The only race that matters

Less weight affects acceleration TO the max velocity for that straight segment but (materially anyway) not top speed. You REALLY saw it at Daytona last Runoffs where coming onto the oval some cars were initially pulled strongly by others.......only to pass them like they were standing still at the end of the straight. Just check out the last lap passing for the win in HP....silly, silly closing speed from the CRX. Obviously taking nothing away from Brian who drove that car like he stole it and totally deserved the win.

Top speed is primarily an aero drag issue..........when aero drag + rolling resistance(drag) equals forward thrust from the engine.......the car stops accelerating....it has reached its terminal velocity. Dirty aero, low torque but light cars (like a sprite) are generally toast against superior aero, higher torque, heavier cars (like a CRX) at high speed tracks since their top speed is always lower.....then factor in the blocking they can do in the corners.

It's simple physics and WEIGHT changes cannot resolve the base problem alone. Add inlet restrictors and you still have serious unresolved issues. 6 years on the volunteer prod car ad hoc committee taught me this.

Simply put........balancing disparate vintage and capability cars via rules is FAR too difficult for the SCCA to tackle. When do manage to get it right it's mainly dumb luck. My professional team engineer friend tells me even the most advanced and uber expensive track simulation programs run by pros can't get within 2 seconds of actual lap times. Even NASCAR can't do it with totally identical cars except engines makers (not specs)........with all of their resources!!!

So HOW can you expect an amateur/volunteer organization to succeed?????? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. I'm not a big SCCA fan but the problem is not them.......totally equitable performance balancing is just NOT feasible.

Give up complaining about it since it will never, never happen since it is beyond practical capabilities.
 
If the top speed stays less than around 115. The weights could balance within reason. IMHO
Over the terminal V for the LBC the weights will run nito issues that Jay states.
Daytona favored the highpower cars for sure.
The rest of the Venues are much less straight prioritized and lateral power comes into play.
The best thing about weight is that it requires almost no re=engineering and is easily reversed
.
AS noted there is no easy path for 55 yrs of cars. Without listing new cars each year the class will die. .
New younger drivers are prone to trying to buy the best car,the right parts, and figure out how it allworks. If the best car turns out to be a 1400 cc LBC then they will live for another cycle. If the cost is not prohibitive. 50K wont make it IMHO

IMHO, our best long term policy would has to promote younger cars and drivers . If it takes calling the top 1/2 of the HP class to GP, and dropping the old LBC into HP ,then be it .

I think the best road may be the large engined LBC and a little weight . Target 115 WHP and do the math from there.IMHO
 
Mike said one thing that really got my attention............55 year old cars!

Who really races 55 year old cars or even 45 year old cars???!! The answer is nobody that is even moderately serious about real competition. Know any pro series that race cars that old? Of course that's not to say you can't have a great time racing something that old.

So..................rename it vintage and go have some fun with SVRA et al.
 
Jay Lutz":19xw84c2 said:
..............Who really races 55 year old cars or even 45 year old cars???!! The answer is nobody that is even moderately serious about real competition. Know any pro series that race cars that old? Of course that's not to say you can't have a great time racing something that old.

So..................rename it vintage and go have some fun with SVRA et al.
Click to expand...

You would have never said that when you were running the Sprite. Also, what exactly is an old car? Are you suggesting that a 20 years old Honda or VW or Miata is a new car?

Let's face the facts. Many classes and segments of vintage include more quality drivers and cars entered seriously to win than appear at any time during the SCCA season, other than the Runoffs. Vintage started with rich collector entries. However it then experienced huge growth from cast off, pissed off, obsolete cars and drivers driven out of SCCA by attitudes like this. Now Vintage pulls in new drivers and new entries from people who never even heard of the SCCA and who are just fine racing old cars. It's kicking SCCAs ass because of people that make excuses instead of a place for people to race the cars they really want to race. I suspect that while SCCA chases every new kind of motorsports that comes along and shows promise, they ignore vintage because of the embarrassment that is knowing it was theirs, and they threw it away.

It's probably to late, however having a Majors eligible vintage class of some kind, maybe a mix of H and G cars classified in about 1980 and before, and 1200 cc an smaller sedans from the 70s and before, at a variety of prep levels is not a crazy idea.
 
Jay Lutz":39z6mjg2 said:
My professional team engineer friend tells me even the most advanced and uber expensive track simulation programs run by pros can't get within 2 seconds of actual lap times.
Click to expand...

Jay,
No offense, but this is way off. I've gotten within .5 seconds using the free version of Bosch LapSim back in 2009. It's way better now. The super crappy free sim that comes with my DAQ software is closer than 2 seconds with zero tuning.

Simulation is very very accurate and has been for a while now. Some folks bash it, but I suspect that's because they're not familiar with it.

Simulation could be a massively helpful tool here.

Also, yes, a midget has a higher CD than a CRX. But the CRX has likely almost 50% more area. I'd wager than the CRX is the one at the aero disadvantage. We'd need a wind tunnel or a full scan and serious CFD time to find out for sure. But it's certainly not a slam dunk one way or the other.

-Kyle
 
If we are really going to debate the age of some race cars fine.
Just how old is the SRF platform?
Formula Vee?
I still see Fox body A.S. too.
I know the actualnchassis of many GT cars are getting long in the tooth as well.
If you want to have only new cars in club racing fine. But the first
race is in Fla today and it's called IMSA not SCCA club racing
 
Don't forget these: the go-to car in FF, the Swift DB1, is 33 years old now. Even in FA, debatably the most expensive class in the club, the Swift 16.a is getting long in the tooth at 10 years old. The majority of the Van Diemens (pretty much the lone chassis supplier) in FC are over 20 years old.

Even the man trying to cleanse the club of club racing, his car ended production over 10 years ago.

In the STx classes where folks love to say they have "newer" cars, you're looking at an average age of 15+ years old.

The notion of "new cars" in SCCA is a joke.

-Kyle
 
I don't think there is any need for debate. I don't recall the SCCA Mission Statement saying anything about the age of the cars. If the purpose of the Club is to provide for the enjoyment of its members and preservation of sports cars , age is not relevant , either of the cars or the members. As has been previously stated, at some point, older cars will no longer be able to be competitive. We had the opportunity years ago to incorporate all the Production classes into GT classification, but that horse left the barn a very long time ago. It is impractical and probably impossible to overcome the challenges in classification that were created. I wish that weren't true as I would still be running my Turner if I had been able to make competitive power. That being said I believe the enjoyment is more from the personal relationships and challenge of pushing to the limits of whatever car you run. Sadly, not everyone can be 1st at the finish line. If you can't accept that and have the means, then buy the perceived overdog and have at it. I'll get off my soapbox now. See you at the track!
 
EP-cars built 1990 to present-2000cc and over
FP-cars built 1990 to present-1999cc to 1600cc
GP- cars built 1970 to 1989- 1500cc to 1800cc
HP-cars built 1979 and before-1499cc and under
I was just seeing how this would look. I don't know all the cars and this was just off the top of my head. I'm sure someone smarter than I would see where adjustments would need to be made or why it wouldn't work at all.
If you keep most of the current rules adjust weights for what prep level the car is built to. Maybe even give a lower weight for running on DOT tires to try and encourage IT drivers to make the jump.

Be gentle I was just trying to find some way to help promote Prod racing.
 
Kyle,

If lap simulation is so EZ and accurate these days (oh sorry....7 years ago).......how about sharing your profound insights with us lowly goobers? Ever heard of an Adams model.....curious on what you think of that tool.

Sayin it..........don' make it so. For me OR you.

Impress me........I'm waiting.
 
My kids "X box" was very close to real world predictions with car trim changes.

FWIW I had an Email from Jay the other day that was spoof. Realy did get hacked IMHO.
 
I think all this talk about lap time simulation being the solution to the problems that all 3 prod class have, not just H/p miss's the point. If any one thinks that equalizing the lap times of each car in each class to a hundred of a sec with some mix of weights, intake or whatever is the fix, then you don't understand the problem. Go back and read Rob Futcher's post on page 3. It is not the difference in lap times that is the problem it is the wide range of ways the cars achieve them which leads to the tracks being such a critical factor in the out come of the races. This isn't rocket science, just get the cars motor sizes and weights closer in the class's and the rest in not that hard. It is only hard if you start out in an impossible situation like it is now.
 
My point is that an empirical means of measuring performance is better than a group of dudes on a conference call trying to judge how wide their thumb is compared to the results sheet.

It's kind of wild that anyone would argue that this isn't something the club should be investing in.

Topeka only has a few high level tasks. Equalizing cars is one of the big ones. Investing in a way to do that scientifically seems like a no brainer.

-Kyle
 
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