December 2011 Fastrack

T3 had the juice. GP didn't have the juice. Live by CRB and BoD politics, die by the same forces.

For me, it all comes back to a lack of big-picture policy clarity and consistent application of rules and procedures. Rule X will get used as a hammer to clobber one idea, then get ignored as an exception to the same rule is back-channeled to facilitate someone's pet agenda.

Every time someone tells me about some minor victory they've achieved through the back channel, I try to remember to ask them if they'll still love the game when they aren't winning.

K
 
Can anyone remember the last time a T1,T2,T3 or SS anything ran regionals? It is all manufacturer driven on a National level. GP, etc would have been fine if it had been reduced to regional status per the rules and given a chance to regain its numbers. I ran GP for years and only left because IT cars are so much more reliable. It was stupid for the BOD to kill it completely. Now the pet classes that everybody seems to not give a crap about get continued special deals.

The statements about 60 year old cars has some truth, but if they have the numbers and pay their dues, they have just as much right to race in the club they built while many of you were in diapers.:rolleyes: They are racers, paying dues, and if the rules for participation are followed by everyone they deserve their class. Many left due to continued screwings by the CRB every time they worked hard to get fast. Try winning an IT championship and getting #150 on a whim just to slow you down. No, we have a reasonable process and have a pretty stable rule set. Production, GT, etc get screwed on a weekly basis and frankly I wonder why any except the inside crowd continue to take the abuse. When you have more than 10 years in this club then you have a better picture of the problem.

But wait, we will have a whole new crop of BOD this year to reverse everything and tip the ship even further, stay tuned.

PS. Spit my drink out at the truth in the Hitler video, classic.:023:
 
To be clear -- I have no problem with 60 year old cars racing in the SCCA. I do have a problem with setting up classes and rules to continue to ensure they are competitive against modern stuff.
 
So your answer is to make ONLY newer cars competetive and let the older ones die completely rather than trying to classify newer cars where they belong to fit the envelope as a whole.
 
No.

For IT, my answer is not allow things like weight breaks for drum brakes, or carburetors, or allow cars to switch out to alternate parts when things no longer become available.

I'm not in favor of special allowances for new cars or old cars. I want a consistent ruleset that doesn't make a distinction between the two. In my opinion, that will naturally result in a constant but slow turnover in the class as older cars age out and newer cars come in while not forcing everyone to ditch their old cars yearly for the "car of the year."

The Prod guys know their classes better than me and can of course do what they want with them. But dropping minimum participation requirements just so a "legacy" class can still go to the runoffs to me isn't very smart.

You guys need to go to a NASA event. I'm a dyed in the wool SCCA guy. I have no interest in running NASA. But their fields are full, their cars are newer, and their drivers have to average at least 10 and maybe 20 years less than us.

That is a bad, bad sign.
 
JeffYoung said:
To be clear -- I have no problem with 60 year old cars racing in the SCCA. I do have a problem with setting up classes and rules to continue to ensure they are competitive against modern stuff.
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Nor does anyone. Set the power to weight and let them go at it like we do in IT. If they engineer better than a newer car they win. With todays SCCA they engineer to the front and get a boat anchor to bring them down to the slower cars. Set the rules for everyone equal. These 60 year old cars in production have the brakes, motor, etc of newer cars and can run with them. The newer cars are given the special treatment to bring them up to speed, not the other way around. You are misinformed at best.
 
JeffYoung said:
...But their fields are full, their cars are newer, and their drivers have to average at least 10 and maybe 20 years less than us.

That is a bad, bad sign.
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From what I have seen, they have full run groups, but about 10 classes in each group. Looking at some of the schedules I have seen, it's a million HPDE cars and only a couple real racing groups.
 
When you condem the older cars to uncompetitive status, you drive out the owners and drivers who have a LOT of time and money invested in them. I can count on one hand the number of drivers stil playing since I started this nonsence, and most of the ones who left say the same thing. "I'm not going to spend anymore money on this ^&#$@#." I am about in the same boat what with the cost of tires, gas, travel, parts, and now an unneeded(in my opinion) H&N deal. And now some are saying my antique Pinto, with it's drum rear brakes, live axle, and carb. should just go quietly into that good night. OK, I'm parked.

Russ
 
Russ Myers said:
"I'm not going to spend anymore money on this ^&#$@#." I am about in the same boat what with the cost of tires, gas, travel, parts, and now an unneeded(in my opinion) H&N deal. And now some are saying my antique Pinto, with it's drum rear brakes, live axle, and carb. should just go quietly into that good night. OK, I'm parked.
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Seems like the same people who are already struggling to buy tires and modern safety gear are the ones who want to keep newer cars from coming in and rendering the antiques to the back of the grid. Now if you park because the H&N thing and the Pinto is the car to have, who is going to replace you? Not sure any of the younger crowd is going to searching Google for the coolest Pinto to race ... LOL. They will find some cool cars in NASA and in the new STU/L classes however.

But, in really it shouldn't be about old v new. Progress means old will eventually be uncompetitive. I don't like the whole "anti new" mentality that, until the last few years, has kept IT to be more like Improved Vintage then anything else.

There are however 2 fundamental problems outside of the great work Jeff and crew are doing to clean up the ancient crusty rules. One is there are a lot of crappy cars in all the classes which means that most decent cars and any new cars are lead sleds. Two, the power to weight for the IT classes is out of whack with any car produced in the last 10 years. Number 2 feeds #1.

Seems like we should be putting new cars in at the top, rebalancing the classes, and pushing the heaps down in classes. To really do this, we do have to have have the ability to recalculate the spec weights for all cars in the ITCS with a deterministic formula and actually know what each car list is actually capable of. Not sure we are there yet.

So, for example, put the 350Z, Hyundai Genesis Coupe, etc in ITR. Drop all the weight of the other cars who can make it, push the rest down to ITS, and repeat down to ITC.
 
Russ Myers said:
When you condem the older cars to uncompetitive status, you drive out the owners and drivers who have a LOT of time and money invested in them. I can count on one hand the number of drivers stil playing since I started this nonsence, and most of the ones who left say the same thing. "I'm not going to spend anymore money on this ^&#$@#." I am about in the same boat what with the cost of tires, gas, travel, parts, and now an unneeded(in my opinion) H&N deal. And now some are saying my antique Pinto, with it's drum rear brakes, live axle, and carb. should just go quietly into that good night. OK, I'm parked.

Russ
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So I will disagree that this is happening. IT is a power-to-weight-based calculation. Some items are considered for 'adders' and some are not. Straight axles, new or old, don't get a break. Drum brakes on a RWD car could be up for debate and carb-ed cars are already allowed an upgrade from stock.

It's not about rendering them uncompetitive, it's about deciding how 'focused' this classification process can be without dipping our collective toes into Comp-Adjustments. I am sure the ITAC would entertain a well thought out proposal on a categorical modification to the process re: drum brakes keeping in mind that configuration is not a disadvantage in a FWD application.

The point Jeff made was in regard to the multitude of letters that come in every year asking for alternate brakes, plexi windshields, altrnate fenders, etc for cars where supply is drying up.
 
Andy Bettencourt said:
The point Jeff made was in regard to the multitude of letters that come in every year asking for alternate brakes, plexi windshields, altrnate fenders, etc for cars where supply is drying up.
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I hate to say it but.... maybe it's time for STL/U, Prod or GT for those folks. One day I will be there as well and that decision should be made for me.
 
SPiFF said:
But, in really it shouldn't be about old v new. Progress means old will eventually be uncompetitive. I don't like the whole "anti new" mentality that, until the last few years, has kept IT to be more like Improved Vintage then anything else.

There are however 2 fundamental problems outside of the great work Jeff and crew are doing to clean up the ancient crusty rules. One is there are a lot of crappy cars in all the classes which means that most decent cars and any new cars are lead sleds. Two, the power to weight for the IT classes is out of whack with any car produced in the last 10 years. Number 2 feeds #1.

Seems like we should be putting new cars in at the top, rebalancing the classes, and pushing the heaps down in classes. To really do this, we do have to have have the ability to recalculate the spec weights for all cars in the ITCS with a deterministic formula and actually know what each car list is actually capable of. Not sure we are there yet.

So, for example, put the 350Z, Hyundai Genesis Coupe, etc in ITR. Drop all the weight of the other cars who can make it, push the rest down to ITS, and repeat down to ITC.
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My thoughts are similar here too..
Instead of hobbling the new cars with 500lb of ballast, build the cars to IT spec and see what they can do, then classify them without ballast.

If the old IT cars can't be competitive anymore, then give them a break- lower the weights for those that can lose weight, give them better brakes (almost every car out there has a rear drum-to-disc conversion for sale or easily doable), and such. Maybe cams or a slight compression bump as a line-item allowance so the cars can make more power.

If they still cant compete with the newer stuff, then bump them down a class or create an IT-vintage class where these older cars can still play without the hassles of trying to keep up with the new stuff.

yup.. more classes. that's what we need. ;)
 
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Matt93SE said:
My thoughts are similar here too..
Instead of hobbling the new cars with 500lb of ballast, build the cars to IT spec and see what they can do, then classify them without ballast.

If the old IT cars can't be competitive anymore, then give them a break- lower the weights for those that can lose weight, give them better brakes (almost every car out there has a rear drum-to-disc conversion for sale or easily doable), and such. Maybe cams or a slight compression bump as a line-item allowance so the cars can make more power.

If they still cant compete with the newer stuff, then bump them down a class or create an IT-vintage class where these older cars can still play without the hassles of trying to keep up with the new stuff.

yup.. more classes. that's what we need. ;)
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I say no on almost all counts. Create a class above ITR if that is what's needed. If it can't stand on it's own, it's not worth creating.

Competition adjustments by spec line???? That IS Prod.

IT-V? I could get behind it but some will be happy and some won't, because if it's a single class, you will have to create one target Pwr-weight and nobody will be happy with that.
 
You misunderstand. That is exactly what I am saying. Same rules, consistent across all classes and without any concessions for older (or newer) cars.

I just dealt with a situation where, in my opinion, there was a large push to help "older" cars in ITB with weight brakes for carburetors. I also personally think the live rear axle deduct was a mistake.

That's the only push I've seen -- in IT -- for allowances for individual cars. I know nothing, as in ZERO, about Prod other than like Kirk said I see weights changing too frequently and I see cars and drivers that on average appear far older than those making up our competitor's fields. That to me is not a good sign for the future, and declining car counts for classes other than SM, SRF and IT seem to prove that point.

seckerich said:
Nor does anyone. Set the power to weight and let them go at it like we do in IT. If they engineer better than a newer car they win. With todays SCCA they engineer to the front and get a boat anchor to bring them down to the slower cars. Set the rules for everyone equal. These 60 year old cars in production have the brakes, motor, etc of newer cars and can run with them. The newer cars are given the special treatment to bring them up to speed, not the other way around. You are misinformed at best.
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Russ, I drive an "old" car. I fully understand that I have to play by the same rules as the newer cars, and don't think asking for weight breaks for archaic design elements is appropriate in IT.

If that "condemns" older cars to uncompetitive status, then that is a natural function of our ruleset, and in my opinion far more preferable than trying to figure out what disadvantage a Hitachi carb is to a Bosch L-Jet system.

Russ Myers said:
When you condem the older cars to uncompetitive status, you drive out the owners and drivers who have a LOT of time and money invested in them. I can count on one hand the number of drivers stil playing since I started this nonsence, and most of the ones who left say the same thing. "I'm not going to spend anymore money on this ^&#$@#." I am about in the same boat what with the cost of tires, gas, travel, parts, and now an unneeded(in my opinion) H&N deal. And now some are saying my antique Pinto, with it's drum rear brakes, live axle, and carb. should just go quietly into that good night. OK, I'm parked.

Russ
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Depends on the class.

BUT -- there is nothing over there that interests me class or competition wise. My friends and my preferred ruleset are with SCCA. I stay here, and I like it here.

That doesn't mean though that we/I shouldn't ask why NASA attracts younger drivers and newer cars.

I also fully agree with Robbie NASA has a ton of warts.

Andy Bettencourt said:
From what I have seen, they have full run groups, but about 10 classes in each group. Looking at some of the schedules I have seen, it's a million HPDE cars and only a couple real racing groups.
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