So... where the hell is the FRS/BRZ in sanctioned racing?
 

Am I missing something here?

As one of the most hyped cars in decades for the perfect racing platform tuner, where the hell is it in true sanctioned racing? ...sorry guys, drift is NOT racing. I love time attack, but we want race teams and wheel-to-wheel stuff here.

Seriously, I'm dumbfounded by the lack of racing representation with this car :iono:

Continental Tires Challenge. No show in Street Tuner class...? vs Civic Si, Miata, BMW, Cayman, Hyundai GenCoupe, etc. It would fit perfect in that class, no?
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9C3rUl9CEo"]2014 Virginia International Raceway Race Broadcast - YouTube[/ame]


Pirelli World Challenge. Only one Scion FRS (supercharged too), Stout Racing, entered ONE race in the 2014 season in which they ended up in a crash. Nothing from them since. Previous to that, they ran in the 2013 season and was plagued by problems. Pretty much last place for both years!
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it_rkFFjiTM"]PWC 2014 Highlights of GT/GT-A/GTS Round 11 at Mid-Ohio - YouTube[/ame]

For the amount of cars sold in North America and the PR of being an "amazing tuner machine", you would think Toyota/Scion/Subaru would prove this car and enter it into solid racing efforts...? I've been waiting two years now. Where the hell is it? Where is Toyota Racing Development in all this? Where are the sponsored teams? Is this stupid of me to ask...? I was thinking people would be all over this!

Sure we got the Griffon (not a wheel-to-wheel car) and a handful of Gazoo cars. The Gazoo 86's being pretty much the only noise of success in terms of an 86 race team.

Subaru, well, they built a GT300 car that really isn't a BRZ. And it looks like they probably kicked their Toyota imbred BRZ to the curb because they'd rather promote their WRX.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7doi-W4by1U"][SUBARU] 2014 Nürburgring 24h Rennen Digest Movie - YouTube[/ame]

I still haven't seen any racing efforts at all from an actual BRZ from Subaru. Nothing FA20 D4S powered.

Will we see any solid entries for FT86 at all?

Where is the Toyota/Scion equivalent of Realtime Acura?

Pipe dreams?


http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...o/DSCI0002.jpg

Some say it's still finishing the lap.

They definitely sold on Monday, but they didn't race on Sunday.

In about 5-7 years, this is gonna be the next 240sx in drifting series.

Many reasons.
1. Money. Factory backing, race team/crew, parts, sponsors. If you don't have a good crew($$$), you just won't qualify or will be a lap marker.
2. Rules/classes. Some rules/classes favor specific cars over others.
3. Development. Some cars are developed and have setups that have been tested and work. Lots of data to work with. No one wants to start at ground zero.
4. Toyota vs Subaru. Subaru has the gt300 car, while Toyota has been pushing TRD/street car parts. Back to number 3, no one wants do all this r&d($$$) and have someone else gain for free.
5. No 2nd gen, no point in developing a car that is going to die. No point developing a 2.0 that toyota won't use(boxer) subaru is going towards 2.5's or turbos and only races 4wd, no use for 12.5:1 compression, low torque, high reving engine.

Just read all of this in an announcer voice.. 10/10 would read again :clap:

Yes, which makes me feel like this inbred bastard FT86 child has already been forgotten by it's creators.

Michele is doing pretty well:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...&postcount=127

Phastafrican (a NASA HPDE organizer) had a good post on this a while back, explaining some of the difficulties of getting Scion/Toyota/Subaru to support W2W racing and getting NASA onboard with an FT86 spec series:

There are a couple of individual drivers to follow though:

Phastafrican (NASA PTD):
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72007

Michelle Abbate (racing in USTCC):
http://m1cheleabbate.com/

Element Tuning (Wheelen TTU class):
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42326
http://elementtuning.com/

BP3D (Canadian Super Production Challenge):
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...hlight=pumalex

Evasive (Pike's Peak and Super Lap):
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78307

Probably a few others I'm missing. I think Brass Monkey racing was using an FR-S in Conti World Challenge towards the end of last year, but not sure what happened to it.

These cars have been on the streets for about 2 years now. Give them some time. It's not like the first Miata rolled off the production line and straight into a spec miata race.

Sadly, there is no ScionRacing or TRD backing behind any w2w privateer team in the US.
Outside of the US, there are 3 spec series to follow (although only media coverage are the websites).
BRZ One make series - http://gazooracing.com/onemake/86brz/
GT86 Cup - http://www.toyota-motorsport.com/mot...p/tmg-gt86-cup
TR86 Cup - http://www.toyota.co.nz/racing/toyot...-championship/

In the US, there are all those that have been referenced in this thread.
Jim Jonsin (Rebel Rock Racing) tried to get the first one into CTSCC, but TUDOR (now IMSA) wouldn't allow the car to go FI. Max he got within the allowed rules was 215whp, and just couldn't keep up with the civics.
Tony Rivera put a car on the grid in PWC TC this year, but was also underpowered, and doesn't sound like he's up to fight a losing battle.
Robert Stout's dad has decided to sell the PWC GTS car this year... too many problems and no financial backing from ScionRacing. He asked for $300k from ScionRacing and they basically said they wouldn't give any money. The last 2 years cost them $480k.

So the general concensus is there is no support from Scion Racing. I've tried endlessly and had the director of sponsorships from NASA try to establish some form of support for w2w racing like scionracing canada introduced at the beginning of 2014. They basically ignored everything. Bottom line, you're on your own.

So where can the car race? Actually.... lots of places. What it takes to be competitive there is a difference story.
1. NASA Performance Touring (I'm biased so that's #1.. lol): NASA allows you to build the car to whatever specs you want and fall within a classing system. This system is the same used in the NASA Time Trial program... and the rewards/contigencies are the same. So you can decide to compete in TT until you cage the car with the same mods and hop straight into w2w. There are about 7 cars across the country, and 5 more expected to be completed this year in the Northeast.
2. SCCA T4: Only coilovers allowed at this time, but Marty Grand (multiple SSCA champion) is pushing to have this changed to make the car more competitive.
3. SCCA STL or STU: More mods allowed, but again, classing issues to make the car competitive.
4. PWC TC: I get tired of remembering all the rules, but it's actually a competitive package... just needs a little more power to run at the front
5. IMSA CTSCC ST: About 40hp shy of getting to the power limit with the currently allowed engine mods.
6. PBOC: They'll class they car when you show up at the track... but it's not the most robust system so other cars will be over classed too.
7. EMRA: Very similar to PBOC classing.
8. WRL (world racing league): A BRZ competed this year in one race... I like their classing system by lap time deltas.

Anyways... that's a lot of places to race the car if you want to build one. Factory backed effort in North America? Not this year... and I'm still asking for club level support for next year, but not holding my breath.


*** BUT SINCE YOU'RE IN CANADA ****
You have the best support for club racing an amateur could ask for, just no media coverage. http://www.scion.ca/scion/en/lifesty...ng/contingency.
*** GET ON IT!!! ***

In the 24 Hours of Nurburgring GT-86s have done ok in a couple classes. They race in v3 (stock) & sp3 (some mods).
2012: 1st in v3, 1st in sp3
2013: 1st in v3, 2nd in sp3
2014: 1st in v3, 1st in sp3

because rocketbunny isnt for track...

Yup, keep supporting the people who ARE out there, and the rest will take care of itself...

This doesn't answer your question but this is sweet.

[ame]http://youtu.be/VLNbGMuoap8[/ame]

Toyota and Subaru have massively cut their motorsport budgets over the past 10-15 years.

toyotaracing.com
NASCAR, NHRA, USAC, and Off-Road
Toyota wants to sell Trucks and Camry's against other Trucks and Fusions/Impalas, that's the money maker. US road racing is slim pickings as it is, why blow millions of dollars on a campaign that only a few hundred thousand people will ever pay attention to? (Off-Road falls into this category but I assume it's a cheap sport to run based on what I've seen, relatively speaking of course)

NASCAR even with flagging numbers in recent years still pulls >5million viewers per race and over 70 million unique viewers through the season. Indycar struggles to pull 500,000.

In a more perfect world NASCAR would be a little more stock and there would be a handful more road courses...

In any case it's no wonder why we're not seeing the FRS take checkered flags imo. There's a diminishing benefit for automakers to participate as information wins buyers dollars today (reviews, tests, forum posts, etc.) not racewinners.

As said above, the Miata didn't roll into a Spec race the first year it was produced. Toyota is pushing them over in massive numbers, there will be more total Toyobaru's on US soil in the next few months than S2000's. As the guys who know how to make racecars out of regular cars figure out what's really necessary to make these things reliable on track and competitive organizations figure out how to class the cars competitively the scene will grow regardless of Toyota/Subaru's level of support.

Getting a new shift knob due to that campaign.
Going to be a good conversation starter :p

What you are missing this this:

Toyota: focused on top tier motorsports + grassroots motorsports, nothing in between.
Subaru: focused on WRX and other stuff that fits their overall corporate image, BRZ is not in that formula.

-alex

For a combined total of 2.8 million mullets, 58.2 million teeth and 100 million empty beer cans!


Since NASCAR became the pro wrestling of the race world decades ago I can't even think of it as "racing" anymore.


Yes, it draws huge numbers but my mother and 30 other people sit around and watch every race and can tell you every conceivable personal fact on each driver but no 2 people in the room even know what make of car it is they drive. If they have no clue on make you can bet they have even less interest in any stats or the tech on that car. They are not so much into the car aspect as the simple entertainment value.


People interested in the type of racing the 86 is capable of are the complete reverse as they are (usually) more interested in the cars and the drivers become secondary. There just is nota large enough audience for this type of racing to make it truly economically viable.

Huh, I love NASCAR, love the technology and love the racing but no longer have many free Sunday's to enjoy a whole race. I really wish there were two tiers of commentary as there is so much going on in modern NASCAR, 190 mph chess games with inches to spare.

Except for the two car draft thing that showed up a few years ago when Trevor Bayne won the 500, that shit is a snoozefest.

Ya, reading that back does make it seem like I was saying there are no people left that enjoy it for the tech end. My intent was to point out that the reason it has such high viewers is that many, many people watch it for other reasons and some seem to not even notice that there are cars involved.

Yes,

Pretty much the conclusion I was leading to. I was wanting to hear it from somebody else.

Toyota is preparing for an ft1 launch with an rcf on the side. Subaru is only about awd stuff.

I guess i own a bastard child with only hopes barely good enough in the $25k sector. At least it looks nice ahaha.

There's the Japanese One Make series for the BRZ/ 86. Heard it's a good size. And I've seen them race in some series that I don't remember what it's called, but it had civics and cruzes and stuff like that.

Pretty simple, racing takes manufacturer support. This car has none.

Most platform racing series were established by enthusiasts and then when the events started growing in size and becoming more popular (including significant media acknowledgement) is when most manufactures will step up to support.

All things considered Scion (Toyota North America) has done a pretty decent job at supporting and promoting various events, but their efforts are spread amongst everything from drifting to show queens and as with most companies they have a modest budget to spend and they are just trying to spend it everywhere rather than one target demographic.

Take other platforms like the Honda S2000 or the Acura NSX, I don't see too many dedicated sanction events for those platforms.

Most race teams are private teams, independently owned getting some support from the manufacturer as well as other sponsors.

Check out www.Spec86.com and https://www.facebook.com/groups/Spec86/

Mike is doing a great job of trying to establish a 86 platform series.

I own spec86.ca and spec86.club. I'm trying to do the same here on this side of the border, but it requires time, dedication and money - with a family and a full-time career its becoming difficult to do. However like all of us I have a passion for this platform and its a labour of love.

I guess I was just expecting a little more activity by Scion/Toyota. This is the most hyped up sportscar in decades. You would think Scion/Toyota of America would've put out a few race cars to prove its worth as being the perfect budget platform tuner. It's quite discouraging that the OE has done NOTHING thus far and the FT86 platform has solely been developed by privateers.

Take a look at Kia. They're Optima isn't even a sports car yet they pushed it along pretty competitively in PWC.

http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/cro...-6_1600x0w.jpg

Is a few spec racecars and a bit of developement too much to ask for from the world's largest and most profitable auto manufacturer?

I'm still bitter that Toyota/Scion hasn't done much to in ways of creating a spec racer to compete with rivals like miata, civic, etc. Especially here in North America where majority of these cars were sold.

I just read on Twitter that a team is trying to raise sponsorship money to purchase the Lucas Oil Robert Stout Racing FR-s to enter it into SCCA Pirelli World Challenge this year. The same series that Stout Racing tried to compete in. I will see if I can recall the teams name.

I am not clear on why you thought this was a race car?

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...4vE_0Y94BdFWtz

Race-cars are a rather miserable place to spend time, and not something that you want to use to commute to work or travel around doing your daily business. Women hate them.

Is it conceivable that Scion and Toyota gave us a car that maximizes the road driving experience at the (horror or horrors) expense of lap times! OMFG, how COULD THEY?!:cry: Forget the Ebola vaccine; the world is crying in desperation for another car that is only suited to go around a racetrack FLAT OUT so that people can admire their awesome skills.

I mean, just because 99.9% or buyers are going to drive it on the street.:burnrubber:

I agree with you. Just because people add FI or bigger tires to their Twin it does not make it a racecar!!! To me a racecar is purpose built for only one function racing. That is why modified production cars no matter how well modified are still not racecars. Even entry level racecars are usually faster than production based cars. Yes, you can find some exceptions. If you think you are a good driver go spend a few days driving formula cars at a good driver's school it will change your perspective on cars and driving... The majority of people on this forum have never even sat in a proper racecar, not to mention driving one. Road cars are by definition a compromise. Even highly modified ones.

Have you seen this?
http://www.toyota.co.nz/racing/toyot...pionship/news/

That's just another 86 series. Japan has something similar. I want to see the 86 go head to head with our competitors like miatas and civics. Or even after the bigger dogs like mustangs and cameros.

Then keep an eye on Michele Abbate. She was racing against Lotus and such for her 3rd place finish in the last race, and she's got the funding for this year's events as well :thumbup:

http://m1cheleabbate.com/abbate-take...t-scca-majors/

Totally stoked to support her and get a neat shift knob out of it too. A friend got me the same knob for my birthday so I thought about retracting my part of the funding, but then I realized my friend could return his and I'll still have a conversation starter :D

Thank you sir! Exactly what I'm trying to search for. I'll be keeping a close eye on this.

How exactly is door to door racing going to make this a better car for the 99% of owners who don't race?

The driving experience of the FRS, in my mind, is contrived. I suspect that it actually FEELS better than it can ultimately deliver. It was not meant to be a racecar, it was meant to flatter our driving senses on a daily driver basis. Is this really such a bad thing?

Are there fatal flaws that would prevent the FRS from becoming a good racecar? Not sure; I do suspect that a lot of the drivetrain is designed to perform as expected, but not much more.

I believe that there a lots of other cars approach htis from the other direction: They come out of the factory with more of a "racecar tamed for the street" approach to the market that would be a better starting point if you want to be on the track. But I don't think they would make as engaing a DD as the Twins.

And the kia optima, honda civic, and others were not meant to be racecars either. But they certainly turned them into some.

Look i'm not expecting the gt86 platform to win every race it enters. But what i am asking for is a racecar used for development purposes. One that will be able to find the inherent flaws of the engine and chassis.

Also... this is a racecar :)

A Scion FR-S fielded by BrassMonkey racing ran the Continental Sports Car Challenge race at Mid-Ohio last year in the TC class. In the first race it finished 4th during a steady downpour. The second race was dry and it was obvious that the car was down on power compared to its competition. It finished 7th. My understanding was the engine was stock with just a tune and exhaust bolt ons. As far as I know. it has not run a race since but maybe that was a feeler for the 2015 season which is yet to start.

Toyota, Scion and TRD did run a sponsorship program last year for NASA and SCCA. There was an overall contingency for Toyota drivers for wins and 2nd place finishes and a special contingency for the FR-S. That covered national level club and pro racing. The Scion is in the T4 SCCA class for club and the TC or TCA class for pro.

Hopefully, someone will step up this year and go racing at the national level.

What makes a car competative in a race group is the rules and regulations it has to work in. I bet that engine is just not big enough to develop the hp necessary to be competative in the 2 door rwd classes it can race in. That's probably why it's more possible for amateur groups with lax regulations and a class system where it might get lucked into a class it is competative in.

You don't see many miatas in professional races either.

I don't disagree with you about class rules but the Miatas are competitive in both Pirelli World Challenge ST class and Continental Sports Car TC and TCA classes. In SCCA club racing they are competitive in in several classes including production, spec and touring.

Someone just needs to take the FR-S racing. As long as they stay in the class the car was built for they should be successful with a little development. TRD and Toyota could help but they chose to back Stout Racing in a class the Scion was ill suited for and the effort failed miserably.

@hmong337

Ask and you shall receive!

Tony Rivera of BrassMonkey Racing has entered the Scion FR-S in the TCA class for the Pirelli World Challenge Circuit of the Americas races March 7th- 8th. The races will be televised on March 18th but you can watch them live on line.

See here for race schedule:http://www.world-challenge.com/image...-v6-021615.pdf