SCCA Solo C Street Discussion

[AX_FRS]

Originally Posted by Locust

So CS now has an index that's .001 softer than BS. Crazy. The ND is essentially a B-Street car with its own class!

I know I'm late to this, but WHAT? that's .09 difference on a 90 second course. For what is supposed to be a difference in performance. This is effectively reinforcing the common complaint of having a class for everyone. I suppose there is a lot more that goes into this, but there are uncompetitive cars in each of these classes, I'm sure. They could try to take a bit of time to group the ones that have similar performance and boost the competition in multiple classes. (Complaints, no real suggestions, I know.)

The TRD edition 86 will be a CS car, I'm sure. Yeah? Probably been talked about, but there are a lot of posts in here. Sorry.

[TrqlessWonder]

The person trying to devise the PAX index has no input on the classing. He's just observing results, and trying to set a handicap for the structure given. This is not the first time the indexes have produced such a result.

TRD FR-S and all 86's as I understand it, are CS.

I can't imagine the horrific result that would come if we actually tried to class such that AS was 0.5 sec faster than BS, which is .5 sec faster than DS.

[AX_FRS]

I know it's based on national results, which kind of makes it retroactive as far as current classing. Any changes that may be made this year are not taken into account when setting PAX indices. It would be near impossible to do that, I imagine. Talk about bench racing.

I'm not saying everything should be half a point apart. That is pretty crazy. It would be nice though. If two cars are going to be .09 seconds apart and that's at 10/10s perfect runs, then the majority of participants are likely to be intermixed pretty closely with great runs and great drivers. If we could get things even .003 difference in pax, that seems like it would be more separate. I'm just pulling hairs though. Championships are won by .001's.

Really none of this matters to me directly. I'm not a great driver, midpack at best. I guess what I'm getting at is if the cars are that close in performance, why are they not classed together? There are only so many cars that can be "competitive" in any one class and the cars in those classes should probably be grouped together differently.

[strat61caster]

Eh, BS is full of cars that are ~300 hp and up (Cayman S, M2, C5 etc.), put everyone on a big runway course where they can stretch their legs and CS doesn't stand a chance, NC/ND, 86, RX-8, S2000, Boxster etc. CS is mostly <250hp cars that are a few hundred to a thousand lbs lighter than BS, tighten up the course and boom they're neck and neck.

Classes exist for like competition to minimize the impacts of course dependancy, PAX is a tack on to try and index the competition based on a 'local-style' course design (erring on the side of smaller and more technical not big runways with cars hitting 70+ mph). You'd see different numbers if you could select base on course type. Each class seems to have a decent philosophy behind it allowing 2-5 contenders and a few dark horses that can win on the right day, it's easy to take for granted what is already in place.

[TrqlessWonder]

Originally Posted by AX_FRS

I know it's based on national results, which kind of makes it retroactive as far as current classing. Any changes that may be made this year are not taken into account when setting PAX indices. It would be near impossible to do that, I imagine. Talk about bench racing.

I'm not saying everything should be half a point apart. That is pretty crazy. It would be nice though. If two cars are going to be .09 seconds apart and that's at 10/10s perfect runs, then the majority of participants are likely to be intermixed pretty closely with great runs and great drivers. If we could get things even .003 difference in pax, that seems like it would be more separate. I'm just pulling hairs though. Championships are won by .001's.

Really none of this matters to me directly. I'm not a great driver, midpack at best. I guess what I'm getting at is if the cars are that close in performance, why are they not classed together? There are only so many cars that can be "competitive" in any one class and the cars in those classes should probably be grouped together differently.

eta: Because we don't know if the cars are that close in performance. Rick Ruth thinks/predicts they'll run similar times, based on his data, experience, and some above-average-educated guesswork. But Rick Ruth does not get a say in what cars get classed where, and, outside of ProSolo, we try to do what we can to live in the absence of PAX/indexes.

Politics and general efforts to avoid competition cannibalism.
NDs can staff a class, and the current-revised BS can probably staff a class. Put them together and the participation rate probably drops. ND2 would displace from BS, not add to it. The ND2 in CS leaves the BS free-for-all untouched and unthreatened.

And yes, it's based on..well much more than national results, and there's some fuzziness going on there in order to try and account for poorly controlled variables and try to tease out which data points are unusual enough that they should be discarded. Even some forward-looking estimation, like with the initial SSC index, or a switch to street tires, or an aggressively-placed new car in the class that Rick has to guess at.

[AX_FRS]

Definitely hard to make things all play well together, I don't doubt that. With so many things at play, Rick is really doing a great job. Classing is a common complaint, haha. But it's a complaint pretty much no matter how it is looked at.

The car grouping based on the type of car makes sense. Regionally, the only reason I paid attention to classing was to try to do better and beat the guy ahead of me. Like I said, mid pack at best, so I usually have someone to chase. I didn't bother trying to compete on PAX index. Lots of really good drivers out there, in due time maybe.

Anyway, I appreciate the helping give some clarity to the classing ideals. I'll just stick to going out and having fun I guess. Never been good at politics.

[DocWalt]

FWIW if you read Rick's blurb, he looks at a lot of local events as well. PAX is actually not really intended to matter at national events, the in class competition is the point there.

Also, yeah the 86s in CS are screwed.

[conehead]

All of this just points to why the classing system itself is a bad structure. It is highly frustrating to the casual driver who did not choose their car or mods based on autocross class. Even serious drivers in street class are forced to buy a new car every few years and hope it ends up competitive.



The NASA style points system is much better and fairer. It creates a system where any car can potentially be competitive and the driver can pick and chose the best combination of mods to optimize his car.



Unfortunately where I live, SCCA is the only game in town for autocross, and NASA is for track events. Meaning that I can only even hope to be competitive in one of them.

[tony_r]

Certain classes in SCCA Street are a revolving door where new cars/model updates come in constantly, and the structure of the rules in the category could definitely use an overhaul. I'd love to see a lock on classing for X number of years to ensure stability, and allow for real-world testing. Will never happen though.

Neither system is great. Within each there are going to be overdog cars and setups no matter the classing structure. It's fortunate that the twins have two other places to play that aren't expensive to enter.

[steverife]

Last time I messed with the NASA system, you could build things like a theoretical turbo crx on wide tires and run against stock Mini Cooper S's and things of that nature. I think the reason it "works" is because the competition often isn't deep.

[DocWalt]

My STX BRZ was in the same class as my bone stock Focus RS in NASA classing. Yeah, no way would I bother runnign the Focus RS, haha.

[jtmroczk]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

FWIW if you read Rick's blurb, he looks at a lot of local events as well. PAX is actually not really intended to matter at national events, the in class competition is the point there.

Also, yeah the 86s in CS are screwed.

Base model 86s left in DS are probably worse off now with all of “Rally cars and Friends” moving from BS to DS.

[jtmroczk]

more on topic, has anbody found a better or equivelent C-street Autox option to the Enkei PF01, for 17x7.5 brembo clearence?

[DocWalt]

Well... DS class 86s have SSC at least.