Self-policing +

That is disappointing Steve. But at least you're doing what you can to help resolve the situation. I've sometimes thought that a wall of shame should be created whether it be on the regional or national level. Basically it would be a public database listing illegal items found, the car owner, he builder, and any other information both parties wanted noted. Not just a one off in FasTrack, but a record kept for a period of time (7 years?). Maybe even list the costs that were associated. So X car was found to have an illegal crank. That cost that owner $800 in protest fees and 4 races to be missed.

I've had this discussion with my engine builder. He told me that there are plenty of illegal motors out there, but that doesn't make them better or faster. In many instances an illegal motor, not really well built the not tuned by an expert will be slower than a very well built and tuned engine.

In the end of the day, people need to be able to go home from a weekend of racing with their $5 trophy and actually be proud of their accomplishments. This can also be said regardless of where they finish in the field.

How to help this on a larger scale? John N. worked on a protest guide which would be great if it were expanded. If people better understand the process of protesting, have a guide that will assist them in making it less painful for all parties involved and have an idea of costs associated ahead of time, it makes it more likely to happen. Then that makes building illegal motors less tempting.

I've been racing for a while now and the protest process is intimidating to me. If I wanted to check a few items on someone's motor, I have absolutely no clue what the approximate costs would be. I know in some cases it varies greatly such as a BMW 2002 cam, but overall there are many cars that is not the norm.

What I think would be really cool is to have a guide like this created, posted on websites, and then have it handed out with the Sups at some races. Bet it would get more people talking and thinking twice.
 
Bang. Into the wall of the culture of cheating.

Make it as complex as we want, at the end of the day the only way to change the culture is to be willing to piss off the cheaters. The protest process is already in place to do that and sadly, in some places, it's also necessary to piss of the people who are supposed to enforce the rules, but it's got to be used.

All the clever ideas in the world aren't going to fix that. Look at it this way, Steve - if folks (all those categories you listed) were disposed to solve the problem without resorting to pissing someone off, they would have done it already...

...and the problem wouldn't exist.

K

EDIT - So, go to the next race ready to file a protest. Pick something that's clear and doesn't require a big check or vagary regarding specs. Then do it. Be prepared to have someone call you a chickenshit, and expect that the increase in anxiety will make your weekend less fun. Get any other like-minded individuals you can find to do the same thing. The culture WILL CHANGE but that omelet is going to require some busted eggs.
 
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What if within a category or even just class such as Steve going for ITB, it starts off with a few friends protesting each other. Discuss what some potential items might be.

Pizza, beer, give the stewards plenty of advanced notice and tell them it will be a great training exercise. Do some fairly noninvasive stuff. The group of friends splits any costs associated whether found legal or not. A friend learns that is oh so wonderful engine has an illegal X part, use it as a learning experience and attempt to slowly change the culture.

A few years ago Ray and I spoke offline after some rumors popped up. We both agreed we'd be cool with either / both of us protesting each other. He offered to go through his car with me if I ever wanted to. It does help to change things even if slowly.

Pick something that's clear and doesn't require a big check or vagary regarding specs.
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I know it's been mentioned in other threads but without spending a lot of time trying to find it, what are some good items? Any general ranges in prices?
 
Steve talk to tech. add in the supps , "all IT cars should be ready to back up their cam , compression and gear set numbers". Maybe write them under the hood or on the fender like the weight.
Post the gear chart for your car under the hood.
It is easy to check max cam lift for almost all of our cars. You dont need to pull the BMW cam out of the head . A simple dial indicator will suffice.
Pull VC, roll engine around- read the valve lift. Will it catch all cheater cams?? no. But 90% of upgrade cams increase the lift.Only The very expensive /custom grinds will not over lift but move the lobe centers and increase lift window.
A simple compression gauge will also give a good idea about internals. Can you protest on a compression gauge reading?, no.

Should racers be tossed at this low level inspection? **NO**
Start the "purple book" and make notes, talk with the racers about how to correct the situation.

Post all "Purple book" infractions on the bathroom wall :)

Some other help; A radar gun on the back straight.

The result wil be ; the cheaters wont race
Some legal cars wont race. Some cars will move to Prod. Slowley the class will stabilize .

Last, the MR2 is slow- get used to it.
Happy New year.
MM
 
The first version of the illegal 2002 cams had too much lift. That problem went away when driver committees started doing friendly open hood cam checks. A few dudes were caught and those cams disappeared. The next "release" had proper lift but lobe centers and ramp angles provided the "winning edge". These cams are still in a few BMWs but require head removal ($$$) to check.
 
cams are a real sticking point in our vintage class. under IT rules the cam must be stock equivalent, we aren't interested (specifically) in lift.

as they must be verifiably stock, the only "official" way to protest a cam is to send it AND A STOCK IN BOX SAMPLE to Topeka for a spin on the cam doctor.

yes - you can do an installed valve lift/lobe height measurement and toss out the overt cheaters that way, but without a VERIFIED OEM spec cam there's no baseline to pass or fail against, and NIB parts are getting thin for the bulk of IT cars. want to check valve springs? same boat. this makes cam and head work easy cheats because you can't officially do a damn thing about it without parts that you very often cannot get. the mazdaspeed protégé turbo issue at the 2013 runoffs showed how this works, and it's a BAD omen for stock-spec parts use.

re: Culture - it's a tough situation when a bunch of people are HAPPY with the status quo. we DON'T know what the amount of cheating is, and it's likely low in the "stuff that really that matters" sort of way. certainly VERY little of it is grey area exploitation of the rules, what is out there is more likely to be gross cheating like cams or CR (of what matters) and blanked out headlights or removed wipers for the stuff that doesn't matter or is a really obvious violation. the latter is easy to address, make a point of, etc.. but one of the things I noticed was a large number of people at our last outing at sebring who were wondering where the "problem" was because they were all happy with our run group AND were unaware of cheaters, or aware of one or two who didn't bother them because slow or because of whatever reason. the 1 or 2 were not widely agreed upon, either.

so I really don't know what is the "right" way to proceed. this is not a travelling circus, it's a small group of people running together more often than apart and who if illegal are only mildly so and mostly are FAR from full-out builds (some exceptions such as Mr. Boles' MkIII VW are VERY well prepared) so even if they WERE to travel, it wouldn't matter much. the guys who travel tend to be better prepared I nthe first place and with that come s a lot less of the easy cheaty stuff and more of the grey area pushing WHICH IS RACING, not "cheating" until the "law" decides you've pushed it too far. going around the small local group with threats of a protest can and very well might have the affect of driving guys who aren't the problem out along with those who are. I'm not saying that's the reason not to, but I do wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze.

the MR2 IS slow, no doubt about it. the goddamn thing is so unresponsive to IT mods it's almost funny at this point. I'm glad it's still seen by some as an overachiever because it helps me see that the club, despite the best intentions of a lot of very smart and well educated people trying to steer it, is never going to be perfect. and other, more cynical thoughts, too.
 
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quadzjr said:
How would I implement or propose a blanket wide easy/cheap inspection. Inspection of the simple things like Cam lift and compression. Going on 6 years of racing in this series I have not once seen this whistler machine and have never seen valve lift checked in IT. I know this happens at the ARRC but a lot of the people down here do not run it.


So how to accomplish this task?
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We are a self policing organization. No region has the manpower to handle teardowns at an event. Heck at the Runoffs inspections are only done on the top 3 finishers, with cursory measurements done during q sessions.

Also, paper must be filed before the start of a race, or it is not timely.

Best course of action is to continue to self police, starting with conversations with a competitor who is obviously not legal.
 
manny said:
I won't even comment on how slow my car is compared to the MR2 :dead_horse:
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have you ran your car at tracks that favor your car's layout? I have ran against, and lost every time against Ron S. in his ITB Mustang at RRR. No shortage of money and time went into developing that car.

with the suspension characteristics of the mustang.. I would imagine Sebring would be a scary place to race.

What about Daytona? I know there was a decent race between my father in is MR2 and a mustang running on 3 cylinders there a few years ago. Sadly, the mustang running on 3 cylinders still had the MR2 on the straights, but the MR2 made it back in the corners. Fun/sad race to watch really.

You should come up with us to RRR this year!
 
Is Ron's mustang Marcello's old mustang? Well i did take my motor apart and did find why she was running flat, broken rings will do that :(
 
Not sure.. Ron S. has been running for a while with his car. it is a blue, red, and orange in color.

Where you the mustang that was running at Daytona a while back? I was spectating that race from the horseshoe.
 
quadzjr said:
have you ran your car at tracks that favor your car's layout? I have ran against, and lost every time against Ron S. in his ITB Mustang at RRR. No shortage of money and time went into developing that car.

with the suspension characteristics of the mustang.. I would imagine Sebring would be a scary place to race.

What about Daytona? I know there was a decent race between my father in is MR2 and a mustang running on 3 cylinders there a few years ago. Sadly, the mustang running on 3 cylinders still had the MR2 on the straights, but the MR2 made it back in the corners. Fun/sad race to watch really.

You should come up with us to RRR this year!
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I see you have in car vid of roebling...do you have in car of Daytona or other tracks?
If a 3cyl mustang ITB car is walking you on the straights, then there is something seriously wrong...am I right?

either the mustang is cheating, or your build has a lot to be desired, or the process is WAY off with regards to the MR2.

the roebling vid I watched it seemed like your car was right there power-wise with what I remembered in my old ITB car...which was a top third of the field car.

have you considered sending your engine off to a sunbelt or Kessler or whatever engine builder?
they probably have some tricks that could get you another 5 or 10 hp and put you right at the top of the field....

and are we certain the cars you are comparing yourself too are also legal?

I'm just trying to understand all this, cause I've owned an 87 mr2 for many years, and they are not slow.
 
D. Ellis-Brown said:
Dr. Knestis, No, we are running box stock VW ABA injectors..... As I told you back in 2006-2007..... Our rationale for trying a different injector, was the verbage in the ITCS, section D.1.a .... you disagreed with our "liberal" interpretation... I accepted your reasoning..... We submitted a rules change request to the IT committee, following the same rationale and logic that permitted carbureted cars to change jets, needles and metering rods within the stock carburetor(s)..... Then we should be able to change injectors. Our request was not approved. I accepted that. Thru extensive dyno time, and going to a different engine management computer we have been able to overcome the AFR issues. Now to Mr. Babson's comment, about my driving ability, well I'll let my peers judge my driving ability. I don't recall any of them running into the back of me. Enough said. As far as why I don't go the ARRC. I sent my entry in one year. I then realized we would be spending about $3000.00. for the week in Atlanta. That was about 1/3 of my race budget. My sponsors are all within Central Florida, they would see no benefit. Due to the expense, and having nothing to gain or prove, I cancelled our entry. I can race against Deuce Keane, Chi Ho and other excellent drivers in CFR for a lot less. I'm very proud to be racing in CFR, and against some of the finest ITB cars in the country.

Respectfully, David Ellis-Brown
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apologize for my previous comment...I sometimes just type away with little tact.
I also did very much regret our contact that day at sebring in turn 1...as I explained when I came over after to chat, I was a little caught off guard when you continued to turn down onto me, taking a trajectory to track left...instead of tracking out...as one would assume in such a fast turn.
that and my welded diff and very worn and rock hard RA-1's meant that if I got off the gas too much, it would be understeer, and might have made matters even worse.

I pride myself on being a clean racer, and this was my first and only time where I ever hit another car in my 4 yrs on track..

I have video of the event....http://vimeo.com/2467456

as I said, I wasn't expecting you to take that path, and even though I saw you coming, I wasn't expecting you to continue, and I tried to keep it tight to the inside....


now back to the regularly scheduled program....
 
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