he only has the leg left to lose....

The only reason I started this thread was just to see if anyone felt changes were needed.

Which might work if we classed cars without reference to anyone else's structure. Since we tie ourselves (albeit loosely) to SCCA's classes, we have to consider what changes they're making, too...changes neither finished or evident to most people.

For instance, using the freshly-published list in SCCA FASTRACK (http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/ass ... e-solo.pdf) pasted up against the June event, half our S4 moves to S3. No loss in numbers to S4, because half of S2 moves to S4, leaving S2 a smaller group. But the mix of cars in S3 and S4 changes significantly, which doesn't come up in this discussion, largely because that list is so recent the electrons aren't dry. And it's safe to say that over the 2014 SCCA season (Jan - Dec 14), they'll be making more adjustments.

So the question for August is really, "do we adopt the 2014 SCCA Street classes as our reference, or stick with the 2013 structure for another year?" Anything else just increases the spin rate.

[Loren]

The water is starting to get muddy again.

Would love to hear some additional opinions on whether we should leave stock classes the same for another year, perhaps waiting until SCCA's new changes settle out into some potentially more "rigid" classifications.

Also, heard some interesting discussion this evening about our Mod classes, particularly M2 and M3. Some ideas were presented that might make sense, but would take us away from being "strictly" loosely based on SCCA SP classes.

I'll try to concatenate some ideas tomorrow. Possibly starting a couple new threads to discuss specific ideas. For now... I'm goin' to bed!

[Charles]

I'll vote for keeping stock "as is" until next year. Lots of classing, rule, and tire changes in flight in SCCA land.

[jev61]

Leave classing alone for now.

[Jeremy]

I had an awesome idea for changing the stock classing. I will possibly make a thread about it tomorrow.

[Loren]

Steve and I discussed, and since there don't seem to be any strong opinions on... well, anything... we're going to let the classing ride as-is for another season. (aside from updating the class lists with new car models)

[jmdoc66]

How about this new rule for the 2014 season.

If you don't race the car you put in the registration, you get placed in the last slot of the last run group.

65 Ferrari.....

[Loren]

Yawn.

Don't feed the trolls.

M0 has no restriction that would preclude running a vintage Ferrari. Whatever.

[Jeremy]

How about this new rule for the 2014 season.

If you don't race the car you put in the registration, you get placed in the last slot of the last run group.

65 Ferrari.....

It's actually a v6 mustang on Shelby GT springs. How many seconds do you need me to spot you this weekend?

Did you happen to be driving through Seffner today? I saw a Shelby GT with black centered wheels on the way to work. Those things aren't THAT common are they?

[rab]

The old and slow 1.6 Miata's get killed in M2. Any way of putting them in M3?
Caveat, they need to still have the 1.6 engine.
Just the thoughts of an old and slow 1.6 driver.
How about a fat vintage driver class.... FTW

[jmdoc66]

The car rarely leaves the garage except to race and occasionally a night out with the wife.

2007 - 5764
2008 - 1800ish

I'll take 3 seconds please. It'll give me something to shoot for.

[twistedwankel]

The old and slow 1.6 Miata's get killed in M2. Any way of putting them in M3?
Caveat, they need to still have the 1.6 engine.
Just the thoughts of an old and slow 1.6 driver.
How about a fat vintage driver class.... FTW

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1601

You need to read this thread. One fast 94 Miata R SCCA "stock". Sell yours buy it!! Then run competitively in S4.

[rab]

I have too much history with mine.

[Loren]

The old and slow 1.6 Miata's get killed in M2. Any way of putting them in M3?
Caveat, they need to still have the 1.6 engine.

There's something to this idea. Our classing is based on SCCA Street Prepared where they expect all cars to be prepped to the allowed rules. In this case (and many others, I'm sure), the norm is for 1.6 Miatas to swap to the allowed 1.8 Miata engine, as all 90-97 Miatas are "on the same line" and considered to be the same car in the CSP class. FAST doesn't really have the expectation that everyone is going to "build the car for the class".

Not sure exactly how we'd go about writing this into our rules, but if there is enough support for the idea, we may consider it.

[Jeremy]

I don't think 1.6's are uncompetitive. Check STS results on SCCA.com. They are going faster than many classes.