The only race that matters

If by empirical you mean "as observed' ,by stop watch or computer, I disagree, always have. Using empirical performance as a guide line introduces too many human factors in to the results. The goal should be to minimize the variables and the biggest one is too often the driver. How do you factor out driving ability? I don't want the rules based on bad midget drivers or good Honda drivers any more than the other way around . An over reliance on ontrack performance is what we have now and the result is a belief that if the lap times are close, that must mean every one has the same chance to win. The two most important factors in lap times are weight and horsepower. They should be comparable and proportional in the cars in any given class. Do that and the track type will be of secondary importance with no need for big competition adjustments. The best rule set is one where everybody looks at it and concludes they and their chosen car have a chance to win.
 
RICK HAYNES":3qpahgtf said:
If by empirical you mean "as observed' ,by stop watch or computer, I disagree, always have. Using empirical performance as a guide line introduces too many human factors in to the results. The goal should be to minimize the variables and the biggest one is too often the driver. How do you factor out driving ability? I don't want the rules based on bad midget drivers or good Honda drivers any more than the other way around . An over reliance on ontrack performance is what we have now and the result is a belief that if the lap times are close, that must mean every one has the same chance to win. The two most important factors in lap times are weight and horsepower. They should be comparable and proportional in the cars in any given class. Do that and the track type will be of secondary importance with no need for big competition adjustments. The best rule set is one where everybody looks at it and concludes they and their chosen car have a chance to win.
Click to expand...

I agree with you as long as the last sentence is revised as follows:

"The best rule set is one where everybody looks at it and concludes their chosen car has a chance to win."
 
I agree with Kyle as follows:
* more data is better than less data
* fat thumb methods are exactly what the advisory board mainly relies on......I was on the committee for years until I was excommunicated for being too outspoken. Imagine that!
* the club should be investing in advanced simulation tools and people smart enough to run them to improve equity judgements


What Rick wants is spec racing in a class that is so far away from "uniform" it's laughable. Seriously.....macpherson strut suspension vs.SLA, solid rear axle vs. independent rear axle, big tin top vs. little roadster, 948cc full prep vs. 1.4L LP?, big frontal area vs. little frontal area, low CD vs. high CD, low polar moment of inertia vs. high polar moment of inertia, low CG vs. high CG, front wheel drive vs. rear wheel drive, no ECM vs. high end ECM, OHV vs. OHC..........the variation list goes on and on and on and they all matter to some degree.

It's totally impractical and infeasible to do what Rick continues to complain about. Heck, when I was in SM we struggled with the exact same issues early (NA 1.6L cars are more nimble in corners and corner faster since lighter, 1999 up NB 1.8L cars are more sluggish in response and slower in corners but due to advanced ECM controls have more grunt down the straits and higher top speed....they pass you down the straits and "park" in the corners....but you can't get by them! Sound familiar?????) in cars that are 98+% identical!

So how would anyone resolve the same issue in wildly disparate cars?????? Our "solution" in SM (look at the 2015 Runoffs grid if you don't believe me)........if you think the 99 ups are unfairly fast..........go buy one and go racing. Complaining just wastes time and does not contribute to the goal of having fun. In case anyone has forgotten the clock is continually ticking on everyone's racing days..........every day you bitch and moan is a day you aren't racing and having fun.

Quit trying to do the impossible and buy/build a spec car if having "car specific" inequities bothers you. If you can't afford another car too bad.....racing never has been cheap. Otherwise quit belly aching and get busy with having fun.
 
RICK HAYNES":1hdu6tkt said:
The two most important factors in lap times are weight and horsepower. They should be comparable and proportional in the cars in any given class. Do that and the track type will be of secondary importance with no need for big competition adjustments.
Click to expand...

This is so very wrong. :hand:

Imagine two identical cars- identical in every way, except power and weight.

Car 1: 2000lbs, 200 whp
Car 2: 3000lbs, 300 whp

Car 1 will win every race where terminal speed isn't a factor.
Car 1 is simply better at everything (braking, cornering).
Car 2 has no advantage anywhere - in fact it is only equal in lbs/hp.

The heavier car absolutely has to have a large advantage in lbs/whp or it will never make up its disadvantage in braking and cornering.

You're saying the formula above is fair, and it is clearly not.

Give us some concrete numbers for what you think is fair for the two cars?
 
If you watched the 24' yesterday it was pretty clear that IMSA doesn't always get the BoP (balance of performance) equation correct either.
By their own admission different cars react differently at different tracks...That's a novel conclusion :shock:
Their solution is constant changes throughout the year... and they don't have that many makes and models to deal with.
Do we really want this same sort of thing and is it fair??? Rewards weight , aero changes and the like become pretty onerous after a while.
We can spend tons of money on light weight CF and titanium stuff to make weight and enhance performance only to have it mandated that we add lead weight at 50 cents per pound.
I think in the end , unless we become a spec class it will be nearly impossible to equalize the BoP for all cars, across all classes , at all tracks.
Like Jay sorta said,, stop bitch'n and either deal with it or take up another hobby. Sometimes, a lot more speed can be found in the driver than in the car.

Cheers
Tom B.
 
blamkin86":2dw6r4i3 said:
RICK HAYNES":2dw6r4i3 said:
The two most important factors in lap times are weight and horsepower. They should be comparable and proportional in the cars in any given class. Do that and the track type will be of secondary importance with no need for big competition adjustments.
Click to expand...

This is so very wrong. :hand:

Imagine two identical cars- identical in every way, except power and weight.

Car 1: 2000lbs, 200 whp
Car 2: 3000lbs, 300 whp

Car 1 will win every race where terminal speed isn't a factor.
Car 1 is simply better at everything (braking, cornering).
Car 2 has no advantage anywhere - in fact it is only equal in lbs/hp.

The heavier car absolutely has to have a large advantage in lbs/whp or it will never make up its disadvantage in braking and cornering.

You're saying the formula above is fair, and it is clearly not.

Give us some concrete numbers for what you think is fair for the two cars?
Click to expand...
Force car 1 to run on 13x6 wheels and give car 2 18x8 wheels so they can put twice as much rubber on the ground. Yeah, that'll fixit.
 
Rick,

This is not iRacing. There is no "driver".

In this simulation the computer is the driver. You configure the simulator with VERY detailed information about the car (dyno table, aero map, suspension parameters, tire maps, ... every detail down to the most minor). The computer then outputs what looks very much like the output from a data acq system in a real car showing things like speed, acceleration, etc. You can even simulate individual components like the motor by inputting things like bore, stroke, cam profile and flow numbers thus taking the variable of the dyno out of the loop. I'm not saying that you'd do that on day 1 (baby steps), but just showing the level of detail available.

Those who know more about this technology will immediately realize that things like aero maps and tire maps don't come easily. This will be where the work is. It wont be easy, but what in racing is ever easy?

Read up here: http://www.lapsim.nl/

-Kyle
 
Also......horsepower means nothing since you can't even measure it directly........it's a calculation only. What matterss is the amount of WORK (aka ft-lbs) the engine can do while accelerating from A to B rpm within its race operating band. This is commonly referred to the AREA under the torque vs. operating rpm curve. The bigger the area under the curve, the better the performance from the engine.

Anyone knows it's better to have an engine that has a flat torque curve than a super pointy one..........as it can do far more work as it accelerates from A to B. We use to use a proxy for this which was average torque within the min and max rpm's seen on a particular track to make all of our dyno change decisions on Taber Sr and Jr's Comptune dyno..

High average torque typically is where ECU engines really shine..........the right amount of fuel, the right amount of ignition timing, etc. for every expected combination of inlet air temperature, barometric pressure and relative humidity (the 3 adjustment variables used to correct dyno torque numbers to standard conditions which never seem to occur during actual testing). Plus various load conditions including some partial throttle. No carburetor on the planet can get all of this fully optimized.

So to suggest that horsepower and weight are mainly what matters in equivalence discussions is really short sided. Plus............. we already tried that exercise in the Basil Adams production ad hoc committee era (remember the spreadsheet we did of #/hp we did for all of production???? That analysis was a dismal failure.

Rick, I'm really surprised you would make that statement.
 
Why am I wasting my time on this.........nothing has changed on this subject in 20 years. Same old arguments with no more science behind it than 20 years ago.

Ridiculous.......I'm a knucklehead for joining in at all. Jaybird out.
 
The baseline weight and power estimates are a good place to start. So we start there like we have now. The best final "trim" in the real world, by far, is the " wack a mole" method. IE one type of car exceeds it's expectations consistently, gets wacked. Simple as that and seems to work in the most competitive racing .

The LBC s' best path may be to build the 1400cc engine, add 200# and see how it runs. My guess is that it will start the engineering dominoes to deal with brakes axles, trans etc.
 
Protech Racing":1cptyv1k said:
The baseline weight and power estimates are a good place to start.
Click to expand...

Great, given my example above, exactly what changes would you make to one of the two cars?
 
blamkin86":1tmxej6u said:
RICK HAYNES":1tmxej6u said:
The two most important factors in lap times are weight and horsepower. They should be comparable and proportional in the cars in any given class. Do that and the track type will be of secondary importance with no need for big competition adjustments.
Click to expand...

This is so very wrong. :hand:

Imagine two identical cars- identical in every way, except power and weight.

Car 1: 2000lbs, 200 whp
Car 2: 3000lbs, 300 whp

Car 1 will win every race where terminal speed isn't a factor.
Car 1 is simply better at everything (braking, cornering).
Car 2 has no advantage anywhere - in fact it is only equal in lbs/hp.

The heavier car absolutely has to have a large advantage in lbs/whp or it will never make up its disadvantage in braking and cornering.

You're saying the formula above is fair, and it is clearly not.

Give us some concrete numbers for what you think is fair for the two cars?
Click to expand...
Blamkin - you are absolutely wrong and your premise is the reason that we have such a disparity in performance in the Production ranks. Name one track - ONE where you don't reach a point where acceleration is at or near zero at some point on the track, usually many places. Lime Rock is the only one that comes to mind. Once you even begin to approach the point where you stop accelerating then horsepower and frontal area is all that matters, and one car in your example has not a little bit more, but half again the amount of what makes a difference. Your example is so unfair in the opposite direction from what you think it is that it isn't even funny. A hundred more horsepower with the same frontal area? Are you kidding? The CRB thinks the same way and keeps trying to adjust a disparity in top speed by adding weight. It doesn't work.
 
Ron, my example does work. I'm sorry if you disagree with it.

I'm trying to distill out the many factors of car classification (including your suggestion of frontal area).

If we can't even agree that a heavier car has to accelerate faster, I'm not sure where to begin.

Hastings, Pueblo, High Plains, Pikes Peak. Any track around here.

Yes, I did experience near top end in my EProd car at RA. I was not a front runner.

My point was and still is, the heavier car has to make up the handling/braking deficiencies somewhere. I was trying to make a simple example, that isn't real world, to make a point.

Sorry if I offended you.
 
No offense taken. I just wanted to make sure that it isn't thought of as a slam dunk that a heavier car with more power is a loser. The underpowered car reaches terminal velocity before the heavier car because it runs out of power sooner, and it has only a little bit of time under braking and handling advantages to make up for what the higher powered car gets to take advantage of for a lot of time on a straight. It may be more obvious to lower powered cars like what we have in H, but I am surprised that you have so many tracks out there where you don't get up to or near top speed. Sure the heavier car accelerates slower, but surely it must be obvious to you that it will have a much higher top speed if it has more power and the same frontal area.
 
While Ron typically starts races ahead of most HP cars in Majors, often mixed with the FP cars, I can say there is a another factor that plays out in race situations with LP cars (not as much in full prep). While a light small motor car may be able to make an offline pass on a big motor car, the loss in exit speed is easily offset by the big motor car's torque and more transmission gears.

I have also had many HP poles in my LP Spitfire, but the first lap it is cannon fodder to 5speed big motor cars like Hondas and 510s.

The current LP specs in HP list common compression and lift specs for several cars which really are not equal. I think they were OK starting places 15 years ago, but with the GP cars in HP, more power and torque are a needed to equalize for the small motor 8valve LBCs. Clearly in FP, specs have shown to be more equal for LBCs. It seems to me that the Adhocs wont budge from the compression/lift specs that have been in place from the start (unless you have a GP VW or Honda which various models received both compression and lift increases since 2007).

And yes I have raced both HP VW and Triumph in the same season.
 
Jay
This is a philosophical debate, not a technical one. But I suspect you knew that the whole time you were writing your comments on the important's of torque. So I stand by my point that the best indicators of a race cars lap times will be weight and Hp , or torque or power ,the number of squirrels in the cage, or how ever you wish the describe it, and therefor the best standard to use when classifying cars together in class's.
 
Rick,

OK I know you know the difference but others may not........... my real point is that those 2 parameters alone (or even primarily without a full scale mega analysis) are woefully inadequate.

Remember that we already tried that approach in the Basil Adams days?? Do you remember? It didn't work then........why would it work this time???

Dang........I just did another post!
 
Jay, I don't remember what Basil was promoting. If it was a weight per Hp approach that was used to justify grouping a wide range of weights and motors together in one class I can understand why it failed. If it was used to balance cars with similar weights and motor sizes with in the same class, I have no reason to think it wouldn't have worked then as well as working now. This is what I would like to see;
D/p over 2000 cc
E-p 1600 to 2000 CC's, with 1600cc full prep cars in E
F/p 1275 to 1600 CC's with 1600cc LP cars in F
G/p and H/p I am not sure but a split that might allow the 948 cars with big valves and open carbs to compete again in a H/p class.
with all weights in all class's proportional to CC's

When I started racing in G/p in 1974 I some times got beat by H/p sprite drivers Randy, Jim, Ray, Martin and other, if you don't know their last names it doesn't matter. They all had 1st class cars that they drove the wheels off of. Needless to say my motor building and race-craft that 1st year was not too good. But by the 2nd year I had improved enough that didn't happen any more and I was happy as hell to beat those guys with my 1100cc 15% bigger motor. But I had the good scene not to point it out to anyone less I look like a complete fool. We now live in a SCCA world where it is seen as perfectly logical to group cars with motors from 948cc to 1850cc together, almost a 100% difference. I think that is completely absurd and if any one has missed the point of this analogy I guess that doesn't matter ether.
 
Rick - I got beat by some of those same guys when I started. At that time H Production had the luxury of being essentially a one-car class, so if you got beat you only had to look in the mirror to find the problem. Now it is like the other Production classes where it is difficult to determine if it is your choice of car, your program, the track you are on, or your driving that is holding you back.

As it relates to F Production, your argument, and the theme for this thread, is not very strong at the moment due to the fact that the F Prod Midget ran away at MRLS and was in the process of running away on a power track like Daytona, with two different cars and drivers, albeit top-notch programs.

However, this thread does make a good point as it relates to H Production due to the fact that there is the same disparity of motor size, aero characteristics, and weight, but in this case an upper limit on power due to the limited prep formula for motors. In my opinion this can only be fixed by separating the two different types of cars into two classes, and I have written another self-serving letter to the CRB asking for that. It probably has very little chance of being taken seriously, but it had to be asked. I can post it if anyone is interested.
 
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