Dallas National Street Tire Challenge, 6/4/11, Mineral Wells

[slates]

The Texas Region is hosting a Bridgestone National Street Tire Challenge event at Mineral Wells on June 4, with a "regular" Texas Region event the following day on June 5. The NSTC is a unique event, so I thought I would explain a bit.

• The event is limited to cars with 140 tread wear or higher tires.
• There are 5 classes, All Wheel Drive (A), Front Wheel Drive (F), Rear Wheel Drive (R), Muscle (M) think Optima Ultimate Challenge cars, and ST (T) for all SCCA ST classes.
• Classing is according to SCCA rules.
• Finishing order is determined by PAX.
• The overall winner is the car (other than ST class) with the fastest PAX.
• ST cars can run in ST where everyone is PAXed together or can run in A, F or R on their SP index and be eligible for the overall win.

The following prizes are available: Overall winner gets a set of RE-11s. Also a participant drawn at random gets a set of RE-11s. Class winners receive the following: a $250 Bridgestone tire certificate, an Optima Battery certificate and a certificate worth up to $100 from SPS/Solotime. Second and third place finishers are also eligible for SPS/Solotime prizes.

We have run two of these events in Milwaukee and they have been very well received. It has been fun to see the National Champs in Milwaukee running different cars giving street tire folks the opportunity to compete head to head with them. I do want to stress that this is a fun event. While competitive, it is more relaxed than a "national" event - no impound, etcetera. We strive for 6 runs.

Please plan to make a weekend out the NSTC. The Texas region will be hosting a party Saturday night, the Bridgestone truck will be there should you decide you need a new set of RE-11s, and we are working with Shell who is interested in introducing us to a new high octane leaded fuel.

Please feel free to visit the website (which is a work in progress) at http://www.nationalstreettirechallenge.com or feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Jeff.

[CosmosMpower]

Sounds interesting so basically you can have Mod and Prepared cars running against stock cars as long as the drive wheels are the same and both are on street tires? Or is the M class for anything beyond SP?

[slates]

We formed the M class to allow older Muscle and hot rods a place to compete. Optima http://www.optimainvitational.com/ sponsors events all over the country for these types of cars. The Good Guys http://www.good-guys.com/ will be having an event is Dallas on March 18-20. There are some incredibly cool cars at these events.

[nomadtrash]

How about a CP Mustang on street tires?

[ken o]

Do I need to be an SCCA member to participate?

[OZMDD]

What limitations are there on the "open" classes? Anything goes, stock motor internals, FI, etc??

[slates]

Let's see if I can answer all of these.

A CP Mustang on street tires would be classed in Rear Wheel Drive (R) with a CP index. (That'll be fun to watch)

You do need to be an SCCA member to participate - you can sign up for the "weekend membership" SCCA pass for both events which is a pretty good deal for non-SCCA members.

OZMDD, I am not sure if I understand the question, however, whatever class your car would normally run in at an SCCA event is its index. The class is determined by the driving wheels. For example, The Evo that ran at ER this weekend would be in the All Wheel Drive (A) class running on the BSP index. My Miata would be in Rear Wheel Drive (R) on the CS index. Walter's Civic would be in Front Wheel Drive (F) on the GS index. Your STR car could be in the ST class where ST, STX, STU, etcetera are all lumped together on PAX or in the Rear Wheel Drive class running on the CSP index. The Muscle class is different - as we are catering to the Optima Challenge guys - so if you have a 72 Camaro that is all tricked out it would be in M which is one straight time class.

Hope this helps.

On edit: go here http://www.scca-milwaukee.org/solo/2...sultsClass.htm to see what kind or cars and classes we had in 2010.

[autoxmax]

Texas Region SCCA will be having a Party onsite the Saturday night between the Bridgestone National Street Tire Challenge event & our regional event the next day at Mineral Wells.

If you are an entrant of either event, you are more than welcome to come to the party!

Hotdogs, Hamburgers & all the fixings.

Plus... wait for it... here it comes... FREE BEER!!

You thought I was going to say Funnel cakes, didn't you?!?!

[OZMDD]

slates, got it. That clarifies it for me. I wasn't aware the non-ST classes would still be indexed.

[Robert]

For the overall results, will ST cars use their SP index or ST index?

I think this will be a cool event, and I am looking forward to it.

[slates]

If the ST cars want to compete for the overall, they must run on their SP index.

[OZMDD]

If the ST cars want to compete for the overall, they must run on their SP index.

Can you explain the reasoning for this? Seems odd that the fastest-growing segment of Solo2 is not competing for the overall win in a Street Tire Challenge.

[slates]

Basically, the event was formed for those folks who do not have a "national class" to play in. The ST guys do have a national class, and their PAX index reflects the fact that the cars are on street tires. This allows you to compete head to head with cars on Hoosiers - as the stock/SP/prepared PAX reflects the Hoosiers. With the present PAX structure, my Miata on Street Tires cannot compete with your Miata on a straight PAX. I can compete with you on my CS PAX and your CSP PAX, though. As an example, at the January NTAXS event I ran a 71.67 raw. You ran a 69.51 raw. Using the STR index you ran an indexed time of 58.53. My indexed time on CS was 60.20. However, your indexed time on the CSP index was 59.99. This gets us much closer to a level playing field for all cars on street tires.

We have "carved out" ST, so they can all compete together on their respective PAX indexes. This will be pretty competitive. If you want to win the overall, you can run the SP index. Jason Frank and Pat Washburn both came very close to winning the overall last year in Milwaukee in their ST Civics on the CSP PAX.

[nomadtrash]

Probably the reason why you won't see many prepared or modified cars is the inequality built into the pax system. CP cars pax is designed for a car with 15" wide racing slicks. You take the slicks off the car and all the sudden the pax gets thrown out the window. No matter what size or kind of street tire you put on the CP car the performance advantage has to go to the ES Miata who switched from HoosierA6 to Star Specs, still on 5-1/2" wide wheels.

[OZMDD]

Got it. Thx.

[jrj512]

[jrj512]

Also see their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/NationalStreetTireChallenge.

[slates]

The National Street Tire Challenge web site is finally up. The site features an event overview, listing of the prizes, explanation of the classes, and has a registration portal.

The NSTC site can be found here

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them here, or email me at jeff_slater at yahoo dot com

Look forward to seeing everyone out at Mineral Wells!

[OZMDD]

Maybe I missed it somewhere, so I'll ask:

What is the entry fee? When is the registration deadline?

[onething]

slates - I started the registration process, filled out all the preliminary info in my garage, but when I tried to register it said the fee was $45 instead of $30...even though I entered my SCCA info. I stopped.

Did I do something wrong, does it adjust later, or what?

TIA