SCCA - Street proposal

[Miatamoto]

NASA style classing is great for the guy that wants to run the car he has with the mods he wants, no getting bumped to SSM for cutting the hood. As I understand it.

For the guy going for a national championship (not me of course) it’s got to be a nightmare of endless mods and points. Where at SCCA if someone is going for a championship they just do all the mods allowed for the class.


SCCA must be doing something right, as they tend to get 2X the turnout for local events vs. the other clubs in the area.

Robert, I think your missing the point of NASA rules. According to your logic Ken would keep modding his car until it was a TTU car (the top class). To be competitive you pick a car and set of mods that best uses the allowed points for a class. I think it opens up the classes for more creativity and choices.

In SCCA you either have the right car or you don't.

Plus no matter what the rule set is people will do whatever they can to beat their competition with cubic dollars. I pretty much swore off campaigning a nationally competitive "stock" car when the car next to me in grid at Topeka had $4000 worth of shocks and ultra light wheels that weren't even available anymore.

[ken o]

Robert, I think your missing the point of NASA rules. According to your logic Ken would keep modding his car until it was a TTU car (the top class). To be competitive you pick a car and set of mods that best uses the allowed points for a class. I think it opens up the classes for more creativity and choices.

In SCCA you either have the right car or you don't.

Plus no matter what the rule set is people will do whatever they can to beat their competition with cubic dollars. I pretty much swore off campaigning a nationally competitive "stock" car when the car next to me in grid at Topeka had $4000 worth of shocks and ultra light wheels that weren't even available anymore.

Yes on building "the car" for the class. My "stock" S2000 had close to $10K in "stock" mods to build it for what was AS / BS.

Having a points system allow you to build the car and bump classes as you go without immediately being out class with the addition of a CAI.

[OZMDD]

Robert - is your car all-stock, or have you upgraded the shocks?

[Texasgt3]

Robert - is your car all-stock, or have you upgraded the shocks?

Last I heard he had my old magical AST 5200's built for stock class.

[OZMDD]

Ah, that explains quite a bit. I wondered why his CR seemed much faster than others that are bone stock.

[Robert]

General I do not know, I tend to agree with Mike about leaving the classes pretty much the way they are until we see how ST tires affect things. Most of BS has already made the move to the CR, but long term it would be best that it not be the car for the class.

Do you think the MS-R and ZOK are really overdogs in CS? From what I have seen the 370Z, and BRZ seem to be pretty close.

This is what I posted on SCCAforum.

How do you fell about moving the Chevrolet Corvette C5 Z06, Chevrolet Corvette C6, and Dodge Viper down to AStreet? I could see moving the base C6, but not the C6 Grand Sport or C5 ZO6. Seems to me SS and AS will be very close on time under the new classing.

I would like to see how the tire change affects the classes before make wholesale changes. Will the AWD cars in BS come alive on ST tires? Will the Elise really crush the Vetts? I do not know.

Long term it would be good that the CR is not the car for the class. Right now it’s not a problem, anyone that wants a CR can get one for around new Miata money, but in the future they may get hard to find. Moving the NB Miata and MR2 down will be good. The NA Miata’s are getting old. The M Coup seems like a rare potential overdog in ES.

[Robert]

Last I heard he had my old magical AST 5200's built for stock class.

Yep I have Stuart's old shocks and a BIG front bar.

[Robert]

Robert, I think your missing the point of NASA rules. According to your logic Ken would keep modding his car until it was a TTU car (the top class). To be competitive you pick a car and set of mods that best uses the allowed points for a class. I think it opens up the classes for more creativity and choices.

In SCCA you either have the right car or you don't.

Plus no matter what the rule set is people will do whatever they can to beat their competition with cubic dollars. I pretty much swore off campaigning a nationally competitive "stock" car when the car next to me in grid at Topeka had $4000 worth of shocks and ultra light wheels that weren't even available anymore.

I have not run with NASA so this is just my perception. I did not think that you would keep adding, but that people would constantly be changing mods playing the points. Taking off mods in order the use the points on other mods trying to find the best combination for their car.

[OZMDD]

I love the idea of NASA-style points classing, but I can't wrap my head around how it can be accurately predicted in terms of performance potential for autox. Track seems like it has a strong correlation between power/weight ratio and performance, while autox seems more esoteric. I'd be worried that the net result would be a lot of expensive trial-and-error. Not that it doesn't happen to some extent already, but the fact that you can go and buy the "right" car somewhat easily seems more user-friendly than the opposite. Its a tough call; I loved tinkering and making a Yaris into a fast car, but there was a lot of time and luck that went into that. I've always valued the idea that autox is more about driver skill than car prep, at least in the Stock/ST realm.

[slates]

Do you think the MS-R and ZOK are really overdogs in CS? From what I have seen the 370Z, and BRZ seem to be pretty close.

I can answer that. No. Last year's RTR champ and the 4th place finisher in RTR at Nats have them up here, and they are fast. I don't think any of that matters, though. The MSR and Z0K moves seem to be motivated by a need to correct a perceived past classification error. Same apparently with the CR, unfortunately.

Will the MSR be dead in BStreet? Maybe. Will the CR do well in AStreet rather than SStreet? Maybe. Should the SEB leave everything alone for a year to see what happens rather than bench racing? Probably.

I do like the fact I can get a very short 225 tire on 16" rims though. That might be interesting.

[TexasStig]

This autocross thing is serious business!

Yea, what he said!

Really, too many changes all at once won't provide relevant data. I also like the idea of removing r-comps for a year THEN re-classing.

[general default]

/|\ What he said. Leave Appendix A alone for 1 year.
|

[ken o]

http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...-june-solo.pdf

Looks like a class shuffle.
No camber allowance - dumb ass move.
Street tires in 2014+
Wheel size +/- 1"
and some BS about fuel caps and folding windshields.
Thanks Senile Car Club of America

[OZMDD]

Yep, this went from a promising re-thinking of a viable entry-level category to the same-old-BS on street tires. The wheel diameter allowance is the only forward-thinking aspect at this point. The camber allowance was really integral to making street tires viable on a wide variety of otherwise-DD cars. I was seriously considering a Street-class car for next year. Not anymore.

[BMcCann]

I don't think its all that bad. I'm not surprised about camber going away seeing as how vocal the national level guys were getting. The problem with that part is that it wasn't "camber for all", it was "camber for MacStruts". Not fair to give to some and not everyone. And also, I think if that camber proposal went through, Appendix A would have exploded even more. Yeah yeah, just fix it once and forget it...but we have no idea what cars would become top dogs with the new camber rules.

Rome wasn't built in a day...

[OZMDD]

I can't agree. The stated reason for changing Stock was to reduce barriers to entry and improve participation in the stock classes, which are dwindling. I do not see how the current version achieves that. The camber allowance does help strut cars, which are at a huge disadvantage without it. The simple mechanics of strut cars losing static camber with compression vs wishbone/a-arm cars gaining static camber with compression explains why it was separated. Personally, I don't see the harm in allowing a single camber adjustment method on ANY car, as originally proposed. Camber bolts worked wonders on my strut Yaris, and cost $15. They were even stock-legal since Toyota specs them in the FSM.

To me, this version of the the Street proposal achieves almost none of the stated goals, but upsets a lot of current stock folks and has fractured the stock community/SAC. What's left are street tires replacing r-comps (sort-of), a decimated/scrambled Appendix A, zero class-stability (they will all be shuffled repeatedly over the next two years), and the one bright-spot: wheel diameter allowance. Street tire performance is even more dependent on camber than r-comps. Its as "not fair" with no camber allowances as it is with camber plates-only, but at least you increase the number of viable cars.

Since we know Appendix A will be reworked after a year of results, why change it twice? Leave it as-is for now, especially since you are running the dual Street/StreetR classing.

Sorry, this has FAIL written all over it.

[Robert]

The latest update is out http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...-july-solo.pdf

The big surprise is the FR-S, and BRZ go to E street.

[BMcCann]

Congrats on not being in SS anymore Robert!